If you were a Ford loving American in the middle 1960s and wanted to buy a new car that would impress the guys at work, have room enough for your family, and still really haul some ass, you made the decision to buy a car like this from your local dealer. In the traditionally tiered brands of Ford and GM back then, Mercury meant you were doing better than the average Ford buyer and were on the way to the luxury of the aspirational Lincoln brand someday. Don’t be fooled by this car’s rather plain looks, it is a mover with a 345hp (rated) Q-Code 428 engine under the hood. The interior is spacious and cool with buckets up front and a really neat dash. As you can imagine, the back seat has plenty of room and the trunk is large enough to load most of the national gold reserve into. This is one of our favorite types of cars, the full-size luxury performance coupe.
The S-55 was actually making a return in 1966. It had not been offered in 1964 and 1965 but Mercury revived the designation for this car and package. Yes, there was an optional four speed, but this buyer went with the automatic. From what we have read, if the car was an early production piece it likely got a Cruise-O-Matic but if it was later in the run a mighty C6 would have been backing up Ford’s stout FE engine. You can see the cool S-55 badges on the car, the 428 call outs on the fenders, and the fancy schmantsy hub caps which are all part of the package. Few of these cars were sold. This one is part of a run that was less than 3,000 examples so you are not going to see a lot of them rolling around. Their asking price was about $3200 in 1966 money which converts to about $25,000 in today’s bucks. Today $25,000 gets you an uninspired heap, back then you were the king of the world.
The seller claims that the car had a repaint at some point in its life but we’re understanding that the rest of the car is as delivered original. There are 20,000 miles on the odometer and right now the bidding has made it to $12,500. That ain’t even close if we are guessing what the final number will be, let alone what the actual reserve is set at.
This is a neat car and a unique one as far as we are concerned when it comes to the full sized performance coupe grouping. Lots of Galaxies, Impalas, Caprices, and Polaras floating around out there but Marauder S-55s? Not so much! Pay the money and do some awesome burnouts as you cruise this classy machine!
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Very cool car. I prefer the styling on the ’64 Marauders though.
1966 was the first year for the 428. It really wasn’t a performance engine as it had a very small 435 CFM 4V carb. Personally, I would have liked to have seen this car have the Mercury 410/330 HP engine instead.
Awesome car… and a great find.
That is pretty damn sharp, would be a nice car to cruise!