Mercury Cyclone

The Mercury Cyclone is a 2-door coupe / 2-door convertible from Mercury, built from 1964, in the decade that gave the world the pony car and the mid-engined supercar. Under the bonnet: gasoline engine.

How it came about

The Mercury Cyclone is an automobile that was marketed by the Mercury division of Ford from 1964 to 1971. Introduced in 1964 as the Mercury Comet Cyclone, the Cyclone replaced the S-22 as the performance-oriented version of the Mercury Comet model line. The Cyclone became a distinct nameplate for the 1968 model year, as the Mercury Montego was phased in to replace the Comet. Within Mercury, the Cyclone was positioned between the Cougar pony car and the Marquis/Marauder full-size two-doors.

Though largely overshadowed by the Cougar, the Cyclone was positioned as a muscle car, representing the Mercury brand in racing as a clone of the Ford Fairlane Thunderbolt. Four generations of the Cyclone were produced, with production ending after the 1971 model year. For the 1972 model year, the Cyclone returned as an option package for the Montego; only 30 examples were produced. Within the Mercury line, the Cyclone was not directly replaced. The Cougar XR7 was repackaged as a personal luxury version of the Montego for 1974.

The hardware

Power comes from gasoline engine. The layout matters: a front engine drives the rear wheels, the classic proportion — long bonnet, cabin set back — that most people picture when they picture a sports saloon or a grand tourer. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.

Family and rivals

Its family tree is legible: it took over from the Mercury S-22; its successor was the Mercury Cougar XR-7 (indirect). Its contemporaries in the catalogue — the Porsche 911, the Plymouth Barracuda, the Aston Martin DB5 — show what else the money bought that year. Its Mercury stablemates include the Mercury Bobcat and the Mercury Capri.

What it costs now

There is no federal ownership record for the Mercury Cyclone — it predates the complaint database or was never sold in the United States — so MotorJury publishes no running-cost figure for it. For a car of this age the price is set by the collector market and the condition of the individual example, not by a formula.