2009 Mercury Grand Marquis LS

2009 Mercury Grand Marquis LS

Ford may have announced the demise of Mercury back in June--although the brand was effectively dead long before then--but the very last car to wear a Mercury badge finally rolled off the production line today. The particular model was a Mercury Grand Marquis, which sailed off into the sunset at Ford’s St. Thomas plant in Ontario, Canada.

The Grand Marquis has been in production at the St. Thomas plant for the past 25 years and this last one has been sold to a fleet customer in the U.S. Its Ford sibling, the Crown Victoria, will continue to  be built at the plant.

This brings a close to more than 71 years of history for the Mercury brand and more than 21 million cars sold during that time. Unfortunately, over the last few years, Mercury has fallen to just 0.8 percent of the U.S. market, compared to Ford's growing overall market share, up to 16 percent in the past year, which prompted the automaker to finally ditch the ailing brand.

[Mercury]