Photos courtesy of Andrew Tewes.
(Update: This model was wrongly identified when this post was first published. The text has been updated).
A good number of my hipster students have a veneration for the ’60s. The cool sixties that is; admiring all the ‘youth culture’ tropes associated with the decade. And while youth culture was really a thing, we know the decade still belonged to the grown-ups. Or the ‘squares.’ After all, that’s the period of my parents’ early adulthood; both certified bonafide ‘squares.’ You want some fun? Play some Mantovani or Herb Alpert on the turntable. Excitement? A visit to Sears will provide a good jolt.
Naturally, many products of the period were aimed at those ‘squares.’ But even ‘squares’ have to let their hair down from time to time, and add a bit of panache to their lives. And for such an occasion, a Mercury Park Lane convertible could do the job, fittingly belonging to Ford’s square-styling period.
I really don’t mean the ‘square’ term as a snub. After all, no classmate of mine would ever refer to me as cool. I’m such a ‘square’ church ladies approach me and feel safe next to me. Really. But even ‘squares’ find moments to add a bit of pizzazz, relax a bit, and even buy a Hawaiian shirt. Maybe learn a few steps of salsa or tango. I certainly have done such things, although I admit my dancing could improve.
As told in a previous similar vintage Mercury at CC, this generation was part of Ford’s square-styling period. But while many Ford products had a rather plain look, the detailing on these Mercurys had a more substantial presence. It’s clear the line was applying Lincoln cues in its language, and the result is a certain degree of suaveness, particularly with the top down.
This is one of 2,546 Park Lane convertibles built in 1966 and was found near Brisbane, in Queensland. And while I’m no Mercury fan, I think this Park Lane is actually pretty cool in this presentation. Not too bad, for a ‘square.’
Further reading:
There is one of these down the road from me for sale, $30k. It’s been for sale for 12 years i think now lol
Great way to show off to our girlfriend.
I remember seeing this model year in station wagon form as a boy. A teenager in sneakers was tying things on the roof . He had the perfect level edging to move back and forth along the length of the car and easily access the roof.
Even at the age of 5, I couldn’t help but notice how much the rear of a 66 Merc aped a 63 Pontiac.
Yes! I drove one of these SAME color, but the frame was so rusted that my emergency brake cable got stretched, and did not work! This was in the late 80s.
These were fine cars despite taking some styling inspiration from Pontiac. This was during the era when Mercury was trying to move more upscale again, after its unsuccessful fling with near luxury in the 1957 to 60 model years.
When my aunt moved out of our house in 1966 after getting married, we had an extra garage space available. There was a man interested in renting the space for his 1966 Mercury convertible. However, the car was too long to fit in our garage, which was only 18 ft in length.
One of the few Mercurys I find more attractive than its Ford counterpart. The sculpting also looks much like that on the big ’65-66 Chryslers, which is a good thing. The curvy ’65 GM biggies doomed this look though, and it was gone by the end of the decade (except on Darts and Valiants which looked like ’60s cars right up to the last ’76 models (and even later in foreign markets).
Brisbane” would be a cool nickname for this big ride.
Oh, I dunno. Sir Thomas Brisbane was just another landed gentry type, albeit Scottish, whose qualifications for the job as Governor of the (then) Colony of New South Wales consisted only of having been promoted through the British military (and included him fighting the US in 1815, btw!). He only lasted from 1821 to 1825, and not surprisingly, considering his qualifications, was just your usual colonialist type: impose your culture, shoot the indigenous, etc etc.
Later on, a white explorer found a river up north, and named it the Brisbane River: later, the convict settlement up there was likewise named, and is now the capital of the State of Queensland.
So, Brisbane’s more tool than cool in my (biased) book.
Still a cool cruiser of car, but I’d call it, I dunno, Steven. Or, this being Oz, more likely Steve-o.
Interesting, never heard of the man beyond the city name. Sir Brisbane won the immortalized name lottery, it seems. Being in the right place at the right time pays off! It’s a great name, sounds so very Australian to me.
It does sound pretty Aussie – all in the nose.
But Australia being Australia, the locals there universally call it “Brizzy”….
I have always considered the 66 Mercury a huge improvement over the 65, which contained too many kludgy details for my tastes. I have long been some version of “Mr. Square”, and I heartily approve of this car. 🙂
Yes, this car was all about “the adult 60’s” and not the “youth 60’s” that had much better PR. These always remind me of Dean Martin’s Matt Helm movies, which featured him driving a 66 Mercury wagon in at least one of them. It also needs Frank Sinatra’s “That’s Life” coming from the AM radio speaker.
Speaking of Mr. Square, IIRC, I think John Glenn drove a early/mid-sixties Mercury convertible while most (if not all) of the other Mercury 7 astronauts got sweetheart lease deals on Corvettes from a local dealer.
Love all of the socies and 70s cars.
Not nearly like the convertible, but this reminds me of our next-door-neighbor’s Park Lane Wagon when we lived in Burlington. I was friends with one of their sons, so I got to ride in it several times. They were a Mercury family having also a ’63 Comet. I liked the “woven” grills that mid 60’s Mercuries came with.
Later on, my Dad started buying full sized Fords (a ’69 Country Squire was the first) and many years later bought 3 Sables back-to-back…by then, he’d abandoned his “import car with a manual transmission” as a 2nd car phase, but of course he was retirement age and mid-sized domestic cars were still pretty common for that market.
Don’t know what happened to their Park Lane. My Dad got transferred to northern Virginia (we moved around a lot for his job) but 5 years later got transferred back up to Vermont where they lived another 7 years, but in a different town, by then I’d lost contact with friends I knew while in grade school including our next-door-neighbor.