A close look at the past of American luxury marques, including Mercury, Edsel and Lincoln … and the struggle Cadillac faces ahead.

1938: Mercury

In 1938, Edsel Ford proudly introduced a new sub-brand of the Ford motor company: Mercury — named after the Roman god of elegance, wealth, and commerce.

The brand was carefully perched between Ford’s economic family cruisers and the leather Lincoln reserved for the upper echelon of 1930–40's society.

The brand’s first offering was christened the Mercury Eight, with a restrained, but still radical, aerodynamic design.

By 1938, Ford had already produced over 17,000 units for well-to-do family dentists and lawyers down the block.

Impressively, the 1938 Mercury Eight didn’t share a single body panel with any other Ford or Lincoln vehicles at the time.

Over time, Mercury’s brand image shifted. Sometimes, it was Ford’s performance moniker (an AMG of sorts). Other times, it was an economy luxury brand for middle class brokers with some money to spare.

1957: Edsel

On September 4, “E-Day” began. For months, the Ford Motor Company had been heavily promoting the launch of a mysterious car called “Edsel.”

The marketing department insisted on the massive technological breakthroughs in the vehicle. Ford was convinced that when revealed, it would immediately earn a place in Americans’ hearts… and their driveways.

Unfortunately, the styling never caught on with consumers — perhaps because many immediately compared the front grille to a vagina.

Aside from the grille, the vehicle shared much of it’s styling and interior aspects with Ford’s everyman lineup. One of the Edsel’s most touted features was it’s push-button transmission on the steering wheel.

In reality, the new transmission proved more of a nuisance than a selling point. Auto repair shops didn’t know how to work with it, and many models shipped with defects because the Edsel was produced alongside Ford and Mercury models by uninspired UAW workers, who would never save up enough money to purchase one.

1959: Moving On

Finally, it was announced that Ford would cease production of the Edsel lineup. Sales were far below expectations and problems had plagued the vehicle since it’s introduction.

Ford lost over $350 million on the Edsel experiment, an equivalent loss of almost $2.8 billion today.

Throughout the 1960s, Mercury introduced a fresh new lineup of family sedans as well as upmarket muscle cars.

The sunshine wasn’t to last, however. Like many other American auto companies, Ford-Mercury struggled to find its foothold in the new world of smaller mass-market economy cars.

The 70s and 80s came and went with boxier and far more bland redesigns of Mercury’s former lineups, striving to reduce fuel economy.

Once ugly 90s design fads had passed, Ford had to modernize all it’s models to compete in the post-Y2K world.

Although sales figures were on target early in the new century, buyers across the range were almost completely over 60 years old.

Ford desperately tried to reach younger buyers, then female buyers, but the brand continued to sink. Mercury was no longer associated with luxury, but uglier Fords to reach a different market.

That “different market” slowly vanished from underneath Ford’s feet & the 75-year-old brand was killed off to focus exclusively on Lincoln.

2001: Re-inventing Lincoln

Like Mercury, Lincoln’s sales had been slipping because of fierce competition from Europe, Japan, and even other American brands.

Beginning with the 2009 Lincoln MKS, the company has introduced a carefully-planned range of new sedans, crossovers, and SUVs.

Despite Ford’s own figures, customers don’t seem to be biting. Hundreds of mustache-grilled Lincolns sit on dealers’ lots.

Customers shopping for a luxury car (even at the lower range of the spectrum) have a lot of options. They can look at Toyota’s Lexus division, Nissan’s Infiniti division, Honda’s Accura division, or even at Mercedes’ CLA/GLA models. Lincolns don’t appeal to the most of the customers they need to reach.

With so many better options at lower price points, most customers barely glance at Ford’s luxury division before settling on a sedan from Japan or Germany.

These foreign cars have better resale value, they’re more stylish, more comfortable, more reliable, safer… why would anyone ever buy an American luxury car?

Cadillac thinks they have the answer.

Back in 2013, with Cadillac failing to catch a foothold in the market, GM impressed everyone with a stunning rendition of a luxury sedan. Called the “El Miraj,” this gorgeous concept car — revealed at Pebble Beach — looked like the way forward.

Many people called for a similar rendition of the vehicle to go into production and eliminate the alphabet-soup of crossovers and sedans that confused the living shit out of the Hawaiian-shirt, Polo-sunglasses customers that wandered onto Caddy’s dealer lots.

De Nysschen promised radical changes at Cadillac, and proposed a new flagship sedan to bring the brand back into the spotlight and make it competitive with the Germans.

The entire lineup would be re-named, with this hailed “savior sedan” dubbed the CT6. Yes, you heard that right: the car that would save Cadillac from the same fate as Pontiac and Oldsmobile would be called the CT6.

A combination of three meaningless letters a three-year-old might have punched into his father’s open laptop.

How will customers know the difference between the CT6 and the ATS, CTS, XTS, SRX, and ESV? All of the aforementioned cars are, in essence, the same exact vehicle, but parsed into hatchback, crossover, SUV, and sedan formats.

Cadillac needs to bring back the true American luxury that was lost back at the height of Mercury, Lincoln, and Cadillac itself. When cars had names like Cougar, Eldorado, Riviera, and Fleetwood.

On October 1st, GM sent out this photo to generate hype around the upcoming CT6. “Careful… careful…” someone should be telling de Nysschen.

Car enthusiasts were underwhelmed entirely by the image, as well as spy photos of the camo-wrapped sedan in testing. You’d be hard pressed to find a difference to the company’s existing models, and the logo remains wrapped in a wreath.

When the Edsel came out, consumers weren’t biting because it wasn’t different enough from what Ford already offered. The technologies and design were overpromised, and the product underdelivered.

If de Nysschen generates too much hype around the CT6 “halo car,” it has to be a technological and design marvel — a highlight of the current decade in automotive history. But based on what we’ve seen so far, it’s entirely thin air.

There’s only going to have one chance, and if the CT6 is regurgitated from the current lineup, it might mean the end of the road for Cadillac.

American consumers aren’t dumb, no matter how many Big Macs they consume or how many NRA-badged rifle cases are stashed in the trunk.

The CT6 truly has to be a milestone point for the brand. If something like the El Miraj was produced, the European market would be begging for more sedans direct from Detroit.

It has to be absolutely world-class.

Cadillac can’t handle a saga that parallels Ford-Edsel in the 1960s. In order for the brand to survive, the CT6 must be heralded as a golden standard not only in design and technology — but in safety and reliability too.

Let’s just hope it doesn’t get recalled.