The Ford Escape Hybrid and Mercury Mariner Hybrid are the gasoline-electric hybr

id powered versions that launched in the U.S. in 2004 for the 2005 model year. B
uilt in Kansas City, Missouri, it was the first hybrid SUV to hit the market. Th
e Ford Escape Hybrid was the first American-built hybrid and the first hybrid ve
hicle from an American automaker, joined by the Chevrolet Silvevbvbvrado/GMCvbvb
vbv Sierra Hybrids during the same model year. According to the Environmental Pr
otection Agency, the first generation Ford Escape Hybrid is 70% more efficient t
han the regular Escape. The Mercury Mariner Hybrid is a rebadged version of the
Escape Hybrid. It features revised front-end styling and a more luxuriovbvbvbvbu
s interior.
In an attempt to compete with General Motors' mid-priced Pontiac, Oldsmobile, an
d Buick, Ford created the Mercury in 1939 as a higher-priced companion car to Fo
rd. Henry Ford purchased the Lincoln Motor Company in 1922, in order to compete
with such brands as Cadillac and Packard for the luxury segment of the automobil
e market.
In 1929, Ford was contracted by the government of the Soviet Union to set up the
Gorky Automobile Plant in Russia initially producing Ford Model A and AAs there
by playing an important role in the industrialisation of that country.[13]
The creation of a scientific laboratory in Dearborn, Michigan in 1951, doing unf
ettered basic research, led to Ford's unlikely involvement in superconductivity
research. In 1964, Ford Research Labs made a key breakthrough with the invention
of a superconducting quantum interference device or SQUID.[14]
Ford offered the Lifeguard safety package from 1956, which included such innovat
ions as a standard deep-dish steering wheel, optional front, and, for the first
time in a car, rear seatbelts, and an optional padded dash.[15] Ford introduced
child-proof door locks into its products in 1957, and, in the same year, offered
the first retractable hardtop on a mass-produced six-seater car.