We did have a few Mercury Lasers here back in the day. (For you Kiwis & Aussies, now-defunct Mercury was a division of FoMoCo, slightly upscale from the Ford division, but well-below the Lincoln division. A number of Ford cars had Mercury equivalents - for example, the Ford Pinto and the Mercury Bobcat, the Ford Maverick and the Mercury Comet, and of course the Ford Escort and the Mercury Laser.)
The Lasers were quite rare - I'd guess that 10+ Escorts were sold for every Laser. I last saw one 5 to 6 years ago.
The original Ford Escort sold here in the '80s was European, I think German, and its sister car was the Mercury Lynx. When the European Escort was replaced by the Japanese Escort c. '91, the Lynx was replaced by the Laser. Both the Laser and the 2nd-gen Escort were rebadged Mazda 323s/Proteges.
The Escort wagon was particularly popular here.
But, just to confuse things, that Laser you (Silk) have shown looks more like a Ford Aspire to me. If I recall correctly, the Aspire was a rebadged Kia-built 2nd-gen Mazda 121 or 323, sold here c. 1995.
Earlier, c. 1991, Ford sold 1st-gen Mazda 121s, also Korean-built, as the Ford Festiva. (Not to be confused with the Ford Feista, a Spanish Ford sold here in the late-70s.) Confused yet?