new colony park owner!

What year is it?

Did Mercury simply decide to continue using the 'CP' name on the later ('90-91?) non-woodgrain wagons? I don't they were still using the 'Commuter' name anymore by this time.......

I see two possibilities:

1. Wagon was woodgrained, but wood and surround moldings completely removed, retainer studs removed, proper repaint put on. Any evidence of this?

2. Colony Park special-ordered with woodgrain delete......

 

im gonna bet number 2. is there a data plate for those that gives options on the car? maybe we can get benie to post it if there is and we can decifer it!

 

Wow. This really has me intrigued now.
I was sales manager at Island Ford in Staten Isand, NY, back then. I know Ford never offered a wood delete option on the Squire, but they did offer a steel sided wagon called the Crown Vic wagon all the way through '91, the last year they made them. I always thought that Mercury followed the same route, but I guess not if you've got the Colony Park emblems on there. Krash, there is a 3rd possibility and that is that they mistakenly put CP emblems on it either from the factory, or some body shop got the wrong ones during some repair. I doubt it was the latter as I assume it has the emblems on both rear fenders.
This has got me confused. I'm going to see what I can find out and report back.

Okay, first results are in. I went to the NADA website. For those who may not know what NADA is, it stands for Nat'l Auto Dealer's Assn and they publish a used cars value book. According to them, from '79 to '91, Mercury never had a Grand Marquis wagon; they were all Colony Parks, either GS or LS. I checked out their info on Ford wagons just to see if they were accurate and they were. They said Ford made a Crown Vic wagon and a Country Squire wagon during those years. I'm at a loss. I always thought there were Grand Marquis wagons, defined as such by their lack of wood. I'm not done yet. The search goes on.

 

Well... It says they did make one.

I honestly do remember in the Regan/bush days (bush that did'nt look like Alfred E Newman from MAD magazine) Government cars, Mercury wagons like this all black no wood.

http://www.bluesarthouse.com/ford/1982mercury.htm

 

Oh, you're right Ted. Mercury definitely made a steel side wagon in the Panther body series. The question is did they call it a Colony Park or a Grand Marquis wagon. I swear it was a Grand Marquis, not a Colony Park, but Bernard's has Colony Park emblems on it.

 

I was doing my auto damage appraisal work at a Chevy dealer one day in '95 or so, not long after the 2nd generation Chevy S-10 / GMC S-15 pickups were introduced. So I took a look at one.......noticed it had the S-10 emblem on the left door, but a S-15 emblem on the right door......

 

WOW - an S-12 and a half... Those are RARE!!!

 

Well....what ever it is it's one helluva a nice Merc wagon. One of the best I have seen in a LONNNNG time. And the price was way right. Take care of that wagon, Bernie. That's not just some old junker you have there.

 

I have a dealer brochure for the 82 Mercury Marquis line. The basic wagon is called the "Marquis" wagon, and the "Colony Park" was the woodgrained version, more of an option package, rather than being it's own line...per se. This was, however, before the Fox-platform was rebadged as "Marquis" and the Panther-platform was promoted to "Grand Marquis". My understanding is that at that time (1983), ALL Panter-platform wagons were called Colony Park, even if they had the woodgrain-delete option, in order to differentiate them from the Fox-platform "Marquis" wagons. I also have a 1984 Marquis (Fox-platform) brochure and I'm gonna have to take it out to see what the woodgrained-wagon was called, if anything different ("Brougham", perhaps???).

I remember the later models (88-91) LTD Crown Vic wagons (sans woodgrain) and their Country Squire woodgrained brothers. It is interesting that Mercury did not have a different name for their steel-sided wagons in the later years, the way that Ford did.

Buick seemed to also not follow it's own rules...in the Century line, the wagons were just "Century" wagons, unless you ordered the woodgrain...then it was a "Century Estate" (at least according to the 1985 and 1987 brochures I have). The later models (I have 1994, 95 and 96 brochures) with or without the woodgrain were just called "Century wagons". And the B-body 80's wagons (LeSabre and Electra) were called "Estate Wagons" with or without the woodgrain.

It is neat to see that picture you refer to from Ted's post...my best friend's mother had one for a while, in white, identical to the picture. It was an 81 or 82 and was simply called "Marquis"