Vehicle Description
This car is like a well-dressed athlete. It sports the best cloths
Mercury had to offer in 1965 in its Caliente trim, and it's flexing
its muscles from the time it spent with its mechanical personal
trainers. Check it out.
The crisp clean lines of this squared off body were not around for
very long. They were created in '64 sharing its proportions and
chassis with the Mustang. In '65 it received a front-end facelift
that included the introduction of the stacked headlights. By '66
the car was redesigned again, moving up a segment in size. So, the
look of this car a thing of beauty that you won't see every day. It
leads with a simple rectangular grill with a red, white and blue
Mercury badge in the center flanked by those stacked headlights
trimmed in chrome and underlined by a chrome bumper. The fender
wells and rocker panel are also dressed out in chrome and there is
a V8 badge on the front fenders and Caliente in script on the rear
fenders. The rectangular theme continues at the rear with
horizontal bars of chrome running from side to side including
across the taillights. There is simple bumper underlining that look
with rectangular exhaust tips peeking out from underneath.
Open the door and you will find a dramatic Red and Black Caliente
interior. The door panels set the pattern in alternating bands of
black and red with chrome piping and a Caliente badge. The bench
seats have pleated seating surfaces trimmed boldly in red and man
do they look good! A beefy padded steering wheel is mounted on a
4-spoke hub and tilt column. Behind it is a stock dash with a
survivor look to it, but also some additions as a result of the
pumped-up physique of the drivetrain. The stock speedo and gauges
are supplemented by a trio of Sunpro gauges to keep accurate tabs
on oil pressure, water temp and voltage. There is a large tach
front and center on top of the dash, and the Hurst T-handle shifter
for the automatic transmission is obviously not a stock unit. An
extra pressure gauge keeps tabs on the air shocks and there is a
controller for the Gear Vendors overdrive unit that lets you tune
it to your needs.
Open the hood and you will find a 330 cubic inch stroker motor
nestled down in a neat and clean engine bay. Kirks Auto Machine
shop in Nashville was the personal trainer for this muscle. It's a
289 bored .030 over and stroked it to 330 with an Eagle rotating
assembly. Edelbrock handles all the intake duties from the filter
assembly, through the carburetor, intake manifold, and even the
aluminum cylinder heads. A Comp Cams bump stick operates the valves
through new rocker arms and guide plates to keep things moving
smoothly at speed. Long tube headers wind their way out through
free flow mufflers, and this car sounds awesome! The chassis
received as much attention as the engine too. There are air shocks
and traction bars at the rear to prevent axle wind up and hopping
so that the power gets to the ground effectively and a front end
has fresh bushings and a sway bar help the car handle well. Power
front disc brakes provide good stopping ability and the rubber
meets the road through 205/60R15s mounted on American Racing
wheels.
Come on down and check out this unique and powerful Comet dressed
up in its Caliente finest.