Junkyard Find: 1964 Mercury Comet
Some of our sharper-eyed readers noticed that the car parked next to yesterday’s Junkyard Find ( this 1965 Mercury Park Lane Breezeway) was also a mid-60s-vintage Mercury. It’s the upscale version of the Ford Falcon, the car that the Edsel Jihad still hates as a symbol of Robert MacNamara‘s misplaced— and probably Communist-inspired— priorities. Yes, Ford CEO MacNamara killed the Edsel in favor of the Falcon, right before he masterminded the not-real-successful war effort in Vietnam; the Edsel Jihad can forgive the latter but never the former.
I found these two doomed Mercurys side-by-side at a Northern California self-service yard last month. Both seem quite restorable, but more complete Park Lanes aren’t too expensive and nobody seems to want Comet sedans. Next stop: Chinese steel factory via the Port of Oakland!
This one is free of serious rust, but: four doors.
Comet V8 options in 1964 were 260- and 289-cube Windsor V8s, but this looks like a more recent swap. 302, probably.
Whenever I see these old factory radios, I have to resist hoarding impulses. They’re just so cool-looking, but hoarding car clocks is bad enough!
It’s possible that this car was driven by Apple Computer’s oldest employee in 1990… but I doubt it. Still, Cupertino is upscale enough that it’s hard to imagine an original-owner Comet being driven there.
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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90 year old lady with a 1964 Mercury Comet, over 500,000 miles on it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJc5NxtoGAQ She's pretty hot!
A friend purchased a blue Comet 202 coupe with 200 six and auto with only 40K miles from an old guy last Summer and drove me to many a car cruise in it. I was always surprised how well that car rode and handled but boy was it slow as hell. I too have seen the 500K plus Comet with the 90 year old lady on Youtube. Both her and her car are quite something. I believe her car has the 260 V8 if I'm not mistaken.