Here’s one for you Murkin Car Guys. As any fule kno, I am fairly knowledgeable about Brit and Euro cars, much less so when it comes to Murkin ones because I’m an iggerant furriner my heritage, car-wise, is not American. Sure, I’m reasonably familiar with some brands and types, but those are mostly the “exotic” ones like the AC Cobra and some Corvettes.
But when it comes to “mass market” American cars, I have to plead the Fifth, not for fear of self-incrimination but because I don’t want to show my ass ignorance.
Here’s a good example. I get updates from Hemmings.com each day, and mostly I’m only interested if there’s a “new” Ferrari or similar. But yesterday’s update featured a car of whose brand I know next to nothing, and hardly anything at all about its place in time.
So, Gentle Readers, talk to me about this convertible:
1966 Mercury Comet Convertible – 1 of 2,158 Ever Made, Numbers Matching and Professionally Restored

From the blurb: This Mercury muscle car is powered by a numbers-matching 390 S-Code four-barrel engine producing 335 horsepower mated to a Sport shift Merc-O-Matic transmission and a 3.25 locker rear differential upgrade.
All I got from the above is “335 horsepower”. I don’t know what the relationship between Ford and Mercury was back then — I know that now, Mercury is Ford’s “upscale” sub-brand — or that Mercury even made muscle cars (thinking that was mostly Pontiac or Dodge’s domain).
I have no idea how the “Merc-O-Matic” tranny was regarded back then; was it a monster, better than others, or just a label slapped on an ordinary tranny?
And don’t even ask me to decipher “390 S-Code four-barrel engine” without resorting to WikiPedia…
Finally: in its apparently-restored condition, is the asking price of ~$70 grand good, laughable or a bargain?
Of course, I’m not going to try and buy it — hell, I wouldn’t accept the thing as a gift* because it’s hideously ugly to my non-Murkin automotive sensibility, and I have no idea how the thing handles, either. My experience with 1960s American cars is that they handled like barges and cornered like they were on a skid pan — but was this particular model better than its contemporaries?
My interest is academic only.
All responses gratefully received.
*although had they offered TV spokesmodel Jill Wagner as an optional extra, I might have been sorely tempted, back in the day.

