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Posts Tagged “
comet
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down on the street
I enjoy the nice, shiny, well-preserved cars in this series, of course, but I really love me some beaters! Cars that haven't been coddled for one minute of their decades-long lives! This Cyclone is one of my all-time favorite Alameda cars; an original 289/4-speed machine, it's been roaring around the island for at least the last 15 years and probably longer. It sounds good, looks mean, and lives on a busy street. Sure, it's slowly rusting away, but it's got decades to go before the slow-motion California-style rust finally brings it down.
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1964 Mercury Comet Cyclone, With Bonus Mercury Poll
I enjoy the nice, shiny, well-preserved cars in this series, of course, but I really love me some beaters! Cars that haven't been coddled for one minute of their decades-long lives! This Cyclone is one of my all-time favorite Alameda cars; an original 289/4-speed machine, it's been roaring around the island for at least the last 15 years and probably longer. It sounds good, looks mean, and lives on a busy street. Sure, it's slowly rusting away, but it's got decades to go before the slow-motion California-style rust finally brings it down.More »
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Drive Phoenix To LA Very Slowly In a 1974 Mercury, Get Crap Mileage!
How is it possible that a car weighing just over 2,200 pounds and equipped with a 2-liter engine can drive from Phoenix to Los Angeles at the maddeningly geriatric speed of 50 miles per hour and manage only a pathetic 32.4 miles per gallon? Yes, that's the best the '74 Capri could do! We're thinking it was the weight of several tons of Malaise pushing down hard on the car during the trip (not to mention the restrictive first-gen catalytic converters and miserable engine compression ratios of the era). The six-cylinder Comet made the same trip and grunted out an Saudi-oil-baron-pleasing 26.6 MPG, so we shudder to imagine the sort of single-digit mileage a 460-equipped Country Squire would have achieved.
down on the street
Hey, if you shoot enough photos of old cars on the streets of Alameda, sooner or later you'll get a shot that looks something like a Robert Bechtle painting! The photo above made me almost happy enough to forget my frustration that there's a super-original, 4-speed-equipped '68 AMX parked a couple doors down from this Comet... in a driveway, and thus off-limits to DOTS. The pain!
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1965 Mercury Comet 202
Hey, if you shoot enough photos of old cars on the streets of Alameda, sooner or later you'll get a shot that looks something like a Robert Bechtle painting! The photo above made me almost happy enough to forget my frustration that there's a super-original, 4-speed-equipped '68 AMX parked a couple doors down from this Comet... in a driveway, and thus off-limits to DOTS. The pain!
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Broncomet!
Charles Bukowski drove a Mercury Comet, so the Mercury-branded Falcon gets additional coolness points right there. The problem with the Comet, though, was that it wasn't so good off-road... until now! Now this gentleman in the California high desert city of Victorville has solved that problem for us, by transplanting a '64 Comet body onto a '67 Bronco chassis. You get a 289 and 3-speed manual, and all for just $3,000 asking! Thanks to prolific tipster and Saab racer LTDScott for yet another Jalopcentric tip! [Race-Dezert.com]
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The '70 Mercury Comet Can Outrun A Raging Bull!
Say you've driven your new Comet sedan into a cattle pasture for a picnic, only to find that you're about to be gored by an enraged bovine. Not to worry! The little Maverick clone fits an amazing four passengers and goes faster than most animals. Warning: The stunningly bad song at the end of this ad will attach itself to your gray matter like a fearsome brain-worm and refuse to let go for the rest of the day.
retro
Down On The Street: '66 Mercury Comet Cyclone
Even though I grew up worshiping 60s Detroit muscle cars, I'm left a little cold by the tedious sameness of the ones I spot on the street today. If it's not a '66 Mustang or '69 Camaro, it's gonna be a '68-'72 GM A-Body or maybe a Mopar E-Body. Most of the Javelins, Dart GTs, and the like have been crushed by now, with the few nice survivors living (if you can call it that) in a gilded-cage world of car shows and nostalgia cruises. So it was quite a treat when I spied this clean '66 Mercury Comet Cyclone parked on the street in Denver last weekend... More »
retro
Forgotten Mercury of the Day: 1974 Comet GT
For today's Forgotten Mercury, let's look at one that maybe shouldn't have been forgotten: the Comet GT. Like so many Mercuries, the Comet was a hasty badge-engineering exercise performed on various Fords; first the Falcon, then the Torino, and finally the Maverick. The first-generation Comet gets some coolness points for being the car Bukowski owned when writing Post Office, but let's not overlook the Malaise Era third-gen Comet. Specifically, the Comet GT. The GT package got you pretty much the same thing you got on the Maverick Grabber (i.e., hood scoop, tape stripes), only the hood scoop had more muscle-carness and less nostrilism than the Grabber. With a 302 and a floor-shift three-speed (sorry, Californians, automatics only), the '71-'75 Comet GT looked pretty good and was somewhat quick. And that's enough. More »
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