• USA Today, Tuesday, June 1, 2010 10:36 AM

As recently as late January, Ford CEO Alan Mulally was talking about the strong base of its Mercury brand and how its extra features appealed to younger buyers. That may not be enough to save the line, which has been around since 1939. Reports are surfacing that the board next month will be presented with a plan to discontinue Mercury, James R. Healey writes.

Although he could not confirm a story that broke in Bloomberg News, Healy points out that the brand accounted for just 5.3% of Ford Motor's total U.S. sales the first four months this year. For his part, Mulally says only that the company continues "to evaluate all of our models and brands."

Healey points to several hurdles to shuttering Mercury, including the challenges of increasing production of other models to make up the difference in sales volume and the possible objections of global marketing director Elena Ford, who is the great-grand-daughter of the brand's creator, Edsel Ford.

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