1964 Mercury Comet - Blame it on the Bossa Nova

Much like Dodge's "Dart", when I think of a "Mercury Comet", I first think of a small-car. Not surprising since I grew up in the 70's and a Mercury Comet when I was a kid was a compact car. And my first car was one of those "little" Comet's too. 

That wasn't the case in the 1960's as the Mercury Comet, while based on Ford's new-for-1960 compact Falcon, was a pretty big car; not full-size by the standards of the day but at one-hundred ninety-five inches long stem-to-stern, it was hardly what you could consider tiny. I literally ran into this red-on-red '64 the other night in the upholstery shop where I had work done to the driver's seat on my "new-to-me", 2004 Mitsubishi Eclipset GTS Spyder. It's either the smallest big car ever made or vice-versa. 

I'm not a Ford girl and perhaps it was the red-paint, the lighting, my excitement about getting my seat back, the cozy environ or the bossa nova, but I was all but slobbering over this thing like a five-year old on Chrustmas morning. 

The first "Comet" was actually slated to be a 1960 Edsel known as the Model B and was based on a one-hundred fourteen inch long version of the Ford Falcon's one-hundred nine inch base. The Edsel Model B was also more than thirteen inches longer than a Falcon. However, when Edsel went belly-up after model-year 1959, the car was rebranded as simply "Comet", similar to "Valiant by Chrysler", and was sold through Mercury dealerships. It was christened officially as a "Mercury Comet" stating in 1963. 

Ford, err, Mercury, redesigned Comet for 1964 using the same chassis the previous model used. Less than an inch longer than the "original" Comet, it's lack of tail-fins and straighter flanks gave the illusion that it was larger than it actually was. Which, somewhat ironically given that Comet was, for all intents and purposes a "smaller car", meant something back in the day when the size of a car supposedly mattered to American's. Was the Comet a big small car or a small big car? Personally, I think it's sized perfectly and a lot of buyers back then felt the same way; Comet sold pretty well. For a Mercury anyways. 

Our lovely red-head being a Comet "Cyclone" meant it was born with a "high-performance" 289 cubic-inch V-8 similar to the "Hi-Po" 289 cubic-inch V-8 of Mustang fame. In 1966, Mercury moved the Comet to the same intermediate chassis Ford used to under-pin their Fairlane. 

Comet became the awful Ford Maverick based turd of my childhood starting in 1971. Even back then I felt as though "my Comet" was a come-lately to a party that was quite the rager. Based on this '64, turns out I was right. 

About the only thing I learned about this car was that it was originally white, it was "frankenstiened" up the ying-yang and was in the shop getting a new headliner and rear seats to match the previously restored front buckets. 

The rest of my conversation with the shop owner was about keeping old leather in good shape. By the way, he recommended I use saddle soap and the same leather conditioner you'd use on a high quality leather jacket or sofa; never use Armour All or any leather cleaner you'd find in an Autozone or what not. Let the saddle soap dry completely before sitting on it too.