This is a 1964 Mercury Comet Cyclone with a 289 cubic inch V8 and a 4-speed manual transmission, it comes with a matching custom motorcycle that required over 1,000 man-hours to complete.
The motorcycle was built to follow the design cues of the car, including the dual headlights and unusual front end, the side profile, and the rear end with the unusual canted fins.
This matching motorcycle comes with the car, it’s been carefully customized to look as much like it as possible, apparently taking over 1,000 hours.
The Mercury Comet Cyclone
The Mercury Comet Cyclone debuted in 1964 as the high-performance version of the standard Mercury Comet. The Comet Cyclone was based on the two-door Ford Falcon of the era, as was the Ford Mustang which first appeared in the same year.
Interestingly, the “Comet” name was already trademarked by the Cotner-Bevington as the Comet Coach Company, who built ambulances and hearses on production automobiles of the time. Ford bought the name from them in 1959.
The Mercury Comet Cyclone, as well as the Falcon and Mustang, featured a steel unibody chassis, independent front suspension, and a live axle rear end on leaf springs.
The Cyclone was originally an option package for the Mercury Comet, featuring a more sports car look, a spoked steering wheel, chrome wheel covers, a center console, bucket seats, a tachometer, and a Super Cyclone 289 cubic inch V8 producing 210 bhp, featuring some chrome dress up parts.
The performance of the Mercury Comet Cyclone was on par with the Ford Falcon two-door and the Mustang, as they were all close to identical under the outer sheetmetal, but for some reason the Mercury just didn’t catch on in the same way.
Sales of the Comet Cyclone were under 10,000 units for 1964, not particularly good by Ford’s standards, but despite this it was updated for 1965 and remained in production, based on the updated 1965 Falcon.
Mercury did their best to extoll the performance virtues of the Comet, but it never caught on in the same was as the Falcon Sprint or Mustang. Image courtesy of Mercury.
Sales would increase to over 12,000 for this year, the Cyclone would be updated each year until 1971, and it would become a standalone model series in 1968, rather than just a high-performance option package.
The Cyclone would disappear as a model line in 1972, once again becoming a performance option package, now only available on the Mercury Montego.
The 1964 Mercury Comet Cyclone Shown Here
The car you see here is a lightly modified 1964 Mercury Comet Cyclone finished in red with chromed steel wheels, dual hood intakes at the leading edge, and perhaps most importantly, an included trailer with a custom motorcycle designed to match the car.
The Comet Cyclone has the Super Cyclone 289 cubic inch V8 and a 4-speed manual gearbox with a 3.25 rear end. The engine has been fitted with a Mallory ignition and an Edelbrock intake manifold, and it looks to be in exceptional condition throughout.
The motorcycle started life as a Honda Nighthawk, a transverse inline-four cylinder motorcycle that was based on the concurrent Honda CB750 design but featured more America-centric cruiser styling.
This Mercury Comet Cyclone is powered by the 210 bhp Super Cyclone 289 cubic inch V8, fitted with an Edelbrock intake manifold, and a Mallory ignition.
This Comet Cyclone custom Nighthawk now features red bodywork to match the car it comes with, right down to the headlights and tail end. The car, motorcycle, and trailer are all now being offered together as a combined lot by Mecum at their upcoming Florida auction on the 11th of July.
If you’d like to read more about the car, or the motorcycle, you can visit the listing here. At the time of writing there is no price guide listed, but we’ll update if one is added before the sale.
Images courtesy of Mecum
Articles that Ben has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
