Start with what the Mercury Milan is: a 4-door sedan with Petrol engine, built from 2005 to 2010, in the decade of stability control, dual-clutch gearboxes and the first serious hybrids. What it meant takes a little longer. The shape is credited to Darrell Behmer, Mercury Chief Designer. 166,126 were built.
How it came about
The Mercury Milan is a four-door, five passenger, front and all-wheel drive mid-size sedan manufactured by Ford and marketed by its Mercury division over a single generation from 2006 to 2011, using Ford's CD3 platform. As a rebadged variant of the first-generation Ford Fusion and Lincoln MKZ/Zephyr, the Milan received an extensive mid-cycle refresh (i.e., facelift) for 2010 under Chief Designer Darrell Behmer and Design Director Peter Horbury. Manufactured alongside the Ford Fusion and Lincoln MKZ/Zephyr at Hermosillo Assembly in Mexico, it served as the entry-level and smallest Mercury, succeeding the Mercury Mystique as well as replacing the Sable. It was marketed in the United States (including Puerto Rico and the U.S.
Virgin Islands), Mexico, and the Middle East. It was introduced at the 2005 Chicago Auto Show, and in 2008, the Milan became Mercury's best-selling model. Coinciding with Ford's retirement of Mercury, sales of the Milan ended after a shortened 2011 model year with the final vehicle was manufactured on December 17, 2010. The nameplate Milan derived from second-largest Italian city, Milan, often associated with fashion and design. Chief Designer, Darrell Behmer, said the "name 'Milan' connotes visions of a modern, fashionable European city, fitting the car's design theme and target customer like a fine Italian suit."
The hardware
The engine is Petrol engine; other versions carried different engines, listed in the specification table below. Drive goes through a 5-speed Mazda G5M manual / 6-speed Mazda G6M manual / 5-speed Mazda FNR5 automatic / 6-speed Aisin TF-80 automatic / 6-speed Ford 6F35 automatic / Aisin CVT. The wheelbase is 107.4 in. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Family and rivals
In the Mercury line-up the Mercury Milan has a clear place: it replaced the Mercury Sable (mid-size); the factory was Hermosillo, Sonora (Hermosillo Stamping and Assembly), Mexico. The cars a buyer would have weighed it against include the Bugatti Veyron, the Kia Sportage, the Audi Q7. Its Mercury stablemates include the Mercury Bobcat and the Mercury Capri.