Look around everywhere you turn is heartache
It’s everywhere that you go (look around)
You try everything you can to escape
The pain of life that you know (life that you know) — Madonna, Vogue
As a connoisseur of obscure special editions, I’m surprised that I somehow missed the Mercury Milan VOGA when it was new. I’m willing to wager that you missed it, too.
When all else fails and you long to be
Something better than you are today
In Mercury’s waning years, they turned to what many manufacturers do when trying to drum up showroom excitement with minimal budget: Designer Special Editions! In Mercury’s case, they hatched the Milan VOGA (and no, I’m not shouting. VOGA was always stylized in all caps in Mercury’s period press releases).
At first, I thought VOGA was some obscure designer brand that I had never heard of, but no: Mercury just made it up, apparently being too cheap to license an actual designer’s brand name. Voga is simply the Spanish (as well as Italian) word for “vogue,” appropriated by Mercury in a shameless attempt to appeal to Hispanic buyers with an edición especial.
The VOGA included exclusive features like 18″ chrome wheels (borrowed from the Lincoln MKZ), embroidered white leather seats, faux carbon-fiber dash inserts, VOGA exterior badging and, well that’s it actually. I was able to capture the sum total of this package in a mere three photos for this post.
Don’t just stand there, let’s get to it
Strike a pose, there’s nothing to it
Related Reading
Top 10 Obscure Special Editions and Forgotten Limited-Run Models: Lincoln-Mercury Edition, Part II – William Stopford
Voga is also the Italian translation of Vogue which is more likely what the marketing dept had in mind given that Milan is an Italian city. Of course I’m assuming that’s the city that inspired the name and not Milan, Ohio…
One could be forgiven for assuming that ALL Milan’s had chrome wheels and embroidered white leather seats… The part that leaves me scratching my head is the faux Carbon Fiber applique in this as well as other cars whose mission is as far from performance and light weight as possible. In a Porsche, Jaguar, Audi, maybe even a Corvette real carbon fiber or at least genuine carbon fiber trim (it can look extremely attractive when real and done well as in some 90’s and newer Audis) has a place. In a Rav4 or this car as a fake version (or even if it was real) I don’t get it.
We know it is not about Milan, Indiana because there is no high school basketball connection.
Voga is also the Italian translation of Vogue which is more likely what the marketing dept had in mind given that Milan is an Italian city.
This is of course the obvious origin and intent of the use Voga.
There’s also a Milan, NM very close to Grants, NM – lots of uranium mining there during the Cold War.
Not to mention Milan, Michigan—pronounced “MY-lən”, because of course. It’s located just minutes from vibrant, exciting, and aptly-named Pittsfield Township.
We have a town here in Oklahoma called Prague, but locals insist it’s pronounced PRAY-gue. Likewise, there’s a Miami, Oklahoma, but it’s pronounced My-AM-ah.
The designer, Camilo Pardo, did do a stint at Ford’s Torino studio, and also worked on the Ford GT.
Never heard of this car. Didn’t miss much.
This was a new one for me too. If only the Soviet auto industry had caught onto this first: we could’ve had a Volga VOGA.
I actually wish Chevrolet had sniffed this one out. We could have had a Vega VOGA.
…or ship the old Lordstown Assembly tooling over to Russia. Behold! The 2018 Volga Vega VOGA!
Or a Florida version, the Boca VOGA.
I think this car would fit perfectly in Boca
When I met my wife she had a Solara convertible with carbon fiber trim. At 3,600 lbs curb weight the dash trim was the least of that car’s weight worries.
“Imagine yourself in a Mercury . . .”
Carbon-fiber (or faux carbon-fiber) auto trim parts are about as functionally superior to the conventional plastic parts as the bicycle disc brake is an improvement over the caliper brake. But — hip-and-cool is its own excuse for being ?
The main advantage of disk brakes on bicycles is that they work even when they’re wet, unlike rim brakes. That’s why they’re often found on mountain bikes. They are an improvement if you’re a really hard core mountain biker who rides on muddy trails, or a really dedicated bike commuter who bikes to work every day even if it’s raining. But they offer little advantage to the more casual cyclist who only rides on dry roads.
My mom had one of these. It was a good car; cheap, reliable, roomy, fuel efficient. To this day she still talks fondly of it. Good bargain for someone who needs a “good” cheap car.
That goes for most Mercurys, these days. An orphan brand that finished its life as the beloved chariot of the elderly. No one wants them so they’re cheap, but there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with them. Terrific cheap wheels.
Wow, I never heard of these either. I always thought the Milan was a nicely done car with trims a little nicer than those on the Fusion. But I am not sure I would like a special edition that is always shouting at me.
VW can’t interest you in a beautiful new up!, then? 😉
Being a resident of Canada, there are so many vehicles that were/are available in the U.S. that we never saw here north of the border; the Mercury Milan is one of those vehicles. I just can’t get over how big those back-up lights are…they look way too out of place on this car.
Pretty sure that’s a stylistic touch and the cluster of LEDs in the outer white segment are actually red. But I could be wrong.
But, you could be correct, also, as in this case.
Have you seen the rear lights on the Oldsmobile Alero? Now that was supersizing run amok.
Cheap way for Ford to hide the Fusion sheetmetal origins. Like running a waterfall grille or a horizontal red reflector strip between the tail lights to make a Lincoln.
The reversing (“back-up”) lamps are at the inboard lower corners of the trunk lid lights. The outboard lamps, within their red perimeter ring, have an LED stop/tail lamp (upper) and a bulb-type amber turn signal (lower).
I had idly wondered what exactly a VOGA was before. Thanks for clearing that up.
The white leather seats are a nice touch. And I always did think that the Milan was just slightly better-looking than its Fusion stablemate. All academic after 2011 anyway though…
Was there a covert competition as to who could make the biggest taillights, and it was nose to nose between the Milan and the Olds Alero?
Touched off by the US/Canada-spec* Plymouth-Dodge Neon, the first-generation car with the big red taillights with a small actual lit area. That ante was upped by Ford with the Five Hundred, which had an even bigger red taillight with a small actual lit area. Dumb-lookin’, no matter who did it.
*The export-spec Neon had a much less lazy taillamp design
Daniel I’ve noticed from a lot of your comments, you seem to be the expert on tail lights. What’s good, what’s not, which ones provide the most coverage from different sides of the car, and so on.
Taillamps, headlamps, side markers, turn signal repeaters, front fog lamps, rear fog lamps…technology, technique, performance, history, regulation, and a dash of Tabasco sauce. Yep, that’s my schtick. I’m a freelance consultant in the field, and I’m Chief Editor of the global vehicle lighting industry’s technical journal, so I have to know what I’m talking about or I don’t get to keep buying groceries for long. 🙂
Well it all makes sense now!
Back in the day, every year Volkswagen would announce a number of “improvements” made to the Beetle and every year it seemed like one of those “improvements” was always that they made the tail lamps a little larger.
I think that if the original Beetle had not gone out of production, by now the tail lamps would be so large that you couldn’t see out of the rear window.
It looks like a breed between a Fusion and a Cirrus, but nice anyway. The Fusion from the same time is aesthetically more well balanced than the Milan.
Been working at L/M dealers for many, many years and I can tell you exactly how many Milan VOGAs I’ve seen… zero. Did you know there was a Mariner VOGA as well?
I remember when these were available from building them on Mercury’s site. There was also a Mariner VOGA, though I’ve never seen either of them in the metal, except for at the Auto Show.
It was kind of an interesting edition and definitely fit in with the image Mercury was trying to cultivate, as a somewhat chic and stylish alternative. Of course, the underlying similarity to Ford undermined any chances of late-00’s Mercury of succeeding. Like the pop culture reference as well!
I bet you have, and just don’t know it. The Mariner VOGA blends in with about 7 million Escape Limiteds of that generation with the same wheel and tire package, and the Milan looks like someone got junkyard MKZ wheels and slapped them on because they liked them. The badge and wheel center caps are the only real differences, externally.
Kind of a pity the Chevrolet people didn’t twig to this forty-five years ago; we could’ve had the Vega Voga. Perhaps they could’ve even offered it on a camping-configured version of that dumb “Kammback” thing; it could’ve been the Vega Voga Vagabond. Wait, wait, I’m seeing a promotional tie-in! Find your sweepstakes entry in specially-marked boxes of yellow rice; you could win a Vigo Vega Voga Vagabond!
But wait! There’s a cross-promotion with Aston Martin: the magnificent Vigo Vega VOGA Vagabond Volante!
You got Lincoln Zephyr/MKZ wheels, and it lost its only Mercury-specific interior touches – the covered cupholders and faux burl walnut dash trim, in favor of the carbon fiber-look trim and exposed cupholders of the BASE Fusion. The Mariner VOGA included the chrome wheels optional on the Escape’s Limited trim, meaning from the side, it simply looked like an Escape. The Milans simply look at this point like someone liked the MKZephyr wheels better than their stock Milan alloys and swapped them after production.
The trim was an attempt by Mercury to move upmarket, but was basically a wheel package on any existing Milan or Mariner in Premier trim, which could be optioned with any engine and drive configuration on both. So there were “upmarket” FWD 4cyl Mariner VOGAs, and the only thing it excluded on the Milan was the availability of the base manual transmission, which would have been kinda neat.
I had yo double-check, and yes, there was a VOGA Sable, too. With Taurus Limited wheels.
So basically Mercury’s limited special edition cars received wheel options that were much MORE common than the wheels already specced on the Mercury models without the option package, and on 2/3 they were from the cheaper platform mate.
Bad, bad, bad. They launched the series at NY Fashion Week, though…
Brand management run amok.
But wait, there’s more… the Volkswagen Vanagon Voga
…or the Vogon for short; a van that destroys the Earth while reciting terrible poetry.
Ha!
Personally I think Mercury missed it by about 30 odd years.
Who wouldn’t have been impressed with a
1977 Mercury Grand Marquis Brougham Voga Edition ?
It would have need a car that size just for the name plate!
Actually you got a pic but didn’t mention the floor mats with the embroidered VOGA.
I was aware of these when they were new and it would have been my choice had I been looking for a car in this class at the time just for that almost white leather interior.
I own one and I think it’s the best looking Mercury since my 1955 MERV. Convertible !