Monarch was an
automobile
A car, or an automobile, is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of cars state that they run primarily on roads, Car seat, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport private transport#Personal transport, peopl ...
marque
A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's goods or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create and ...
produced by
Ford Canada from 1946 through 1957 and from 1959 to 1961. The Monarch was marketed as its own brand of car rather than as a Ford, with its own model names which included Richelieu, Lucerne and Sceptre.
Overview
The Monarch was introduced on 23 March 1946. Based on the contemporary
Mercury, it had Canadian market-specific trim, unique grilles, taillights and other trim to marginally differentiate them from their Mercury relatives. Initially marketed simply as the Monarch, later model names included Richelieu, Lucerne and Sceptre. These were variations of the
Mercury Eight
The Mercury Eight is an automobile that was produced by the American manufacturer Ford Motor Company under their now defunct division Mercury (automobile), Mercury between 1939 and 1951. The debut model line of the Mercury division, Ford positio ...
(later the
Monterey
Monterey ( ; ) is a city situated on the southern edge of Monterey Bay, on the Central Coast of California. Located in Monterey County, the city occupies a land area of and recorded a population of 30,218 in the 2020 census.
The city was fou ...
),
Montclair and
Park Lane
Park Lane is a dual carriageway road in the City of Westminster in Central London. It is part of the London Inner Ring Road and runs from Hyde Park Corner in the south to Marble Arch in the north. It separates Hyde Park, London, Hyde Park to ...
models, respectively. The Monarch line provided Canadian Ford dealerships a product to sell above its Ford-badged models, in the medium-price field. Ford of Canada also built the
Meteor
A meteor, known colloquially as a shooting star, is a glowing streak of a small body (usually meteoroid) going through Earth's atmosphere, after being heated to incandescence by collisions with air molecules in the upper atmosphere,
creating a ...
range for its Lincoln-Mercury dealers to sell below its
Mercury-badged models. This was typical practice in the Canadian market, where smaller towns might have only a single dealer who was expected to offer a full range of products in various price classes.
The Monarch line of vehicles was discontinued for 1958 when the
Edsel was introduced, but the poor acceptance of the Edsel led Ford to reintroduce Monarch for 1959. With a drop in medium-priced vehicle sales in the early 1960s, and the introduction of the similarly priced
Ford Galaxie
The Ford Galaxie is a car that was marketed by Ford in North America from the 1959 to 1974 model years. Deriving its nameplate from a marketing tie-in with the excitement surrounding the Space Race, the Galaxie was offered as a sedan within the ...
, the Monarch brand was dropped again after the 1961 model year, with approximately 95,450 cars built in 15 years.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Monarch (marque)
Rear-wheel-drive vehicles
1950s cars
Cars introduced in 1946
Defunct companies of Ontario
Luxury motor vehicle manufacturers
Ford Motor Company of Canada
Coupés
Sedans
Station wagons
1960s cars
Defunct motor vehicle manufacturers of Canada
Ford Motor Company marques