32: Mercury Mystique
Along with the rest of the ring lineup for Mercury in the nineties, the Mystique was another Ford badge job. The intention was to create a car that was fashionable and comfortable, we understand that. But by just slapping a different grill on the front and changing the nameplate Ford was not instilling confidence in anyone. Here we have the Mystique, a car that was for a long time relegated to rental car fleets. The design of the car was not imaginative by any stretch of the imagination, which didn’t bold well for the reputation. Ford designers thought that by using the Contour as the base car the driving characteristics would speak for themselves.
That unfortunately is not the case, and the Mystique is a car that never amounted to much. Its interior build quality was less than that of even Oldsmobile, a competing brand. When you rode in a Mystique, you thought you were in a cheap compact car, instead of something in this class. The thing is that Mercury was attempting to give buyers a sportier option than other mid-size sedans that were on the market. Needless to say, the Mystique was not this car by any stretch of the imagination, and the result was quite unbearable. There are few of these on the road left, mostly due to a lack of quality and reliability.