How to Choose home Movers
Keep your cleaning supplies within reach so you can do some clean-up after the move is over. It’s also helpful to keep a couple of bags and boxes with essentials labeled. Ask your movers if they are comfortable with pets in the house during your move. If you have a pet, you’ll also want to prepare them for the big day. Pack a night’s worth of clothes for everyone in your family along with medications, toiletries, and snacks so you won’t have to go digging through boxes for important items.
Besides Montego, that year’s midsize line included new base and GT Cyclone hardtop coupes with curvy new lower-body contours and racy full-fastback rooflines a la Ford Mustang/Torino. For 1969, Mercury unleashed the Cyclone CJ with Ford’s 428-cid big-block Cobra Jet engines. GTs and CJs had black grilles, special emblems, bodyside paint stripes, and unique rear-end styling. There was also a one-year-only GT notchback hardtop. CJs carried a functional hood scoop when equipped with optional Ram-Air induction.
But nothing seemed to help, and Contour/Mystique bowed out after model-year 2000. Hindsight suggests Mystique suffered more from its nameplate than from any inherent flaws, a factor that would increasingly bedevil Mercury in years to come. Like sibling Ford Escorts, these four-door sedans and wagons appealed for competent road manners, a higher standard of finish than many rivals, and a 110-bhp single-cam inline-four that delivered decent performance, even with the optional four-speed automatic transmission. The compact Tracer was reskinned for 1997 to emerge as a handsome, efficient little car, nicely equipped and sensibly priced.
The original Mercury engine would remain in production through 1948. A 239-cid L-head V-8, it was a slightly larger version of the Ford “V-8/85,” having the same stroke but a larger bore. A dashboard with strip-type instruments was also like Ford’s, but Mercury’s column-mounted gearshift was a talking point at the time. Well-tuned stock models were quicker than V-8 Fords, and were usually capable of turning close to 100 mph. Mercury bowed on a 116-inch wheelbase, four inches longer than the ’39 Ford’s and sufficient to give its similar styling a “more-important” look. Mercury quickly gained a reputation for performance appropriate to its name (after the winged messenger god in Greek mythology).
Lynx was Mercury’s entry in the increasingly tough small-car market of the early 1980s, and it sold respectably, racking up over 100,000 units in its first two seasons and about 85,000 a year thereafter. Through mid-’85, Lynx was powered by the Escort’s 1.6-liter “CVH” four, also offered in H.O. These were bolstered for 1982 by five-door sedans, a sporty three-door RS, and a posh five-door LTS (for Luxury Touring Sedan). In mid-’85, both of the latter were dropped and a normal-tune 1.9-liter enlargement took over. Like its sibling the Ford Escort, it started life with a three-door hatchback sedan and a neat five-door wagon in trim levels from plain to fancy.
Mercury also avoided the sham of price-leader models with four-cylinder power and manual transmission, opting for GS and luxury LS editions with a 3.0-liter 150-bhp single-overhead-cam V-6 and four-speed overdrive automatic. The Mercury differed only in having an illuminated front “light bar” a la Sable, plus minor trim and equipment distinctions. Villager’s chassis was more sophisticated, too, its modern all-coil suspension making for even more carlike ride and handling than Chrysler had. At least these twins were built in the U.S., produced under Ford auspices in Ohio. Trouble was, Villager was all but identical with Nissan’s new Quest, built to the same design that borrowed liberally from the Japanese firm’s Maxima sedan.
