What was the 390’s Problem?
As an encore, a factory team of 1965 Comets traveled 16,247 miles from the tip of South America to Fairbanks, Alaska, in 40 days. And yes, durability did sell Comets. Or something did, because in the 1961-1964 period, Comets outsold the full-size Mercury each year, making it Lincoln-Mercury’s best-selling line. Arriving in Fairbanks, race-car builder Don Bailey told the press, “Mechanically we didn’t even adjust the carburetor for altitude, didn’t suffer a single breakdown, didn’t replace so much as a sparkplug.” Comets, God bless ’em, were durable.
The Cyclone GT’s base price came to $2,891, and fully loaded with extras like four-way power seats, clock, tachometer, power windows/brakes/steering, and AM/FM radio, it wasn’t unusual for the GT to top $3,500. A Cyclone GT convertible was chosen to pace the 1966 Indianapolis 500. Perhaps due to pace-car publicity, Mercury sold twice as many Cyclone GTs as standard Cyclones that year — 13,812 GT hardtops and 2,158 GT convertibles versus 6,889 Cyclone hardtops and 1,305 Cyclone ragtops.
In 1997, Bill created a little booklet explaining that the stacked-headlight theme had originated in 1962-1963 in the Mercury studio. Bordinat insisted that Mercury use side-by-side quad headlamps with a conventional grille. Before that, Ford had been working on adapting European-style rectangular headlamps to the 1965 Ford, but the company was having trouble getting them legalized. Ford Motor Company president Lee Iacocca and corporate sales manager Don Petersen had come into the studio one day, fell in love with the stacked look, and asked Gene Bordinat, the company’s design vice president, to put them on the 1965 Ford. After Iacocca mandated that the Ford switch to stacked headlights, continued Shenk, the challenge became to make the 1965 Ford and Mercury look different.
U.S. involvement in Vietnam. By calling Mercury the Man’s Car, Madison Avenue was giving the public a wink and a nudge and the message that in these rocky times, one solid institution was the Mercury automobile. What this campaign did for Comet sales to women can only be imagined. Shared styling and furnishings kept the family bonds intact, of course. Only the 202 sedans and Voyager wagon were still actively promoted as Comets; the others were advertised solely by their series names. The division also began backing away from the Comet name for its line of intermediates. The burners of bras and draft cards brought out emotions in everyone during that era.
A full-width, single-element grille replaced the narrower two-section ensemble used in 1966. On coupes and sedans, vertical taillights ousted horizontal lamps and a slightly revised rear bumper added a half inch to overall length. Also, at the top end of the 1967 Comet line, the optional Cyclone GT Performance Group now started with a detuned version of the four-barrel 390. This engine delivered 320 horsepower instead of the previous 335 (though listed torque and compression figures were unaltered). The two-barrel-carbureted 390s of 1966 were now consolidated in a single 270-horsepower version available with manual or automatic transmission. The basic 200-cubic-inch six and 289-cubic-inch V-8 remained unchanged.
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