Let’s just say that the reincarnated Comet wasn’t nearly as palatable as the original. Whereas the 1960 Comet may have shared some of the Falcon’s underpinnings, it earned a distinctive and rather charming fresh suit. The only thing the badge-engineered 1971 Comet got to distinguish it from its Maverick soulmate (CC here) was a different grille and taillights. Wonderful! No wonder I almost forgot I had shot this Comet GT on a darkening evening some time ago.
Since we covered the Maverick pretty thoroughly, what’s left to say? All the same goodness was present here too. Even the 170 CID six was standard; you’d think the Mercury version would at least rate the 200 incher as standard. Based on the astute comments then, we can surmise this one has either the 250 inch six or the 302 V8, based on its five lug wheels.
Oh wait; I just remembered I shot one through the windshield of the camper on a recent trip. A four door, just to make the collection complete. And today, you are the beneficiaries of my full Comerick collection. Lucky for you! It’s so exciting to present them to you, I’m practically speechless. So I’ll leave it to you to add some brilliant commentary.
Comet! They make your teeth turn green
Comet! They run on gasoline
Comet! They make you vomit
So buy a Comet, and vomit, today!
Looks like I wasn’t the only child that ate comet….
Wow! A flashback to when I was 14…
I hated that badge-engineering job back then and I still hate it today. If I’d wanted one of those I’d have bought a Maverick. That’s the most attractive version of that design. Less clutter…
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Gosh, I always thought that little ditty referred to the household cleaner. But in retrospect, it probably applies just as well to the car, which was pretty much an appliance.
A friend from school had a baby blue 4-door Comet that barely ran and was a total jalopy. He _HATED_ that car, but to be fair it was 20 years old by then.
there is a ‘mustard comet’ lives right up my street… still a ‘daily driver’ (the brave soul!!!). Its got vintage plates and a ‘Keep Portland Wierd’ sticker on it as well…
I spotted some interesting vintage commercials of the Comet, one featuring former hockey star Bobby Hull, I guess this ad was broadcasted during Hockey Night in Canada on CBC
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiwgfEQLtqE
And some other vintage Comet ads available at the “sign of the cat” 😉
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2S-cGa1tHQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2UhsGYGOsY&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7afErKSuPr4&feature=related
I mentionned in another thread about the Maverick then in Mexico, the Maverick was sold on its beginning as “Falcon Maverick”. I don’t think it was Iaccoca’s original idea to name it Maverick since most of the development might came under “Bunkie” Knudsen term.
Mercury could had continued to use the Comet moniker for the Fairmont counterpart instead of the Zephyr but that’s another story. 😉
IIRC, weren’t the Comets and maybe also the Mavericks unique from most other cars in the way their side marker lights worked? I remember being fascinated as a little kid because both the front and rear side markers blinked with the turn signals versus just the fronts (if at all) on other cars. Being too young to know the makes and models of cars when I saw this in the mid to late ’70s, I’m going off of my recollection of what the cars attached to those neet side lights looked like to me back then.
Yep, pretty much all Fords and perhaps Mercury’s and Lincolns had the flashing front and rear side marker lamps, but only 1970-71 model years though and Ford may have been the only one of the three to do this, after that, none of their side marker lamps flashed with the turn signals.
GM did only the fronts from at about 1970 or ’71 on through more recent years when it seems to have been phased out or the side marker lamps were integrated into either the front turn signals or taillights as Ford has done since the 1980’s.
I think Chrysler and Jeep connected the front side marker lamps with the turn signals on a few models but I doubt they do that now when not integrated into the front and rear turn signal/tail lamps.
A lot of cars now use a repearter lamp mounted on the side of the car to replicate the turn signal for easier viewing from the side.
Not all Mav-Coms; it may even have been specific to a certain plant build. I never saw one, old or newer, do that. And my family owned a 1974.
Most GM cars had the FRONT side light wink with the turn signals. And some Chrysler and AMC cars did. Jeep did it in the AMC years; and stopped with ChryCo ownership and engineering.
It’s no biggie how it was done. The side marker light would simply be grounded to the turn signal circuit. Daytime…current through the turn signals; that side light finds ground through the idle light circuitry. Nighttime…the side light is on, grounded through the idle turn-signal circuitry.
In the day, the side light would flash with the turn signals. With lights on, it would go OUT when the turn signals flashed on.
If you like the idea, you can easily wire your car that way. Take about five minutes a corner.
It would have sold much better with a cooler logo. Maverick had the bull horns, Comet should have had a chrome comet with a tail trailing behind it. 😉
With the bumper guards and side moldings and chrome window trim, that sedan looks like it has the Custom Exterior Decor Group, which turned it into a mini-Marquis of sorts.
I’d forgotten about this when you did the CC on the Maverick. Back when I bought my 86 Mercury Capri 5.0, I was looking for a winter beater. I found a 1974 Comet 2 door V8 model. It was a typical mid-70’s car, with all of the rust and leaky drivetrain.
I think the going price for one of these was $400, but the owner thought it was something special because it had a V8, he wanted something like a $1000-1200 for it. I didn’t bother relating my experiences with my V8 Maverick; I think I just borrowed my wife’s car that winter…
The hood scoop et’ me little brother.
Call me weird, but I’ve always sort of liked the MavComs. Maybe because they were so funky and oddball. Or maybe because of the incongruity- a luxury nameplate tacked onto a cheap, pseudo-sporty compact.
With a lightweight, large-displacement small block with an aluminum top end and some time-honored Shelby-style tweaks to the suspension, one of these would make a great “dare to be different” muscle machine that can haul butt and also handle, too.
A T-Bird SuperCoupe would make a great driveline donor for one of these. Including the IRS. If you really want to have some fun block off the silencer ports in the blower and overdrive it. You’d be heard from blocks away!
If it were 1972 right now and I were in a Merc store I’d have had no problem plunking down my money on a Comet V8 over a Montego or Cougar. At the Ford store I’d have had a problem between a Maverick Grabber V8 or Sportsroof Mustang(Sorry, I LOVE the Quarter Horse years)
Oh, wow, we have our Ten Minute Hate.
Now, I grant you, the Mavericked Comet isn’t a significant car, the way the original almost-Edsel Comet was. Nor was it a unique body – but then, was the Diplomat that different from the Volare it spawned?
No, Ford in those days was all about style over substance. Badge engineering was still new and shocked auto connoseiurs hadn’t developed a reflexive vomit reaction.
So, we’re agreed, the Comet is a Maverick sold at a different store. And the Maverick is a Falcon with a new skin, sold at a different time. Fair enough.
But, if a Maverick Grabber was worth having, for extra trim, should not a 302-equipped Comet, with its cleaner rear tail treatment, be worth considering? And was it not as significant as the Maverick, seeing as how it IS the Maverick?
It was Ford in a new age. A darker age; an age of con and flash and hype. An age that would close when the ultimate huckster would get hustled himself, right out the door…and turn that con into a last laugh.
But I digress. I’m sympathetic to the Com-Maverick for a simple reason: I like the rear treatment, the taillights taken from the Montego; devoid of chrome. I even like the front…the upright grille is not its best feature; but moving the turn signals up from below the bumper was a Good Move. And buried in black trim…I was always a sucker for a blackout grille.
It would be great if this Mercury could claim a long, colorful lineage in its own right. But the early 1970s were not the time for that sort of thing. As a four-wheeled driveway decoration and personal taxicab, I’d find it more than acceptable.
I must cast my vote for the smaller Pro-Comet crowd. I always liked the power-bulge hood and the Montego-style taillights on the car. I also liked the Comet’s cleaner wheel cover treatment over the early Maverick. Maybe it was because Mavericks were everywhere and the Comet was an occasional change of pace to look at.
As I recall, the Comet had a pretty nice optional upscale interior treatment which made the car a nice little mini-Marquis, particularly the sedans. So, for a badge-engineer job, there were worse.
The Mercury Comet may have been one of the best nameplates Mercury ever had, and (of course) they did almost nothing to build equity in the name.
That was the Custom Option, which was identical to the LDO (Luxury Decor Option) on the Maverick. This was more than a nice trim package, it actually included functional improvements like more sound deadener, spring isolators and voided spring bushings, a la Mustang Grande. My parents bought one in ’72. The early ones had nicer touches that the bean counters dumped in later years. Example, the carpeting was a 25 oz cut pile, same as a Mark IV.
Ours had the full option book, which admittedly wasn’t much in those days, but it did have AC and the 302. It was fairly punchy up to about 50 mph.
The seats in that package actually came from the Euro Ford Consul-Granada,
reclining buckets with the euro-type headrests. It was the car in which I first reached 100 mph, which was the top indicated speed of the thing.
The greatest downfall was the brakes, which were 4-wheel unassisted drum with no options available. At less than 2 years old, & 20,000 miles, the master cylinder &linings had to be replaced.
Later, we had a ’77 Granada with the same engine, and it was astounding what 5 years worth of malaise-era emissions compliance had done to the little Windsor. The Comet would have spanked that dog in a race,although top speed was the same 100 mph.
It sounds like the newer analog to your Comet was my Dad’s 76 Mercury Monarch Ghia. If Ford offered it, it was on the car (except the sunroof), including leather. That Monarch carried the cure for malaise – the 351. The speedo only topped out at 85 on the car, so I have no idea how fast I was going that one time.
I had a friend in high school (circa 1979-80) who inherited one of these from his aunt, who had only driven it for a couple of years. It was the two-door, can’t remember the exact year but it was at least a ’74 because it had the chunky bumpers on both ends. The only distinguishing thing about it was the color: it was bright orange, with matching interior. Sometimes hard to look at first thing in the AM on the drive to school.
I’m gonna buy myself a Mercury, cruuuuuuuuuuuuuise up and down this road…
I bought a ’72 Comet GT in 1974 for $1850. Red with black stripe. It had a 302 that I bolted on an Edelbrock hi rise, Holley 650 double pump 4 bbl, Accel dual point ignition, and Hedman headers. Keystone rims with Goodyear Polyglass tires, G60x14 on back and F70x14 on the front. One bad ass little car. Ran 14.20’s while street legal. Plenty of good memories in that car.