After seeing this ’72 Ford LTD Brougham coupe a few months back, it seems fitting that I’ve spotted the Mercury sibling to that car at the very same San Francisco Bay Area self-service wrecking yard. The images of this rust-free 42-year-old big Ford coupe should result in bitter tears flowing from Sajeev’s eyes, not to mention much wailing and gnashing of teeth among Rust Belt Ford lovers who haven’t seen such an unoxidized Mercury since the start of the Ethio-Somali War. Here we go!
Actually, this car isn’t quite as cherry as it looked at first glance, despite the straight bumpers and not-particularly-bashed bodywork.
That’s due to the engine fire that ruined the underhood area and much of the dash.
Still, compared to replacing rusted-out quarter-panels and floors, how hard could it be to fix this damage?
50 years in AAA! It’s a safe assumption that the original owner of this car drove it until it caught on fire.
Why buy one of these instead of a same-year LTD? You got much more rococo with the Mercury!
Let’s hope that someone salvages those nice bumpers, grille, and taillights before The Crusher eats this car.
W.C. Fields was a popular counterculture figure of the late 1960s/early 1970s era, for reasons that probably made sense at the time.
I’ll bet the original owner of this car was a fan of the “Road Hogs” sequence of If I Had a Million.
23 Comments on “Junkyard Find: 1972 Mercury Monterey Coupe...”
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Loved the look and ride of those big very late ’60’s and early 70’s Fords.
However they are long gone from Southern Ontario. Led to the phrase ‘rusty Ford syndrome’ and I believe a very large lawsuit against Ford for selling cars that were prematurely prone to rust. Between that and the Pinto, Ford’s reputation in these parts took one heck of a beating and probably did not recover in the non pickup truck segment until the boom created by the Explorer.
My Grandparents had a Galaxie 500 that had the rear bumper FALL OFF in the driveway one night due to rust when it was ~2 years old. Last Ford product they bought until the ’95 Windstar – oops, that one didn’t work out so well either!
Now there’s a rare bird. The proportion of Montereys in comparison to LTDs has to be extremely small. It appears that even in the 70’s consumers weren’t fooled by a Mercury that was likely identically equipped to the Ford version. You do get a nicer exterior treatment though.
There was an absolutely cherry version of this for sale in my area a summer or two ago (but with more rococo. Vinyl roof, covered lights, various other bits of gimcrackery. It had a certain nauseating appeal.
Love the crest badge, the warped metal behind it looks like exotic wood in that extreme closeup photo.
I know you collect dash clocks but I’m amazed you don’t collect badges from the Brougham Era.
Automotive heraldry FTW.
Red Monte Carlo crest with a knights helmet atop had to be one of my favorites. Made me wish that Chrysler had chosen a conquistador helmet and shield badge for the Cordoba.
I think they used that stuff on the DeSoto, right up to 1961. Cordoba came out too soon to reuse the conquistador motif. There might even have been a few DeSotos still on the road when Cordoba came out. OTOH, the ’57-’62 full size Chryslers/Desotos were world-class rust buckets.
I thought it was some exterior burled walnut treatment!
Funny.. a co-worker just went all evangelist on me today about paper-bag flooring. Showed me a bunch of photos of exaples on her phone and some of the end results looked a lot like that paint.
What is the point of paper bag flooring? Wouldn’t it need to be sealed with something so it didn’t fall apart?
Front clip probably in excellent condition until some lazy forklift bandit decided to pry it open. Seems like every salvage yard has one (or several) of these Einsteins.
Dollars to donuts that the engine fire was caused by a gasoline leak at the 2″ long piece of rubber fuel line connecting the steel fuel line from the pump to the screw-in fuel filter on the carb. Same engine as our 1971 LTD originally had. The replacement fuel filters in the blister-pack at K-Mart came with short sections of rubber hose of questionable pedigree, even back in the 1970s.
I always threw away those pieces of fuel line that were included with the filter and used Gates fuel line hose instead.
Correct. A fireman friend of mine back in the day said this was a very common occurence with Ford products. He cautioned me about my Mustang that has the same fuel filter and hose set-up. I have always been very careful about keeping that short hose replaced often.
Back in the late 70’s early 80’s I owned a 70 Mustang with a 302. When it was time for fuel filter replacement I used to buy the kit which included the replacement hose and clamps. Thankfully it never failed.
“Lincoln Mercury Division”
Wow. When your corporate org structure dictates your branding, you are obviously prioritizing your fiefdom over customer needs. Interesting signal to send to the marketplace.
Not sure what that means… should they have put ‘Toyota’ on the front of the car? At that time, people felt Lincoln Mercury meant a higher quality car. They knew it was really a fancy Ford, but the Lincoln name still had some value. To me it always showed FoMoCo took pride in the Lincoln Mercury Division. ymmv
PS I always liked WC Fields especially for this:
‘Anyone who hates kids and dogs can’t be all bad.’
Those front bumper guards look like aftermarket or JC Whitney. The company who produced them had a pattern for the appropriate car.
Interesting that there was no convertible version of the Monterey or Marquis in 1972, the last full-sized Mercury droptop was in 1970, yet the LTD convertible was produced until 1972.
I’m guessing there’s some difference between the Monterey and Montego? Montego = more sporty? Is this larger than the Cougar?
I really don’t mind the styling at all, nor the excess-crateyness of the front. I think Ford was the place to be in the early 70s*.
*Except for some Olds models.
The Monterey was the Marquis’s homely identical twin. Basically a no-frills version of it.
The Montego was a lesser model. Monterey/Marquis/Grand Marquis were Mercury’s full-size models, the Montego and the Cougar were “mid-size” models. By 1972, Cougar had been turned into a fatter, uglier version of its former (1967-1970) sexier self. Sort of like what you see when you go to a high school reunion.
Mercury’s “compact” was the Comet, and the Bobcat was the subcompact. The Mercury Capri was a sporty subcompact.
Thanks! Always thought the Cougar, because of it’s luxury roots in the Lincoln, was above the Monterey and Marquis.
We had a diarrhea brown 1972 Mercury Montego – no vinyl roof. As I recall, it had a black, vinyl interior and no air conditioning – perfect for those 10 hour car rides to visit family in Morristown NJ. That car was a spectacular piece of crap.