{"id":2877,"date":"2010-02-28T02:37:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-28T07:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/2010\/02\/tale-of-comet\/"},"modified":"2010-12-30T12:00:55","modified_gmt":"2010-12-30T17:00:55","slug":"tale-of-comet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/2010\/02\/tale-of-comet\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tale of the Comet"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dennis<\/a><\/p>\n

About three years ago I told the story of my first car<\/a>, a 1937 Ford convertible sedan<\/a>. It’s been a while since the subject came up, but recently Dennis David<\/a>, the CarPort’s western Connecticut scout, sent me a photo of his first car, a 1963 Mercury Comet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Comet<\/a>, of course, was basically a stretched Ford Falcon with fins<\/a>. Introduced in March 1960, its prices started at $1,998, just $86.00 above Falcon. First season sales, while not approaching its cousin’s 435,676, were a respectable 116,331 units, particularly considering the mid-model year start. Moreover, the new “companion” model pumped up Mercury’s overall sales by 80 percent.<\/p>\n

Body styles were the same as Falcon’s, a two-door sedan<\/a>, a four-door sedan<\/a>, a two-door station wagon<\/a> and a four-door wagon<\/a>. The wagons,which used all Falcon sheet metal from the cowl back, were devoid of fins<\/a>. (These are all 1961 models, which received a new grille.) Engine choices<\/a> were taken from Falcon, the basic 144 cid six and its larger 170 cid brother. The instrument panel<\/a>, too, drew from the Falcon parts bin.<\/p>\n

Nineteen-sixty-two brought yet another new grille<\/a>, and a cleaner-looking rear end with taillights moved from the fins<\/a> to the fenders<\/a>. Wagons, too, got new taillights<\/a>. The big news, however, was the S-22<\/a>, a dressed-up two-door with bucket seats<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For 1963, Comet, like Falcon, gained a convertible<\/a>, then, at mid-year, the new fastback hardtop<\/a> and a 260 cid V8. In 1964, there was new sheet metal<\/a>, a top-line Caliente series and an available 210 hp 289 V8<\/a>, christened “Cyclone<\/a>.” A 200 cid six became the base engine in 1965<\/a>, when the Cyclone was boosted up to 225 bhp.<\/p>\n

Thus ended the first generation Comet, since the 1966 models<\/a> were based on the 116-inch-wheelbase Fairlane. Comet sales had remained fairly steady between 135,000 and 193,000, significantly adding to Mercury’s bottom line.<\/p>\n

Dennis’s Comet rode a bit high<\/a> in the front, because the engine<\/a> was an optional extra. He finally did get it running, unlike my Ford, which lacked some vital parts<\/a>. Neither of us, though, ever put his first car on the road.<\/p>\n

Do you have some pix of your first car? Send them<\/a> to the CarPort.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About three years ago I told the story of my first car, a 1937 Ford convertible sedan. It’s been a while since the subject came up, but recently Dennis David, the CarPort’s western Connecticut scout, sent me a photo of his first car, a 1963 Mercury Comet. The Comet, of course, was basically a stretched….<\/span>
Read full article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,21],"tags":[22],"class_list":["post-2877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-cars","category-personalities","tag-comet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2877"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3197,"href":"https:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2877\/revisions\/3197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}