AccessMyLibrary provides FREE access to over 30 million articles from top publications available through your library.
Create a link to this page
Copy and paste this link tag into your Web page or blog:
Byline: JOHN F. KATZ
IN 1963, MERCURY RE-discovered performance. The base-level six-cylinder engine that the full-size Merc shared with Ford, along with the 292-cid and 352-cid V8s, were dropped, so power choices started with a 250-hp 390. Lincoln-Mercury racing veteran Bill Stroppe was hired to field a factory stock-car team.
Oddly, then, 1963 also marked Mercury's revival of the reverse-slanted Breezeway rear windowgreat for ventilation, questionable for aesthetics and awful for high-speed aerodynamics.
Ford Division boxed itself in by adopting formal rooflines derived from the Thunderbird. In 1962, Ford tried unsuccessfully to sneak past NASCAR officials with the Starlift, a removable hardtop for Galaxie convertibles. A better solution arrived in mid-'63, when both Ford and Mercury released fixed hardtops with fastback styling. Mercury called its version the Marauder, and it lived up to the name.
Stroppe figured that the Marauder roof was worth 4.5 mph, for maybe more than 160 at the top end, when powered by Ford's new 410-hp, 427-cid V8 (also called the Marauder when installed in a Mercury). In January 1963, Troy Rutt-man was third in NASCAR's revived Riverside 500. Then Parnelli Jones drove a Stroppe Marauder up Pikes Peak in record time in "63 and again in "64, while also clinching the 1964 USAC stock-car championship.
Mercury added a four-door Ma-rauder for "64 and brought back the Park Lane label for a max-deluxe model featuring ...
Source: HighBeam Research, SAILING AGAINST THE BREEZE(WAY).(NEWS)(Ford Motor Co. Lincoln-Mercury...