Mercury Monterey and Ford Freestar
by Gary S. Vasilash

Binary star systems consist of two stars that rotate around a common mass. And this seems to be the situation with two forthcoming minivans from Ford Motor Company's Mercury and Ford divisions, the 2004 Monterey and Freestar. Briefly, the minivan that Mercury had offered, the Villager, was a shared platform with the Nissan Quest. The Villager is no more. But Ford Motor Company – insists James O'Connor, group vice president, North American Sales and Marketing –  is making sure that Mercury is not going to go the way of some other vehicle manufacturers' marques (think of Oldsmobile and Plymouth). Mercury, he says, is back. Back in the fold (with all of its people moving from southern California to Dearborn), back with new product.

O'Connor insists that he's a pragmatic man (he's also a former president of Lincoln Mercury). And as he puts it, "If a brand doesn't have product flowing to it," then it is a brand that doesn't matter. But there's the Monterey. (And will be the Montego sedan for '05, as well as another midsize sedan and a small SUV coming). As the Villager shared with the Quest, the platform for the Monterey is shared with the Ford Freestar. The Ford Freestar is what was once the Ford Windstar.

And no matter how you look at it, the Monterey and Freestar are based on a common mass. And the genesis of that mass is certainly the current-generation Windstar. And just as when you look through a telescope at binary stars there can sometimes be a blurring of the two into one, the designs of the Monterey and Freestar are remarkably similar. Whereas the lines and surfaces on the Honda Odyssey and the forthcoming Toyota Sienna are sharper, these two minivans retain the Windstar's softer, more rounded approach to the sheet metal and polymer.

The primary differences in style between the two seven-passenger vehicles are discrete on the outside and more visible on the inside. Outside it is primarily cues. The Monterey's exterior cues are drawn from the Mountaineer SUV, where there is a certain upscale/industrial look. As Darrell Behmer, chief designer, Mercury vehicles, observed, "From its signature waterfall grille to the satin tail lamp bezels, the new Monterey heralds 'Mercury'. Our vehicles are evolving and adopting distinct Mercury 'DNA'. What you see on the Monterey is just the start." This DNA seems to be based largely on the satin aluminum elements, such as on the door and lift-gate handles, fog-lamp bezels, roof rack, and tail lamps. In the case of the Freestar, the vertical lines of the Monterey grille give way to a horizontal and vertical cross-hatching that's chromed on the two up-trim levels and body-colored on the two lower models. And while there is a piece of chromed trim at the top of the fascia, the garnishes are minimal on the Freestar. This is evidentially the more functional of the two.

Dimensionally, both vehicles are exactly the same: wheelbase 120.8 inches, length 201 inches, width 76.6 inches, height 68.7 inches.

So onto the inside of the vehicles, both of which have three rows of seats. One of the first things to note about both is that the third row folds flat into the floor with a rather simple counterbalance mechanism. Another similarity of the third row that is clever is that it can be flipped so that the back of the seat is parallel to the floor and the seat bottom is perpendicular to the floor: with the hatch open, people can sit in this seat with their legs dangling out. Moving to the front seats, the Mercury is being offered with heated and cooled, Imola leather-trimmed seats, which is exclusive to its class. The Freestar is more pragmatic in its approach to transport, with its interior emphasis more on things like cup holders, compass, and a conversation mirror. Inside the Freestar you can image hauling a football team. The Monterey will transport couples to the symphony.

The vehicles may visibly resemble one another, they may both be built at the same factory in Canada, but these are two divergent in their intended markets.

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