With a Lincoln-inspired styling theme and a broad product line, Mercury enjoyed its best year to date in 1955, selling nearly 330,000 cars.
Montclair Convertible
As we’ve noted before here at Mac’s Motor City Garage, one constant at Mercury in the 1950s was change, as the Ford Motor Company continually adjusted the brand’s product lines to carve out a spot in the crowded mid-priced field. The changes for 1955 included a one-inch increase in wheelbase to 119 inches, a boost in the V8’s displacement to 292 cubic inches, and all-new exterior sheet metal directed by veteran stylist Don DeLaRossa. There was a fresh slogan, too: “You don’t have to look twice to tell it’s a Mercury!”
But in truth, the Mercury’s body structure was borrowed from Ford, while the exterior look owed more than a little to Lincoln, its other sister brand. The Lincoln-Mercury division was then headed by Benson Ford (1919-1978), middle brother to Henry Ford II and William Clay Ford, with considerable attention from Robert S. McNamara and Henry II himself. Then in April of ’55, Lincoln and Mercury were briefly split into two separate operations. Ford historian and author Tim Howley has noted that the Mercury brand was effectively managed by a committee, which may account for the frequent changes in direction.
Custom two-door sedan
The product line was expanded from two to three models for ’55, with the Custom at the bottom, the Monterey in the middle, and a new premium trim level, the Montclair, at the top. (See our feature on the Montclair here.) This supported a wide price range of $2,218 to $2,844, straddling Buick, Oldsmobile, and Pontiac, its General Motors competitors. And like Buick and Olds, Mercury offered the popular two-door hardtop at all three trim levels. The hardtop was Mercury’s best-selling body style that year, claiming 45 percent of the brand’s volume.
Monterey two-door hardtop
In fact, there were two distinct hardtop body styles at Mercury in ’55. The Monterey (above) and Custom hardtop rooflines were nearly two inches taller than on the Montclair, which shared its windshield with the convertible to produce a much sleeker look. (There was a Sun Valley version of the Montclair hardtop as well with its Rohm & Haas Plexiglass roof panel, but it sold in small numbers.) In the following year, all two-door hardtops from Ford and Mercury shared the same lower roofline.
Monterey (left) and Custom station wagons
As the Ford division aggressively pursued the station wagon market in the ’50s, that effort spilled over into the Mercury lineup as well. The deluxe Monterey (there was no Montclair wagon) received fake wood trim to mirror the Ford Country Squire, while the base Custom wagon featured a distinctive bright metal treatment. However, the Mercury wagons failed to approach Ford in sales volume—around 25,000 units in ’55.
Thanks to (or maybe in spite of) all these changes, Mercury recorded its best sales year to date in ’55, producing nearly 330,000 cars. The addition of the Montclair no doubt helped, as it contributed almost a third of the total. But in the big picture, all the Motor City’s mid-priced brands were booming in ’55 as Buick and Oldsmobile scored record years as well. Amid all the product changes and shifts in strategy, Mercury remained stuck in seventh place.
Montclair four-door sedan 
I remember many of the Mercury models of the 50’s era had a big ‘M’ worked into the grill. (I was a preschooler then.) When we traveled to a nearby city to shop, we played a game of looking for the Big M’s in traffic.
The Big M was the theme for the slightly updated 1956 models, but was used through 1958 as well. With those Big M’s, you really didn’t have to look twice to tell it was a Mercury! Interesting, too, that the tail lights on a ’55-’56 Mercury station wagon were designed to fit the openings for the Ford station wagons (and, as it turned out, the Thunderbird). Those distinctive tail lights became a customizer’s trick for the early two-seat Birds (except, of course, the 1957 model).
“Ford historian and author Tim Howley has noted that the Mercury brand was effectively managed by a committee”
I always thought they looked like they had been designed by a committee, too. For instance, does the quarter panel bulge really need two separate stone shields? Does the Monterey wagon really need stainless in the middle of the wood?
A great let-down in every way from the ’54s in my book. Fortunately, the ’55 Fords did not suffer this problem.
“Managed by committee” rings soooo true.
“Q: Do we position Edsel above or below Mercury?”
“A: Both!”
I was always a fan of the ’55 and ’56 Mercs. They looked like they were customized right out of the factory. Thanks for an interesting article.