Start with what the Mercury Commuter is: a 2-door station wagon / 4-door station wagon with 312 cuin V8, built from 1957 to 1968, at the height of the post-war boom. What it meant takes a little longer.
The story
The Mercury Commuter is a full-size station wagon that was produced by Mercury from 1957 until 1968. When introduced for the 1957 model year it was priced below Mercury's other two new full size wagons as a part of the Mercury Monterey series, alongside the mid-range Voyager and the top-level Colony Park. In 1957 the same 368 cu in (6.0 L) Lincoln Y-Block V8 that was standard equipment on the Mercury Turnpike Cruiser was optional equipment on the Commuter. From 1957 until 1960 all Mercury station wagons were hardtops, and also offered a rear window that retracted into the tailgate that was not offered on Ford branded station wagons.
The Commuter was initially available as a two-door wagon and as a four-door wagon. Due to the two-door only selling just over 7,600 units in 1957-59, the two-door was dropped from the 1960 model range. In 1959 all Mercury station wagons were combined into the "Country Cruiser" series. It was temporarily absent in 1963, in concession to the new, smaller intermediate Meteor station wagons, but the full-sized platform was reinstated for 1964, when the Meteor was discontinued. The Commuter was phased out, like the full-size Mercury Montclair and Park Lane, after the 1968 model year when the Colony Park became the only Mercury station wagon until 1991.
What is underneath
The engine is 312 cuin V8; other versions carried different engines, listed in the specification table below. On the scales it comes to 4800 -. The layout matters: a front engine drives the rear wheels, the classic proportion — long bonnet, cabin set back — that most people picture when they picture a sports saloon or a grand tourer. The wheelbase is 126.0 in. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Its place in the line
The cars a buyer would have weighed it against include the Fiat 500, the Nissan Skyline, the Mini Mini. Nearby in the Mercury catalogue sit the Mercury Bobcat and the Mercury Capri.
Owning one today
MotorJury scores cars on the United States complaint and recall record, and the Mercury Commuter has none: too old, too rare, or never sold there. Its value today is a collector's question, decided by provenance and condition rather than by a class average.