Mercury | Muscle Car Fan

NASCAR’s Rulebook Forced Mercury to Build 503 Street Cars in 1969 – Today Fewer Than 75 Are Known to Exist

Mercury’s 1969 Cyclone Spoiler II only exists because NASCAR’s homologation rules demanded 500 street cars for every race car. Decades later, fewer than 75 of the 503 built — split between two NASCAR driver tribute trims — are known to survive.

Mercury Slapped Two NASCAR Legends’ Names on This 1969 Muscle Car — Then Sold It With a Family Sedan’s Engine

by Jack Harmon

Mercury built the Cyclone Spoiler II purely to satisfy NASCAR’s homologation rule, naming street versions after Dan Gurney and Cale Yarborough. The race engines that made them famous never made it under the hood.

Mercury Never Built a Cougar Fastback — So a Shop Grafted One Together and Gave It 700 Horsepower

by Jack Harmon

A 1968 Mercury Cougar gets the fastback roofline Mercury’s own engineers never offered, built by JF Kustoms with a 700-horsepower big block and a manual transmission behind it. See how the shop made two different Ford-platform bodies look like one factory-correct car.

Mercury Gave the 1970 Marauder X-100 a 360-HP 429 — Then Killed It After Selling Half as Many as the Year Before

by Jack Harmon

The Marauder X-100 packed a 360-horsepower 429 and real muscle-car numbers inside a personal luxury coupe, then vanished after one disappointing year. Its own production numbers tell a very different story than the oil-crisis explanation usually repeated online.

Ford Almost Called the Mustang ‘Cougar’ – Mercury Took the Name and Built a 335-HP Muscle Car With It

by Jack Harmon

Ford almost named the Mustang Cougar — then handed the name to Mercury, which built a 428 Cobra Jet muscle car with it. MotorWeek revisits the 1968 Cougar, the Car of the Year pony car cousin that still flies under the radar today.

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

by Jack Harmon

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.

Mercury Lost Trans-Am to Ford by Two Points in 1967 — Then Mercury Quit the Series for Good

by Jack Harmon

A near-forgotten Mercury Cougar factory team, driven by Dan Gurney and Parnelli Jones, lost the 1967 Trans-Am title to Ford by just two points — then Mercury walked away from the series entirely before building the Eliminator two years later.

Mercury Gave the 1970 Cyclone a Gunsight Nose to Fight Chrysler’s Wing Cars – Then Fired the Designer Before It Ever Hit Showrooms

by Jack Harmon

Mercury wrapped the 1970 Cyclone’s nose around a gunsight-style grille built to counter Chrysler’s winged NASCAR cars, backed by a 429 Super Cobra Jet rated near 375 horsepower. The designer behind that face was fired within weeks of the car reaching dealers, and the real NASCAR homologation story is messier than the nose lets on.

Mercury Built Only 285 of These NASCAR-Mandated Specials — One Just Surfaced an Ocean Away

by Jack Harmon

Mercury built just 285 Candy Apple Red Cyclone Spoiler IIs to satisfy a 1969 NASCAR rule, and most of the few survivors stayed close to home. One just resurfaced at a British car show, won Best in Show, and is presumed the only one in the UK.

The 2003 Mercury Marauder Looks Like Grandpa’s Sedan — One Builder Made It a 900-Horsepower Sleeper

by Jack Harmon

A black Mercury Marauder built for retirees in 2003 is hiding a Mustang GT500 supercharger and a Coyote V8 under its vinyl-free hood. Fans in the comments call it “Grandpa’s Hellcat” for good reason — the stock version was already Mercury’s most overlooked muscle sedan.

Mercury Hid the Boss 302 Inside the 1970 Cougar Eliminator – Only 469 Buyers Got One, and This Survivor Is Rotting in Plain Sight

by Jack Harmon

A rare 1970 Mercury Cougar Eliminator, one of just 469 built with the 302 cubic inch Boss V8, sits exposed outside instead of in a garage. Historian Steve Magnante tracked it down, and the reason nobody will touch it says a lot about how rare muscle cars actually survive.

Mercury Buried Ford’s 428 Cobra Jet Inside a Car So Rare Only 91 Were Built Like It

by Jack Harmon

A Competition Orange 1969 Mercury Cyclone CJ hides the same 428 Cobra Jet V8 that made the Torino famous — and its Marti Report proves it’s 1 of just 91 built this way. Here’s why this overlooked Mercury is finally getting its due.

Mercury Built Only 2,250 Cougar Eliminators in 1969 — This One Traded Its Rare Factory Boss 302 for a Swapped 351 and Nobody Knows Why

by Jack Harmon

A Bright Yellow 1969 Cougar Eliminator is headed to a no-reserve auction with its original G-code paperwork intact, proof it left Dearborn with Ford’s rare Boss 302 and a mandatory four-speed. Somewhere along the way that engine vanished in favor of a 351 and an automatic, and nobody wrote down why. Whoever buys it next has to decide whether the car’s real value is in what it is now, or what it once was.

Mercury Buried the Marauder Name in 1965 — Four Years Later It Came Back With 480 Lb-Ft and Fender Skirts

by Jack Harmon

A forgotten Mercury nameplate returned in 1969 wrapped in leather, alloy wheels, and two-tone paint — hiding a 429 V8 that made more torque than most muscle cars of its era. Production barely topped 20,000 cars before Mercury killed the name for good.

Only 73 Buyers Ordered Ford’s Rarest 1970 Mercury Cyclone Engine — This One Still Has Every Piece of Paper to Prove It

by Jack Harmon

Ford built only 73 examples of the 1970 Mercury Cyclone GT with the ultra-rare 429 Super Cobra Jet Drag Pak package, and this survivor still carries its original invoice, Marti Report, and numbers-matching drivetrain. Under deceptively quiet Competition Yellow paint sits one of Detroit’s most overlooked muscle car engines, now dyno-tested past 500 horsepower.

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