Mercury Monterey 1962 S-55 406/405HP Tri-Power 4-Speed Barn Find

A thirty-year barn find just resurfaced wearing one of the rarest engine combinations Ford Motor Company ever built for a full-size car. Fewer than 124 Mercurys left the factory with this triple-carbureted 406 big block, a factory 4-speed, and a special-order 4.11 rear axle. This particular survivor somehow kept all three intact, making it a genuine unicorn for FE collectors. Numbers like these don’t come around often, and this one deserves a serious look.

30-Year stored barn find, just unveiled. Very rare full-sized American Muscle Car, the 2nd half of the model year 1962 brought the introduction of FoMoCo’s top production engine, the 406/405HP 3x2bbl. V8 shoehorned into the Mercury Monterey. It is said that less than 124 of these full-sized Mercurys were special-optioned with this powerful triple carbureted motor, paired with the factory 4-speed manual and special order 4.11 axle…

Barn finds are a dime a dozen these days, but every so often one turns up that makes even jaded collectors sit up straight, and this is one of those cases. Picture a full-size Mercury pulled out of three decades of dust and cobwebs that turns out to be hiding one of the rarest factory engine combinations FoMoCo ever slipped into a family sedan. Fewer than 124 cars left the factory with this exact triple-carbureted big block, and this particular survivor somehow still wears its factory-correct 4-speed and special-order axle gearing. That kind of survival rate begs an obvious question: how many of these are actually still out there, and what does a genuine numbers-matching example like this one command from the right buyer?

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The Engine Ford Didn’t Advertise Loudly Enough

The 406 cubic-inch FE-series V8 arrived mid-way through the 1962 model year as Ford Motor Company’s top production engine, and the triple two-barrel carburetor version cranking out 405 horsepower was about as serious as full-size performance got in Detroit at the time. Road & Track clocked cars running this motor at better than 95 mph through the quarter mile, which is downright shocking for a car this size riding on bias-ply tires. What gets me is that Ford buried this monster in a plain-looking Mercury Monterey rather than screaming about it from the rooftops the way Chevy did with the 409 or Mopar did with the Max Wedge. That makes every surviving 406 Tri-Power car a genuine sleeper, the kind of ride that looks like grandpa’s church car until someone drops the hammer.

A One-Year Wonder Worth Chasing

The 406 only lived through 1962 and part of the 1963 model year before Ford replaced it with the legendary 427, which makes this engine option a narrow, easily overlooked footnote in Ford’s big-block history. Full-size Mopars and GM’s B-bodies tend to soak up all the muscle car spotlight from this era, but a triple-power 406 backed by a factory 4-speed and a 4.11 rear gear deserves just as much respect at any cruise night. Less than 124 units built with this exact combination puts it well into unicorn territory for FE collectors.

Why This Barn Find Matters to the Hobby

Finding a numbers-matching survivor like this, still carrying its original driveline instead of a modern crate swap, is exactly the kind of discovery that keeps this hobby exciting. Whether the next owner keeps it as a driver-quality survivor with the patina intact or takes it all the way to a show-quality restoration, a car this rare deserves to be documented and preserved rather than parted out.

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