I like Ford trucks. They finally got their electronics right in the 1990s when they started partnering with Mazda. The one thing Ford should come out and admit however is the design problem in the F-150 engine that kept blowing out one of the spary plugs due to the metal being too thin in the engine casing.
I never liked Mercury. They always looked like Ford but often with minor (and in my opinion, almost always uglier/worse) cosmetic changes you paid a lot more for. It never made sense to me to have essentially the same vehicles but just have a few trim differences, yet pay a lot more for one than the other.
It is (or WAS) called mid-line models. Oldsmobile was mid-line. I had a ‘98 Cutlass wich was a bit fancier than a Chevy Malibu, but not near as fancy as the Cadillac Catera. They do the same with imports (Scion > Toyota > Lexus).
I couldn’t stand Fords after the Firestone fiasco, but now I drive a Windstar and it’s a very nice, well-built car.