Mercury unveiled the Premys in Detroit for 1994. An amalgam of ”preview” and “mystique.” Turns out there was not much mystery here at all. Except for the flashy purple-people-eater paint job and a gewgaw or two, this was the 1995 Mystique that was soon to be on sale at a Merc store shortly after.
Ford’s CDW-27 world car was already being marketed in Europe as the Mondeo. US production began in May of 94′ in Kansas City, Missouri, with a sales launch in mid-summer. Mystique and the Contour were designed to appeal to people who knew about cars and liked to drive them and who may be ready to transition from an import brand into domestic iron.
The Premys/Mystique trained its guns on an important part of the high-demographic market, typically families with a two paycheck income. Those buyers were smart and less responsive to pricing considerations than performance needs. Some of the competition staring across the trenches into Mercury’s face, according to insiders, included such popular and credible cars as the Toyota Camry, Nissan Altima, Mazda 626 sedans, and maybe even the Honda Accord. To extract happy owners from these quality cars. Premys/Mystique had to deliver the goods. Whether the car had goods to deliver is impossible to assess, certainly at this point, but the paper was a good one. We all know how it eventually turned out.
