Mercury Sold Fewer Than 7,500 Comet Cyclones in 1964 — The Ford-Powered Muscle Car That Was Almost an Edsel Is Still a Bargain

The 1964 Comet Cyclone squeezed a 210-hp 289 into a compact that was originally drawn up as an Edsel, then proved itself by lapping Daytona for 40 days straight. Hemmings put one on the road to explain what a buyer needs to know before writing a check for the muscle car everyone forgets.

Ask a room full of muscle car fans to name Ford’s first real performance compact and most of them will say Mustang. They would be wrong by a few months. Before the pony car ever reached a showroom, Lincoln-Mercury slipped a 289 V8, bucket seats, a tachometer, and a chrome-dressed engine into the humble Comet and called it the Cyclone. Fewer than 7,500 people bought one in that shortened first season, which is why you can still find a clean example today for a fraction of what a comparable Mustang or Fairlane commands. Hemmings took a beautifully restored 1964 Cyclone out on the road for its Buyers Guide series, and the story of how this car came to exist is stranger than the price tag suggests.

What Hemmings Found Behind the Wheel

The Hemmings Garage crew presents this episode as a proper buyer’s guide rather than a walkaround, and that shows in the way host Terry treats the car. He takes the Cyclone out on the road, talks through the driving experience, and lays out the case the channel makes in its own description: this is a lightweight, stylish compact with real Ford V8 power that delivers plenty of 1960s muscle car attitude without the size or the price of its better-known rivals. The car itself, driven into the Hemmings shop by its owner, is finished in a deep color with a white interior, and the viewers who saw it in person insist the camera doesn’t do it justice.

Viewers who have watched this one have been struck less by the numbers than by the memories. The comments read like a reunion: a veteran who drove his Comet across Route 66 on the way to deployment, a man whose father built a Comet Caliente that did wheelies on the streets of Long Island City, and more than one owner who paired the 289 with a four-speed and held their own against bigger-engined cars. One sharp-eyed viewer even flagged the engine-code trivia that trips up buyers to this day, which we’ll get to below. For anyone shopping a first-generation Cyclone, the video is a compact primer on what the car is, what it isn’t, and why the people who owned them loved them.

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The Compact That Was Supposed to Be an Edsel

The Comet’s origin story is one of the odder chapters in Ford history. The car was originally planned as an Edsel model, a compact to slot beneath that division’s full-size lineup. When Edsel collapsed, the nearly finished car was reassigned to Mercury dealerships, but for 1960 and 1961 it wasn’t even badged as a Mercury. It was sold simply as the Comet, its own standalone brand, and it carried Edsel fingerprints in the details: the canted elliptical taillights came straight from the Edsel prototype, and parts-bin items like the parking lights and dashboard knobs were lifted from the 1959 Edsel.

Underneath, the Comet shared its bones with the Ford Falcon, but it rode on a longer wheelbase and wore more upscale trim to justify a Mercury-store price. For 1964 the car received a squarer restyle and, more importantly, the small-block V8 that changed its personality. The Cyclone arrived partway through the model year as the new top of the range, above the Caliente, and every one was a two-door hardtop. Standard equipment included a 289-cubic-inch V8 with a four-barrel carburetor rated at 210 horsepower, bucket seats, a center console, a three-spoke steering wheel, a tachometer, simulated chrome wheel covers, and a chrome dress-up kit for the engine that gave the bay a show-car look. Despite a selling season of only a few months, the Cyclone racked up nearly 7,500 sales in 1964.

The K-Code That Isn’t a K-Code

Here is the detail that has confused Comet buyers for sixty years. The 1964 Cyclone’s engine carried a K designation in the VIN, but it was not the legendary K-code High Performance 289 that made 271 horsepower in the Mustang and Fairlane. The Cyclone’s 289 was the four-barrel D-code engine, rated at 210 horsepower. Sellers have traded on that confusion, sometimes innocently and sometimes not, so a buyer should know exactly what a factory Cyclone came with before paying a Hi-Po premium. As one viewer put it plainly under the Hemmings video, it’s a D-code engine vinned as K. That said, a 289 responds well to the usual hot-rodding, and viewers point out that a modest investment in heads, cam, and carburetion turns the stock motor into something closer to 275 or 300 horsepower.

Why the 1964 Comet Earned Its Muscle Car Credentials

What separates the Comet from a dressed-up Falcon is the abuse Mercury put it through to prove the point. Fran Hernandez, the pioneering hot rodder who ran Lincoln-Mercury’s performance program, assembled a team of 1964 Comets for a durability run at Daytona International Speedway, then the fastest track in the world. Four Caliente hardtops lapped the high banks at around 112 mph, day and night, for 40 straight days, stopping only for fuel and driver changes. The driver roster included names like Buddy Baker and Iggy Katona. One car suffered a valve spring failure around 76,000 miles, was repaired, and went back out to finish the job. Each car completed 100,000 miles, and Mercury built an entire advertising campaign around the feat.

Hernandez wasn’t done. In March 1964 he shipped a group of Comet Calientes to the East African Safari Rally through Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, the first time an American team had ever entered the event. Of the 94 cars that started, only 21 finished, and two of them were Comets. Between the Daytona run and the Safari, the compact Mercury had a performance résumé that most of its 1964 competitors couldn’t touch, and the Cyclone was the showroom car that cashed in on it.

What to Look for If You’re Buying One

The good news for a buyer is that the Cyclone is mechanically a Ford, which means the 289 is one of the best-supported engines in the hobby and the Falcon-based chassis is simple to sort. The Hemmings guide is worth watching for the driving impressions, but the checklist is what you’d expect from any mid-sixties unibody: rust in the floors, trunk drops, and lower quarters, and worn front suspension components that produce the squeak more than one owner remembers from the era. The Cyclone-specific items are the parts that are hard to replace, including the chrome engine dress-up pieces, the correct wheel covers, and the console and tach. Verify the body code and the engine code together, and remember that a genuine 1964 Cyclone is a D-code car no matter what the VIN letter implies.

The best argument for the Cyclone is the one Hemmings makes in its own pitch: this is 1960s muscle car attitude in a lighter, cheaper package. It won’t outrun a big-block anything, but a 289 four-speed Comet held its own in period, and it does so now for a fraction of the price of the cars it shared a showroom with. Watch the full video above and let us know your thoughts in the comments.