Mercury Zephyr

Introduced as the replacement for the Mercury Comet, the Mercury Zephyr shared most of its design with the Ford Fairmont. As with its Ford counterpart, the Zephyr was available in two door coupe, two-door sedan, four-door sedan, and station wagon body styles; both cars shared four, six, or eight-cylinder engines. Before 1981, the Zephyr was easily distinguished from the Fairmont with its vertical slatted grille and four headlights; the taillights were also a separate horizontally ribbed design. After 1981, both Fairmonts and Zephyrs wore four headlights. As with the Mercury Marquis and Grand Marquis, the Zephyr was fitted with non-functional front fender vents. All models came with the Ford 'Ride Engineered' suspension package. The "Zephyr" name was resurrected from an earlier Lincoln vehicle in the 1940s, called the Lincoln-Zephyr

In 1980, Mercury introduced the Cougar XR7 based on the Fox platform shared with the Zephyr. For 1981, as the Mercury counterparts to the Ford Granada, the Cougar line was expanded to two-door and four-door sedans to replace the Mercury Monarch. The expanded Cougar line closed in on the price range occupied by the Zephyr. For 1982, the Zephyr line began to become de-contented as Mercury was preparing the design for the Topaz. Additionally, the station wagon was given to the Cougar line. For 1983, both the 4.2L and 5.0L V8 engines were discontinued.


Zephyr Z7

Alongside the standard two-door notchback sedan introduced in 1978, Mercury also released a uniquely styled 2-door Zephyr coupe named the Z-7 which was a Mercury badged version of the Ford Fairmont Futura coupe. The Z-7 was distinguished from standard Zephyrs by its angled rear deck and wraparound taillights. Many Z-7 models included a two-tone paint job. Under the hood, the powertrain usually featured either the inline-six (I6) or one of the V8 engines. Very few Z-7's had the four-cylinder engine.

The Fairmont and Zephyr marked the introduction of the long-running 
Ford Fox platform, used for a wide variety of later models. 
Those closely related to the Fairmont included the:

1980–1988 Ford Thunderbird, 
1981–1982 Ford Granada,
1980-1988 Mercury Cougar,
1979–1993 Ford Mustang,
1979–1986 Mercury Capri,
1983-1986 Ford LTD,
1983-1986 Mercury Marquis,
1982–1987 Lincoln Continental,
1984-1992 Lincoln Mark VII.