Muscle Car Files
Tony salutes Mercury' s offering to great NASCAR war soft he late Sixties/ early Seven ties, the Mercury Cyclone Spoiler ...
T he adjective 'rare' is often overused in the classic car hobby, with the dictionary defining the word as meaning: 'not common and therefore sometimes valuable'. The stunning Mercury featured in this month's column perfectly fits the description of rare, as a one-of-one 1970 Cyclone Spoiler. This car is a fourth-generation Cyclone and the last body style of the breed, before it was amalgamated into the 1972 Montego range as a Cyclone Package, of which only 30 were built.
In 1970 the car grew almost an extra seven inches, taking its overall length to 209.9 inches and weighing in at a hefty 3947Ib, yet still using the 11 7-inch wheelbase from previous years. Most of the extra length and weight can be attributed to the new front-end and reworked wings, which really makes this model noticeably different from anything else that Mercury had produced. From certain angles it appears to be giant 'W' grafted on to the car. That extraordinary gun-sight grilled nose, with two running lights either side, certainly stood out in a crowd and buyers either loved it or hated it.
The 1969 Cyclone Spoilers were so good that Ford never even bothered to homologate the 1970 models, of which they would need to build 2000, instead coming into the fray two years later with Montego front ends, as NASCAR relaxed the rules to allow up to three-year-old body styles to compete.
David Pearson, Ford legend, three times champion winner of NASCARand top driver for the factory-backed Holman-Moody team, joined the independent Wood Brothers outfit when Ford pulled the plug on funded race car participation in 1972. Driving Mercurys, including the red and white Purolator-sponsored Cyclones as car #21, 1973 saw him enter 18 out of 28 races, with 11 wins. Pearson had a 61 %-winning average - a NASCARrecord that is unbroken to this day. The Grey Fox, as Pearsonwas known, raced the '7071 Spoiler-bodied cars through to 1979, when he ended his association with the Blue Oval boys.
The only engine options for the car were both Ford's 429cu in V8 heavy hitters: the Cobra Jet and Super Cobra Jet. Standard in the Spoiler was the CJ giving an advertised 370bhp, though realistically it was more like 400bhp and for a bigger bang you could choose the Super Cobra Jet, with a power curve up to 430! For the extra horses, the customer had to be savvy and order the $96 Drag Pack with an axle ratio of 3.91.1 or the Super Drag Pack 4.30.1 in a Detroit Locker nine-inch Ford rear end.
All this gave you a screaming Cyclone street machine, with a Competition Handling Pack, front chin and rear deck spoilers and Hi- Back bucket seats. There was also ram-air induction integrated into the hood, feeding the 780cfm Holley four-barrel carb, sitting atop a custom inlet manifold.
Stock transmission was a four-speed manual top loader with Hurst shifter or you could order the Ford Select-Shift automatic as an option.
Six 'Grabber' colours were available as standard: blue, orange, yellow, green, coral and platinum, including Ford's 'house of colours' for special orders, giving the buyer carte blanche in the paint department.
The dashboard saw an array of real gauges that included oil pressure, coolant temperature, ammeter and a massive tachometer, all angled towards the driver. Finishing things off, the fascia had a 1 30mph-plus speedometer and a clock, with a three-spoke woodgrain-effect steering wheel. All 1970 Cyclones were built at the Lorain Assembly Plant, Ohio.
In terms of production figures, Mercury built 13,496 Cyclones; 1631 were Spoilers, with 341 429 Super Cobra Jets containing the Drag Pack and Super Drag Pack. Only 31 came through with Special Paint Treatment, of which one happened to be painted black, with a black interior, including knitted black bucket seats, black tape stripes and an automatic, which makes this car unique. It was built in May 1970, obviously as an 'ordered' car with a huge file of paperwork accompanying it and a detailed Kevin Marti report from Ford's number one historic guru. I tracked the car down to Kent via specialist classic car dealer Carrington Cars.
The Mercury apparently was "just passing through". I still have no idea where it is today, but you can well imagine that Cyclone totally
* swept me off my feet!