(first posted 2/25/2016) I inherited my grandfather’s large collection of Kodakchrome slides. I knew he was fond of taking pictures of his cars, and there were many. I’ve scanned all the slides in and this seems to be the most documented of his cars, without pictures of family members anyway. These are some pictures he took of the Marquis on a spring Sunday afternoon in 1972, on the village square in Milan, Ohio, just before Sunday dinner at the Milan Inn. He was likely killing time until our family arrived, as our car is directly behind his in one of the pictures.
My Grandfather, born in the early 1900’s, had a lifelong love of driving and the automobile. He started driving at a young age, on a tractor on the farm. He had many, many cars throughout his lifetime.
By the 1950’s, he was at the peak of his career. As one of the most respected men in town, and the president of his own successful business, he was able to afford his own personal car as well as have the luxury of having a company car. For his personal car, his “Sunday Car” as he called it, he typically had a high-line Chrysler or Mercury, and his company car was typically a lower trim level Dodge or Ford. His “Sunday Car” was obviously always his pride and joy, and was reserved for typical Sunday use: Church, Sunday dinner after service, and the occasional vacation trip.
In the spring of 1972, his garage was home to a 1972 Mercury Marquis (Sunday Car) and his company car, a 1972 Ford Gran Torino coupe.
He had the 1972 Mercury longer than most of his cars, he typically traded every two years, but this one he held onto until 1975…to be replaced with a new 1975 Mercury Marquis Brougham 4 door, in the same colors.
As he retired in 1972, he had to turn in the company car. Now that he didn’t have to be as frugal with company money, his splurged a little bit. His weekday, around town car was a new 1973 Thunderbird, to replace the company Torino.
(Note my parents’ 1972 Pontiac Catalina Brougham behind the Mercury)
Thank God for Kodachrome. If these shots had been taken on period print film, they would be in bad shape. Even Ektachrome wouldn’t have held up as good. I do miss Kodachrome. I used a lot of it myself. And as a owner of a 76 Grand Marquis, they sure were good looking cars. That Burgandy (red?) was gorgeous.
Amen to that. Kodachrome was amazing. These shots have some artifacts that scream “FILM!” like some of the chrome blowing out, but otherwise they look like they were taken yesterday (on a film set, maybe, where they brought in a bunch of classic cars).
Ever seen an old Agfachrome? Yikes! I think Agfachromes started fading about 15 minutes after they were processed…
A few years ago I scanned several boxes of family slides, starting from when my father got his first camera in 1956. The Ektachrome slides had deteriorated badly, but the Kodachrome slides were in astonishingly good condition.
I remember reading a Consumer Reports (I think) test of the big Mercury, Pontiac, Olds, Chrysler, in 72′ and the Mercury won.
The Chrysler, dead last. ( I THINK )………. Was there an AMC in that test????
When i turned 50 in 2013 my memory turned 100……
Somebody find that test and post it so i can find out how wrong i am !!
I found the cover………
Ok, no Pontiac.
The Mercury won in 73 too. I believe that was the last time until the 79’s that CR tested a full size Mercury.
Maybe an Ambassador in the background of the second shot?
Thanks for sharing this time capsule Redram, and the story behind it. It is a little coincidental that the photos were taken in a town with the same name that would adorn a future Mercury model.
That’s a beautiful color, very similar to the Crimson Red Pearl on my Civic.
I grew up in a small southeast Ohio town and a good friend’s dad had both a DD and a Sunday car. The pair I remember best was the ’78 Chevy Scottsdale Big 10 (w. 454) in mint green and white and the ’76 Buick Electra 225 2-door (w. 455) in gold. Man, did that Electra have presence!
My friend still has the Scottsdale.
Almost reminds me of the Plymouth Sport Fury GT posted here a week or so ago. Just think, a little suspension tuning, a mild Boss 429 under that hood….sigh…
What a sharp Mercury – it had real presence. And I love the period photos of it in Milan, OH and also enjoyed reading about your grandfather. Thanks for this great post.
Long time victim of Mercury poisoning here. The colour looks like Black Cherry one of my favourites
Isn’t Milan, OH, pronounced locally “MY-lan”?
Milan Indiana is…dunno about Milan OH.
Versailles IN is also pronounced “Ver-sales”, which blows my mind. Guess it’s no worse than “Ka-Ro” Illinois.
Normal American pronounciation. There’s a district in the Pittsburgh called North Versailles Township. Pronounced Ver-sales. Also, in central Pennsylvania there’s a town that’s an exit on I-80 called DuBois.
Pronounced Doo-boys.
Americans have a wonderful time with French words, the most famous happening back in 1917 when American troops were billeted in the French town of Luneville. Which, of course, the Americans pronounced Looney-vil.
We had a guy named DuBois in one place where I worked – people tended to call him “Dubious”.
Mr. DuBois ? The lumberjack ?
North American pronunciation. My mother’s aunt lived on Marquis street. The locals called it Mar-Kwiss.
My entire life I have to deal with a last name that can’t be pronounced, in english anyway. My father had accepted the americanized pronounciation but I found it endlessly frustrating whenever there was a need for someone to take down names. No Roger is not my middle name. No, that’s not right either. My high school was in a predominantly Italian area so I have been using their pronounciation ever since. The worst ever was my boss years ago decided we should all have name tags so he phoned in an order. He was Quebeqois french and I wound up with Ruggerhead. Apparently the french can’t pronounce it either.
Last September I handed my passport to the official behind the desk and was greeted properly for the first time ever by a total stranger. It made me so happy until I realized I was in Schiphol Airport. Oh well.
Actually, that is close to the British (that is English and Scottish), as opposed to French, pronunciation.
However, the Scots use the French spelling for this rank of peerage; in England it is Marquess.
Well, there’s Lima, OH (lie-ma) and my personal favorite, Bellefontaine, OH (bell fountain).
Don’t forget Cairo, OH pronounced KAYRO like the syrup…
My Dad’s cousin still owns and operates a automotive body shop there.
And CALous, Maine (like the sore on a toe, not caLAY, but spelled like Calais, France).
Pierre, the capital of South Dakota, is pronounced “Peer”.
Yes, pronounced My-lan. Funny, I live in Tennessee now and there is a small town here by the name of Lafayette. The Tennessee pronunciation is Luh-fey-it, whereas the “Yankee” pronunciation is Laphy-ett.
There’s a Milan (My-lan), Tennessee, as well – my great aunt worked in the Milan Arsenal during WWII, making ammunition.
There is a Milan (My-lan), Illinois, as well. Adjacent to the IL – IA “Quad Cities” area of Rock Island/Moline IL and Davenport/Bettendorf IA…
We have a town here in Maryland called Taneytown. For some reason, the locals pronounce it TAW-nee-town. One would ask, where’s the W in that first syllable?
I guess it’s like that town in Washington State called “Spokane”. The locals say “Spoh-KAN”, when the way it’s spelled, you would think it rhymes with an illicit white powder that was popular to put up one’s nose in the 80’s. ;o)
Aloha Oregon, pronounced Aloa.
That was the early American pronunciation of Taney. See 5th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Roger Taney (notorious for the Dred Scott decision), prounouced TAWnee.
How about Gravois Rd in South St. Louis County MO…the local pronunciation varies, I think the most common may be “grav (like gravel, not grave), Oy”, but sometimes there is an “s” sound on the end.
Or Creve Coeur MO…”Creve Core” with a hard “e” in the first word. Surely that’s not a proper French pronunciation.
Because of who it’s named for.
Yep. We also have a Medina, pronounced meh-DYE-neh, not meh-DEE-nah.
Just east of Austin, Texas we have the once sleepy little town now burgeoning suburb of Manor (May’-nor, not Man-ore). The east Texas town of Palestine, is pronounce Place-teen but Paris, Texas has the same English pronunciation as the city in France.
I’ve posted this picture before, but it seems your grandfather and I have at least two things in common 🙂
Nice trio!
Good looking car. The chrome trim and vinyl top do a great job of complimenting the car’s natural shape.
Thanks for sharing these pictures. The Mercury has a stately presence that works so well in a small town setting. When you see one on the town square on a Sunday, you can bet a community leader will be getting out of it.
This was really a nice shade of red and I really liked the combination of the color keyed wheel covers with the black vinyl top. In this setting, even the pseudo heraldic emblem on the top looks at home.
Beautiful pictures! My father shot quite a number of Kodachrome slides, and the colors have held up beautifully.
Everyone is pegging this car as a burgundy, but it looks to me like that rich, dark brown that Ford was offering in 1972. I was not a huge brown car fan, but that color was exceptionally nice, and probably did have a little red in its formula.
It is funny how modern most of the other cars were in the backgrounds. People did not drive old cars then if they could afford not to. That Marquis is a beauty, no wonder he liked it so well. Another of Mercury’s sporadic high points.
+1 on the color, JP. It looks more like Chocolate Ganache to me than burgundy, but everyone perceives color differently. This was a very popular color for Ford at the time (the vinyl top on my ’73 LTD and my great uncle’s ’73 Marquis was that color). There was a guy in the neighborhood that had a ’72 LTD convertible, one of only 4260 made, that was painted that shade of brown. He had a tan top and tan interior on that car and it was simply beautiful. I liked it way better than my gold ’73 2-door hardtop LTD.
Browns were very popular back then and looks very rich and appealing even today. My Dad’s first new car in 16 years was a Burma Brown 1973 Grand Am sedan with matching medium brown “ventilated” Morrokide seating. Bucket seats up front no less!!
Maybe my scanner settings were a little off, but it was definitely a shade of Burgundy at least in person. I do remember the car (I was only 3 when it was new, lol).
Either way, man, that car is gorgeous! I really miss large 2 door cars. *sigh*
I do remember a very dark burgundy that Ford offered, and it was very attractive as well. It was not as popular as the earth tones were, but I can see it now that you point it out. Beautiful.
“Cordovan”
Kodachrome is reputedly good for well over 100 years if kept in dark storage. Fades in light. Known for neutral & accurate color rendering, and particularly for its subtle reds, browns, oranges, better in this regard than modern films and digital. Very dense blacks. Consumer-grade scanners have trouble getting the best from it. (Unless they’re a whole lot better now than they were…)
I was a member of our local photo club here back in the 90’s. We had a fella by the name of John Eckert, born in 1918 died in 2001. He brought some Kodachromes he had shot in 38/39 after Kodak had changed the yellow dye used that were still as colorful and clear as the day they had been shot. Great insight into Chicago at that time. The early 35-37 Kodachromes have color shifted pretty bad because of the unstable yellow dye. they used. He had some from that time period also.
It looks like the same color combination of my aunt’s 66 LTD coupe – Vintage Burgundy with black vinyl top – one of my favorite cars of all time. The color chart for the 72 Mercury lists it as Maroon.
Absolutely beautiful car. One of the best looking Mercurys, very Continental-like. That Pontiac is a looker as well. The last vestiges of great styling before the dark period that was to come.
You’re right about the Continental-like nature. I wonder sometimes if they were too close! Good for the Mercury, but perhaps not so much for the concurrent Lincoln.
Really nice pictures, I think every small town had a guy like your Grandfather. In our town it was a local hardware store owner, he liked Buicks…but that Marquis is beautiful.
Fantastic cars and fantastic pictures!
May I ask which particular scanner you used? I am thinking of buying one myself.
Sorry for the late reply. It was a Spectare Photo2File. It works pretty well but it is kind of tedious to manually load each tray with 3 slides and process each individually. It has a tray for photographs too, so it does come in handy though.
As close as a Merc would come to a Linc. I marveled at that even back in the 70’s.
But such a tiny rear passenger window ……. so, THAT’S where all the vent windows went!
My parents had a 72 Monterey, but our neighbor had the Marquis. I thought the dashboard of the Marquis, with the silver-faced instruments and faux leather finish was so much nicer, especially since we had a stripped one and they had one smothered in options.
Sigh! Just another reminder of a once proud brand that has bitten the dust. The featured car is a fine example of a what an upper-middle class car should be – big, luxurious, quiet and powerful, with its mighty 429 barely working up a sweat. For those who say that Mercury was “just a tarted up Ford”, this car has its own distinct personality and is easily distinguished from its LTD cousin. It wasn’t until well into the Panther era that they became homogeneous.
The Mercury brand suffered from bad management, bad timing and just plain bad luck for most of its history. I was always perplexed why Ford had so much trouble selling one middle brand while GM successfully marketed three. I know that B-O-P all had long histories before GM, but Mercury debuted in 1939 and you would have thought that Ford would have figured it out in 70 years.
Sorry! My first thought was “Book ’em, Dano!” Beautiful car! 🙂
I’ve mentioned this before on this site, but the original Steve McGarrett’s 1974 Mercury Marquis lives on playing the character of the new Steve McGarrett’s father’s car. Same exact car playing both roles in as many Hawaii Five-O/0 series. I’ve always liked these 70’s Mercs.
nice car, always loved the 1969-72 Mercury Marquis’s a lot, long live the 2 door hardtops!
More like BRING BACK the 2-Door Hard-Tops!
Dad had a ’72 Mercury Marquis Brougham like the featured car except his was the four-door pillared hardtop (no fixed window frames on the doors). It was striking looking – metallic midnight blue with a white vinyl top, and having a full boat of options. Comfortable cruiser with a lot of torque from the 429, but it was a thirsty beast. I got quite a bit of seat time in the Marquis and it was the car I drove to my senior prom.
+ 1 on the prom privileges. I got to take my dad’s ’72 Marquis Brougham out to “the Manor” for our junior prom in 1978. I wore a powder blue tux and tried to order something called a Singapore Sling. Denied. I looked about 12 at the time. When we traded it in for a ’78 Audi Fox GTI, they only offered Dad $400 for it!
Prom wheels, now there’s a COAL angle! Mine was Mom’s ’71 LeSabre sedan, gold and black vinyl top, not the best looking of the ’70s GM offerings. And also at a place called “The Manor” also powder blue tux and also in ’78!
Would have preferred Dad’s beautiful ’77 Regal but was not meant to be.
I cleaned and waxed the ’71 day of and loaded the cooler with 8 paks stored in the trunk for later. Drinking age was 18 then, which was of course insane.
The sheer expanse of that rear 1/4 panel is just mind blowing. I initially thought it was just the chrome trim outline that accentuated the perceived size of it, but when compared to the Pontiac parked behind it (not a small car by any stretch), that Mercury’s flank still looks enormous by comparison. As noted above, there are some cars that just have “presence”, and this is certainly one of them.
I think it’s that hip line that makes it look so huge. Surely it sweeps up more here than it does on the four door?
Great slides and love the story behind them- makes me think of my uncle who always had to have a top of the line, full size Buick as his Sunday cruiser. They sure don’t make ’em like they used to (the people or the cars)- both may be long gone, but their memory lives on.
Great story, thanks for sharing. Nobody in the preceding generation of my family took pictures of their cars. And they wouldn’t have looked this good if they did.
These are amazing shots! I love learning about your grandfather and his cars. Captures the mindset of a great generation, and his Marquis was beautiful. 1972 was one of the high points for the Mercury brand, and seeing it in the context of the times shows what a stylish presence the Marquis had.
Remarkable. As well showing a fine car these photos show how the world in 1972 was in some way not so different than the preceding two or three decades. After 1990 the process of change seems to have speeded up and the modern townscape was more new than old.
Nice car, nice pictures. I wonder who bought the Marquis after your grandfather traded it in? Might it still be around?
What a beauty. Small town American Dream writ large.
Fantastic images and a beeyootiful brougham. Looking forward to more from your trove Redram.
New car owners live in fear parking next to these things.
No disrespect to the Marquis, but I’d much rather see the ’72 Gran Torino! That year was a great looking car! In ’73, the huge chrome ‘diving board” bumpers came into play along with a not so desirable looking grille (resembling the Ford Granada). My neighbor, the local head town cop, had a ’72 coupe in deep dark blue. What a sexy car! The Starsky & Hutch Torino was a ’73-on, & not nearly as nice looking as the ’72.
While the Mercury certainly has presence, to my mind GM’s superior styling skills are evident in the shot showing your parent’s Catalina behind the Marquis. The Pontiac while roughly the same size looks so much lither and elegant. It makes the Merc look bloated.
To be fair, the “bloated” look was in vogue when this car was new. It is no more bloated than most jacked up over sized pickups nowadays but the proportions are different.
+1
I’d take the Catalina ANY day in half a heartbeat.
Great pictures – both of the car and town. I grew up downstate in Columbus and this certainly brings back lots of Buckeye memories. Thanks.
I love that mercury. It is beautiful and much better made than a Catalina though I like them too. That marquis is just about a Lincoln. Too bad mercury didn’t survive. A marquis with updated styling on the short town car chassis along with the mk cars branded as mercury cars with real Lincoln cars would have been awesome.
I agree. Catalinas are nice but that particular Marquis is Brougham before Brougham became a dirty word.
And if the Marquis has the 429 4V, it would fly.
The bean counters got to the rear end and dropped the sharp center tail&brake light for ’72. Did the same with the LTD. According to Lido in one of his books, they were, to coin a new verb, pipped. (Profit Improvement Program), aka decontenting.
Am I the only one who had Paul Simon’s song “Kodachrome” in their head during and after viewing this entry and it’s pictures?
If you visit Milan today you’d see it’s square hasn’t changed much at all. Still has that wonderful small town charm. Oh, and BTW, Milan is Thomas Edison’s birthplace 🙂 .
Just a beautiful car. I can see why it is his Sunday car. While I wouldn’t turn my nose up at a Gran Torino, well maybe a 72 as compared to a 71, I would still take the Marquis. I have driven both when they were new in 1972 and have to give the edge to the Marquis. Why, because the interior materials left much to be desired inside the Gran Torino compared to the Marquis. This was just about the time that nicely covered vinyl in cars started to change over to the hard plastic more common in the Pinto at the time. The high end full size cars still were nice inside but the intermediates, compacts and pony cars left were decontenting their interiors. I remember that more than the decontenting of the engines.
What a gorgeous car. Love the color, love the hidden lamps, love the keyed wheel covers, love the “half step below a Lincoln” vibe. They certainly don’t make them like that anymore, nor have they for a long, long time.
Great photos too!
Olá bom dia! Olha eu a minha vida toda sempre tive, como tenho adoração pelos lindos clássicos americanos, e esse lindo Mercury eu o quase o comprei no ano de 1,978 não o comprei porque nessa época de 78 uns amigos meus da Restaucar pediram 4 mil cruzeiros, e eu felizmente tinha só 3 mil e 800 , mas espero um dia ainda comprar esse lindo gigante americano
ahh! Que belo gigante americano nossa eu sempre em toda minha vida sempre tive, como tenho adorações pelos lindos clássicos americanos
A great car, great photo, great story. This really appeals to my OH and FoMoCo roots, though I hardly remember the two-door models like these.
Everyone from 2016 is sure right about the almost-a-Lincoln aspect of these. And, yes, with the 429, they were very, very quick, despite their size & weight.
Way above JPC mentions the chocolate brown color offered during these years. Here is a great review of a mint 1973 in that color. Really great looking Mercurys. Enjoy.
The back seat must be a miserable place in a dark color. I’d probably miss the diamond entirely.