ZEN AND THE ART OF KILLING MERCURY

Former Ford Motor Company (R) communications director for North America Anne Doyle laments in the Automotive News this week about how "the old-boy culture may be coming back" as a result of the female talent loss among the Detroit 3. www.autonews.com.

Triggered in part by the recent retirement of Ford Motor Company COO for the Americas Anne Stevens, Doyle opines that "The Detroit 3 are losing women's leadership talent almost as fast as they are losing market share."

Regardless of the merits of Ms. Doyle’s sex profiling of Motown’s leaders, one place that apparently hasn’t lost "women leadership talent" fast enough is FoMoCo’s sinking Lincoln-Mercury Division.

Kim Irwin, Mercury’s alleged "brand manager" reportedly is herding through a wacky Zen Buddhist marketing campaign for the 2008 Mercury Mariner. Anchored by a goofball "drivezen" website, Irwin and Company’s flaky new-age compost of "cool, urban, metro . . . tranquil" ersatz Eastern mysticism-as-marketing is chock full of "Zen-like" ideas.

The supposed lure of the website and a nine-city Mariner road show (featuring "organic food and foot massages" along with "trendy" opportunities to feel-up a new Mariner-- Zen-style, of course) is "how you balance your life, healthy living, healthy eating, the whole spiritual thing, " according to what Ms. Irwin told the Automotive News.

All of this Zen-driving-drivel is aimed to encourage "cool, urban, metro" schubs to forget about Uncle Buck’s Grand Marquis or the Turnpike Cruiser grandma used to wheel to the brush arbor prayer meetings. Instead, all these aspiring bohemians will now assume the lotus position in a new-age Merc while zazen on the "stylish vehicle interiors" and Mercury in general as "a sophisticated alternative." At least that's the dharma gushing from Ms. Irwin.

All of this from the formerly testosterone-charged FoMoCo division that once used live cougars in advertising, provided the signature rides for Steve "Book’em Dano" McGarrett on Hawaii Five-O, basically invented the modern flip-top "funny car" for NHRA A F/X competition, and actually named a model after the Martin B-26 Marauder bomber from WWII!

How the mighty have fallen!

Can car-less Mercury commercials of trees and rocks and waterfalls be too far away? Oh wait, Infiniti already tried that one. Maybe L-M better stick with the foot massages and the organic grub.

Given that Mercury has nothing much to distinguish itself from Ford on the outside or under-the-hood -- and few foreseeable technological advances on the horizon -- Ms. Irwin’s plan to cast Mercury as some sort of touchy-feely, well-padded Ford for scatterbrained, cooler-than-thou, alternative "seekers," may seem reasonable (and cheap) to the refugees in the Glass House. Some may also suspect this weirdo pitch has more than a few fingerprints of William Clay Ford, Jr. on it, but the automotive press has provided no basis to confirm these suspicions.

However, this absurd campaign is destined to fail and to take what’s left of Mercury down with it.

Still, if this is kind of nonsense all the women Ms. Doyle champions are bringing to the table, perhaps a return to the "old boy" culture isn’t so bad.

CHICK-FIL-A AND THE LAST TAURUS

In an odd move that’s sure to trigger discussion among conservative Christians boycotting FoMoCo over its financial support for expanded homosexual rights, the founder of the Chick-Fil-A restaurant chain and well-known conservative Christian Truett Cathy has reportedly made a deal to score the last production Taurus (which incidentally is a model apparently named after an astrological sign).

Cathy’s empire started with a restaurant across the street from FoMoCo’s Atlanta plant and he credits the support of FoMoCo employees as material to his success.

Still, given Chick-Fil-A’s "official statement of corporate purpose . . . that we exist 'to glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us and to have a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chick-Fil-A"(www.chickfila.com), it’s hard to wonder how all those boycotters will interpret Cathy crossing the economic "picket" line.

Maybe Cathy will load the last Taurus up full of Gospel tracts and display it at a FoMoCo-sponsored "gay pride" event . . . .

But apparently there is someone who WILL (yawn) collect a Taurus . . . . Thus, Speedzzter stands corrected.