It all started when I was listening recently to Alan Jackson and his classic hit single 'Mercury Blues' from back in 1993. And I wondered (I find myself wondering a lot), what the heck ever happened to the Mercury?

There was a day when you'd see a Mercury everywhere. Well, I guess maybe not everywhere, because Mercury is no more. But there was a day.

Oh my yes, there was a day.

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There's a reasonable chance your parents had one. And your Grandparents. Heck, even your Great Grandparents! You see, Mercury hit the American road back in 1937, a division of the gigantic Ford Motor Company.

And through the years there were, well, many many different Mercury's.

You had your Town Sedan (That's the one Gramps would be stylin' with back in the 1940s), your Monterey and Montclair (Your Dad took your Mom to the movie drive-in in one of those...wait, that is your Mom, right?), the Comet and Marquis were certainly around in the 1960s (And if your neighbor motored around in a Marquis, he was just showin' off).

But the one Mercury that captured all us young 'un's back in the day was the Cougar.

Oh Lordy, Lordy...to have a Cougar! But alas, I didn't. Nope, I drove my Dad's Chevy Biscayne (the Biscayne? That's a whole 'another story). In a word, the Cougar was...hot.

But not hot enough I guess, and neither were all those other models. (That Mercury Tracer they came out with didn't help).

It was essentially 2010 that Mercury joined the automobile memory bin. The final Grand Marquis rolled off the assembly line in January 2011 and then...poof and gone.

But hey, if you have that 'ol Cougar, shine it up and bring it to one of the cars shows this summer. And if you see a tall, skinny slightly wrinkled bald guy staring at it with a dreamy look in his eye, come on over and shake my hand.

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