On our silver Premier, the interior was black leather with contrasting white stitching on the seats and steering wheel. The switchgear and gauges were black with white letters, the gauges had chrome rings, and there were lots of satin-finish metal panels to set off the black and white theme. Very tasty. And if you don't like the satin and patterned aluminum trim, Mercury offers a Wales Mahogany interior trim option at no charge.

The deeply bucketed front seats are especially cozy. Passenger sit in them more than on them. The rear seat folds down in 60/40 fashion, enabled by an easy-pull latch on each side to eliminate leaning over the decklid opening and fumbling for seatback latches.

The trunk offers 15.8 cubic feet. With the rear seats folded down, you get another 46 cubic feet of cargo space behind the front seats, making it into a once-in-a-while station wagon. The front passenger seat also folds flat to further increase storage room and allow loading of long items, such as a ladder.

The interior is roomy enough for a 6-foot, 4-inch passenger to sit behind a 6-foot, 4-inch driver, with real headroom. The rear door panels are scooped out for more elbow room. The rear armrest packs two cup holders, for a total of six.

Storage cubbyholes are all over the place, two in the console, one quite large one at the top center of the dash with a latching lid, two more in each front door pocket hollowed out to take a Big Gulp cup, and one in the bottom center of the dashboard, all of which add up to convenience and ease. The quality of design and materials for a car in this price class is generally high, satisfying to touch, and pleasing to look at.

The premium eight-speaker sound system played our favorite compilation CDs exactly as they sound at home on our high-end equipment, minus a bit of bass.

The Sync communications and entertainment system has a USB interface to connect with iPods and other MP3 players. Steering wheel and voice commands are used to control it. You can even tell Sync to play a specific artist, album or track stored on your MP3 player. The system can recognize Bluetooth-enabled cell phones, access their phonebooks, and play calls and read text messages through the speakers.

We had only minor complaints with the cabin. We thought there was too much glare off the main instrument cover, likewise with the radio face and the otherwise lovely analog clock.