Half-Ford and half-Mercury, these unusual products filled the gaps in Ford Motor Company’s thin Canadian dealer network. Here are the whys and hows of the Meteor and Monarch.
The postwar product strategies of the American automakers in Canada can look awfully strange—until we recognize that the country has slightly more geographical area than the United States, but barely one-tenth the population. As a result, the dealer networks were spread thin. There weren’t enough retail locations to go around, especially in rural areas. Ford and General Motors, to name two, invented some novel product lines to compensate for the geographical gaps. At Ford, the solutions included two uniquely Canadian products: the Meteor and Monarch.
The Meteor (1956 Meteor Rideau above) was sold through Mercury dealers in Canada from 1949 through 1961 and 1964 through 1976, replacing the similar-themed Mercury 114 of 1946-1948. Essentially an American-style Ford with distinctive chrome trim and details, the Meteor was intended to give Mercury retailers a Ford-priced product in their lineup. Under the same strategy, Canadian Mercury dealers offered a line of Mercury-badged Ford trucks. Meteor model names included Rideau, Niagara, and Montcalm, adding some local flavor. From 1964 on, the Meteor was based on the U.S. Mercury body shell.
Along similar lines, Ford dealers in Canada were given a Mercury-class car for their showrooms. The Monarch (1950 model above) was offered from 1946 through 1957 and from 1959 through 1961. (In 1958, the Edsel briefly filled the Monarch’s marketing slot.) Behind the badges the Monarch was essentially a Mercury, but with a different grille and trim to distinguish it from the regular Mercury line. Prices were in the Mercury range as well. Naturally, as transportation and communications improved and Canada joined the global village, the automakers no longer had any need for these unusual product alignments. At Ford these days, the strategy is one world, one Ford.
There was one more Canadian oddball that was offered for only one year, the Frontenac (see our feature here). Technically, the Frontenac was not a Ford or a Mercury but a standalone brand that allowed dealers to sell a rebadged version of the Motor Company’s new entry in the compact class for 1960, the Falcon. When the Comet was introduced in 1961, the Frontenac was discontinued. Fewer than 10,000 Frontenacs were produced at Ford’s Oakville, Ontario plant.
Great info, very educational.
The stylist on the Frontenac still had warm remembrances of the 1949 Ford his dad gave him for graduation.
Looks like someone used all the customizing accessories in some old AMT 3 in 1 kits.
Great website. I enjoy the posts.
There is a very good book on the Canadian offerings from Ford. ‘Meteor Monarch,’ by R. Perry Zavitz. Growing up on the border between Montana and Alberta, I regularly saw the Canadian-built vehicles. The closest dealers were just ten miles north of the border, into Canada so a lot of local farmers regularly did business with them. Plus with a lot of cross-border farming operations, marriages and estates, it was common to see a Mercury truck or Meteor car with a Montana plate. So much so, that when I was a kid I just assumed that Mercury trucks and Meteor cars were built in the US.
Meteor cars and Mercury trucks had somewhat of an edge over their Ford counterparts. In ’49 a Mercury pickup and the Meteor Mainline had a 239 engine with aluminum heads that offered a 5 hp advantage over the 8BA. The fancier ’49 Meteor was available with the Mercury 255 engine. In 1950 and up, you could get a pickup with the 255 engine and the Meteor cars all ran 255s. The trucks all came with deluxe cabs and if you didn’t want all that fancy stuff, you could delete-option it.
Meteor and Monarch filled the gap nicely between Ford and Mercury in Canada. I wonder what if Ford US had marketed the Meteor and/or the Monarch instead of the Edsel?