The Mercury Mariner is a compact four-door, five-passenger, sport utility vehicle. If you've seen the Mercury Mountaineer, you've seen the Mariner, albeit an unSanforized one after a trip or two through a hot-water car wash. Granted, the Mariner's headlights are more rectangular, and the fog lamp nacelles are more parallelogram than up-tipped eyebrow, but otherwise, and other than size, there's little visually to distinguish between the larger and smaller Mercury SUVs.

The trademark satin-finish aluminum vertical-bar grille sits on a matching bumper inset, turn indicator lights are housed where the headlamp lenses wrap around the fenders and the central recess in the hood imbues the front fenders with a subtle shoulder look.

Borrowing from European custom, small turn-indicator repeater lights are positioned in the front quarter panels just aft of and slight above the front wheel wells. Understated cladding preserves and protects the lower door panels and tie together the minimalist front and rear fender flares, nicely finishing the mid-door, horizontal character line optically connecting the front and rear bumpers. The tall glasshouse is properly proportioned to balance the body side panels. The angled C-pillar behind the rear side door accentuates the people-orientation of the Mariner while acknowledging it can haul cargo, too.

From the rear, the Mariner is, well, a sport utility vehicle. There's not much that can be done to stylize a liftgate, taillamps and bumper, other than with trim bits and pieces, and the Mariner's designers did their best with what they had. Tasteful, satin-finish, grille-like accents brace the taillamps. The side character line continues across the liftgate, swelling in the center to form a surround for the license plate recess. Yet another satin-finish inset separates the step-top of the rear bumper and the body-color lower fascia. Bright chrome exhaust tips finish the package.

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