Mercury Tracer

To the long list of dead U.S. car brands, you can now add one more: Mercury. The Ford Motor Company announced today that Mercury production would cease by the end of this year. That means that the widely anticipated compact Mercury version of the 2012 Ford Focus--named "Tracer" after the badge-engineered Ford Escort sold from 1991 to 199, and before that, used on a thinly disguised Mazda 323--will never see the light of day. Instead, the car may be reworked into a more luxurious Lincoln version. That compact Lincoln will likely draw its inspiration from the perplexing Lincoln Concept C show...