If asked what was the most outlandish car of the goofy mid-50s, my answer on many days will be the ’57-’58 Mercury. It was simply over the top, with cheap and ridiculous styling affectations slapped on everywhere, like those sugary multi-flavored sprinkles on an oversize ice cream cone.
The preview to the real thing was this 1956 show car, the XM-Turnpike Cruiser, it’s job being to warm up folks to what could be in their driveway all-too soon. Look at those twin jet nacelles under the bumper on each side; and the plexiglass roof with what presumably are lift-up sections to make ingress and egress easier.
A preview into a future that turned out to be a dead end, and one that would pop Ford’s great hope in the mid-price sector with Mercury and Edsel.
Yeah the subsequent production model was pretty over the top, especially in the front. They did manage to clean it up by ‘59.
If one could have turned the four “jet engine” nacelles or Dagmar bullets into machine guns, that would have been popular with Boston drivers to clear US 1 into town and the Mystic River Bridge traffic through the “Central Artery” and Storrow Drive.
“Cheap and ridiculous styling affectations slapped on everywhere”? How are these “affectations” any different from those that permeate most SUVs sold today? Perhaps people in the 50’s who rejected those “sugary multi-flavored sprinkles” were more grounded in reality than are buyers today.
At least the ’57-’59 Mercury provided a very special body style that I do not think any other manufacturer ever produced – the two door pillarless (B pillar) hardtop wagon. This is a car show extreme rarity; I have seen them as a ’57 or ’58 but probably never as a ’59.
Also, the ’57 introduced the Breezeway retractable glass to production Mercurys.
You mean like this?
Those are four-door hardtop wagons. Starting in 1957, Mercury offered two-door hardtop wagons. Unlike the 1955-57 Chevrolet Nomad and Pontiac Safari, those two-door Mercury wagons lacked a B-pillar directly behind the front door.
That back section transition is about as jarring as the awkward belt line jump on the Honda Odyssey. Were the designers blind (in both cases)?
Or this?
Those are both four door wagons.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Merc2drwagon.jpg
Here ya go.
VD: you need some new glasses!
You are correct!
One of the most awesome wagons ever made. Maybe the awsomest. The roof rack alone is worth the price of admission.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUl8tqpJr9M
The Dodge version, in black like your example, equally awesome and with the roof rack and dual Airtemp AC:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU3iIDQ2VJQ
Definitely one of these in my dream car garage. And practical too! OK, maybe could do with a modern drivetrain to double the gas economy and reduce emissions by about 1000%. These are from before even crankcase recirculation.
Ah yes, the Commuter
The Turnpike Cruiser is awful. It was Brougham, before Brougham. What the TC had was very similar to what Lee Iacocca mined a decade later after panty-cloth interiors, wood-grain appliques, pot-metal hood ornaments, padded vinyl roofs, opera lights, shag carpeting and pillow-tufted crushed velour was available.
If Mercury was able to procure those Brougham clichés in 1957 – it would have been a different story. Instead, we see post-WWII styling clichés with jet fighter styling shop-screwed onto a Ford. Mercury got high on its own marketing supply. We’ve seen the World’s Fair previews of our automotive opportunities, and the TC became an Omnibus on wheels.
Radio-controlled, Fighter-jet-styled, atomic-design, Sputnik-inspired, nuclear-powered Turnpike transportation that would ensure that your transcontinental cruise from New York to Los Angeles would make Batman giggle like a little German girl.
Throughout this era, Detroit kept showing us these kinds of cars in front of Bauhaus minimalist homes, which were 180 degrees opposite in design. Until the 1961 Continental was unveiled, our Detroit rides were the antithesis of this styling language. The famous Seagram’s Manhattan tower may have been seen as the future in architectural design, yet that 1956 skyscraper’s aesthetics failed to reach Detroit for another few years – but the Mad Men at the Detroit Big Three couldn’t help themselves and used the Bauhaus design as backdrops. A 1958 Oldsmobile, a 1958 Imperial, a 1958 Continental Mark II, and many other gauche rides all appeared next to minimalist architectural gems as though they mimicked that look.
Ford tried too hard with the Mercury TC and the Edsel, and the Lincoln during this time and lost fortunes doing it.
Sorta like your basic salad, with overdone dressing to add some taste. The result is still lacking in substance, but they keep hyping the dressing and hope you won’t notice.
To put things in the context of the times, the late fifties was the advent of the space age and the country was caught up in everything modern and futuristic. Everything from cars to appliances to new homes was designed with a futuristic bent. Philco Predicta televisions, garish contemporary homes and ‘57 and ‘58 Mercuries, and the ‘58 Edsel, were perfect examples. Dual radio antennas (one fake), steering wheel transmission buttons, outlandish fins, acres of chrome and various space age cues were the norm. This styling phase flamed out quickly and by 1962 it was basically over.
I do not appreciate car designers’ fascination with glass roofs. It’s a lazy way of attracting attention.
I see this era of auto design as what happened when Detroit listened to guys with Marketing degrees.
Could this be the first car to have what would be come to known as T-tops?
So the jet engines are a bit much, but I think the front end design is actually pretty handsome, the shark like forward angle of the nose is a lot like the forward look 57 Plymouths and the separate bumpers U shaped containing the jetmars is pretty nice. It’s actually a shame the 57, 58 and 59 didn’t look more like this really, the 57 is the closest with its grille and single headlights but it’s upright and blocky, 58 is multitudes worse than this as far as being over the top and 59 just looks dull, like a tarted up Ford.
Thankfully the original concept was rescued and is being fully restored! Say what you will about the outlandish design but it’s great it will be restored to its former glory and will stand as cool artifact from a crazy time!
https://www.hemmings.com/stories/2020/03/31/two-years-on-tom-maruska-has-made-astounding-progress-on-the-mercury-xm-turnpike-cruiser-concept-car
The restorer’s website with tons of photos and updates:
http://www.tommaruskacars.us/
To my eyes the ’57-58 Merc was the least outlandish of the era. It was essentially rectangular, with no flying fins or protruding wings. The ’59 was wilder, more like the concept car.
Speaking of Mercury, a ’62 Meteor appeared in the neighborhood this morning. Black four-door, looks like a well-kept original. The ’62 Fairlanes were common but didn’t last; the Meteor version was never common when new.
Paul wrote about the modern look of the Edsel from 1959, which is very similar to the Mercury, and he pointed to the modern rectangular overall design.
The Most Advanced Styled American 1959 Car
The ’57 Mercury was billed as “America’s first production Dream Car” that you can actually DRIVE and BUY now! The idea of driving around in an actual Dream Car “Straight Out of Tomorrow” must have been very exciting for many people. Worlds ahead of that old 1954 plodder you were trading in!
Ed Sullivan keeps telling the audience about the “Big M”, as though the sponsor is Ex-Lax and All Bran breakfast cereal.
Paul…do not think you have automotive historical experience to crit this concept auto.
You’re right. I take it all back. It’s a brilliant timeless classic.
If one assumes that being from here gives special entitlement to judge mid-century American car design (you can’t), I’ll confidently state that — born in 1950 in Pennsylvania — nobody on this forum has more cred than I do. I was infatuated with American cars from the late ’50s as an 8-year-old–in the same way I was infatuated with Playboy magazines as a 13-year-old. Both were plainly production wet dreams for the still maturing — in one case, the adolescent mind, in the other, an adolescent culture. But, you grow up. A European emigré from that era could apply a less self-indulgent filter to strain out the design wheat from the chaff, while maintaining admiration for the things American cars could do so well, like eating up the miles on the fresh-laid Interstates.
Hehehe! That’s really rather good.
Feast your eyes on the production version. Pretty creative way to squeeze those futuristic dual headlights under the single headlight brow. A bit like 1958 Chevy front turn signals, both a lot like B-52 engine nacelles.
Innovative, and yet still ugly.
I don’t think your definition of “feast” is the same as ours.
And the rear 3/4 view. Charles Phoenix really has to get his hands on one of these for his YouTube channel.
We got a used Merc “4 door hrdtp” around 1962. Was a “57”/pink &black Montclair I believe.
Lasted till 1965. The rust was becoming rather “pervasive” from what I hear.My sister learned to drive, got her license in it.
She says it was fun/quirky with the ‘squarish steering wheel, push button trans, big rumbling motor.
Remember the big back seat rust hole round the antenna.
I always thought that the 57-58 Mercury was a decent basic shape with more crap hung on it than anyone would have thought possible. I consider Peak Weird Mercury (PWM) as the 1959 model. Other than a slightly toned-down front end, everything else on the basic shape got turned to 11, from the over-the-top side sculpting to the droopy-rear sedan roofs. And much of it was still from this XM, which was evidently the gift that kept on giving in Mercury styling studios. So many bad ideas came from this prototype!
Ah, yes, the Mercury Turn n’ puke Loser concept. Mercury’s determination to seek an innane ovation for being at the Storefront (of a junkshop) of automotive styling. A Preview of the Failure.
It cannot be a coincidence that the hilarity which is the Bruce McCall Bulgemobile bears many resemblances.
If we’re talking of XMs, I prefer the Citroen to this Mercury Turnip Crusher.
Did Mercury ever say what the XM-part of the name was for – or weren’t we supposed to ask? 🙂
“XM” stands for eXperimental Mercury.