Mercury dressed this Monterey to borrow Lincoln's prestige, right down to four horizontal headlamps — the whole lineup was marketed as styled 'in the Lincoln Continental tradition.'
Lead trim: Monterey 390 cu in FE V8 (250 hp, 1965) · up to 425 hp
Mercury Monterey1965–1968
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Nobody in Burbles has spotted a Mercury Monterey yet. See one on the street, point the app at it, and the first card is yours — with your @handle permanently credited on this page.
FactMercury dressed this Monterey to borrow Lincoln's prestige, right down to four horizontal headlamps — the whole lineup was marketed as styled 'in the Lincoln Continental tradition.'
For 1965 Mercury redesigned its full-size line, with the Monterey again the base-trim sedan: it grew to a 123 in wheelbase (4 inches longer than Ford), adopted an all-new chassis and a coil-sprung live rear axle, abandoning leaf springs. Still derived directly from the Ford Galaxie, Mercury sedans took many design elements from the Lincoln Continental ("in the Lincoln Continental tradition") with four horizontal headlamps instead of Ford's stacked pair and all vestiges of tailfins removed. It was offered in six body styles (two- and four-door sedans, a four-door sedan with a "Breezeway" rear window, two- and four-door hardtops and a two-door convertible), and the Commuter station wagon returned to the Monterey line as a lower-priced alternative to the Colony Park. The 1965 powertrain was carried over: a 250 hp 390 V8 standard, with optional 300 hp "Super" and 330 hp "Interceptor" versions and a 425 hp 427 V8 option. For 1966 the 390 was increased to 265 hp (275 with automatic), the Super and Interceptor were dropped in favor of a 330 hp 410 cubic-inch V8 (exclusive to Mercury) and the 427 replaced by a 345 hp 428 as the most powerful option; for 1967 four-door sedans got a more formal C-pillar, the reverse-slant Breezeway was discontinued, and the S-55 became an option package for full-size Mercury two-doors, overshadowed by the smaller Cougar; for 1968 the 410 was dropped, a 280 hp 390 introduced and the 428 detuned to 340 hp.
Collectors Spotted in the Mercury Monterey Lineage
No member has published a public street spot of the Mercury Monterey yet — the First · Worldwide stamp is wide open.
Trims & Figures
9 published trims in the catalogue. A blank is a figure not recorded, not zero.
| Trim | Years | Engine | Power | Torque | 0–60 | Drive | Gearbox | MSRP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monterey 390 Interceptor V8 (330 hp, 1965) | 1965–1965 | 6.4 L V8 | 330 hp | 427 lb-ft | — | RWD | — | — |
| Monterey 390 Super V8 (300 hp, 1965) | 1965–1965 | 6.4 L V8 | 300 hp | 427 lb-ft | — | RWD | — | — |
| Monterey 390 cu in FE V8 (250 hp, 1965) | 1965–1965 | 6.4 L V8 | 250 hp | 376 lb-ft | — | RWD | — | — |
| Monterey 390 cu in FE V8 (265 hp, 1966) | 1966–1966 | 6.4 L V8 | 265 hp | — | — | RWD | — | — |
| Monterey 390 cu in FE V8 (280 hp, 1968) | 1968–1968 | 6.4 L V8 | 280 hp | 427 lb-ft | — | RWD | — | — |
| Monterey 410 cu in FE V8 (330 hp, 1966) | 1966–1967 | 6.7 L V8 | 330 hp | 444 lb-ft | — | RWD | — | — |
| Monterey 427 cu in FE V8 (425 hp, 1965) | 1965–1965 | 7.0 L V8 | 425 hp | 480 lb-ft | — | RWD | — | — |
| Monterey 428 cu in FE V8 (340 hp, 1968) | 1968–1968 | 7.0 L V8 | 340 hp | 462 lb-ft | — | RWD | — | — |
| Monterey 428 cu in FE V8 (345 hp, 1966) | 1966–1967 | 7.0 L V8 | 345 hp | 462 lb-ft | — | RWD | — | — |
Owning one
We don’t estimate running costs for a car like this. What it costs depends on its condition, its specialist and how it is driven, and an average would mislead.
Owners’ builds
Nobody has claimed one yet.
Photographs
The Monterey Premier's heated AND cooled front seats were a segment first — rivals from Honda and Toyota had nothing like it.
By 1972 the Monterey had quietly become a different kind of car — for the first time, automatic transmission, power steering, and power brakes all came standard rather than optional.
Mercury dressed this Monterey to borrow Lincoln's prestige, right down to four horizontal headlamps — the whole lineup was marketed as styled 'in the Lincoln Continental tradition.'
For 1963, every non-convertible Monterey came standard with a power-retracting rear window nicknamed 'Breezeway' — its mechanism borrowed straight from Mercury's station wagon line.
This Monterey was drawn up as a maybe-Edsel before Mercury claimed it — so the design it ended up wearing was never meant to be a Mercury at all.
Chrysler debuted pushbutton shifting first, so for 1957 Mercury fired back with its own mechanical pushbutton transmission controls to compete head-on.
In 1955 the Monterey borrowed its engine straight from Ford's own halo car — the same 292 Y-block V8 doing duty under the hood of the new Thunderbird.
This Monterey's heater controls weren't styled like a car's at all — Mercury set them on levers angled like an airliner's flight deck, straight jet-age styling behind the wheel.
Rivals
Same body, same money, other badges — tap any card to flip.
This Presage minivan shares its underlying platform with the Teana sedan and the North American Murano crossover — one architecture doing three very different jobs.
Subaru's family-hauling Exiga got an unlikely STi treatment in 2009 — front spoiler, sport muffler, tighter suspension and a leather Momo wheel — but only 300 were ever built.
YRV stands for Young Recreational Vehicle, a mini MPV built to out-handle its own segment rivals.
The Terraza was Buick's first-ever minivan for the North American market - a badge-engineered cousin of the Chevrolet Uplander, Pontiac Montana SV6, and Saturn Relay.
The restyled 1994 Lumina Minivan quietly made American automotive history: it was the first minivan sold in the US with a power sliding door you could open by remote.
The first-generation Lumina APV minivan was nicknamed the "Dustbuster" by the press for its sharply sloped windshield, which pushed the dashboard far forward of the driver.
Its steeply sloped windshield gave the Lumina APV one of the deepest dashboards ever fitted to a mass-produced car.
The first Presage wasn't really its own car underneath — most of its parts came straight from the Nissan R'nessa, with more shared with its platform twin, the Bassara.