In a profound Freudian analysis, my esteemed colleague and noted Mercurophile Jason Shafer has revealed the multiple personality disorder of the big Mercury Marquis, depending in large part on its color and setting. A sort of automotive chameleon, we might say. But I’m afraid due to his location in the great Midwest, he’s not been exposed to one of the more extreme manifestations of this disorder: The Purple Haze Edition. Targeted to aging rock stars (and wanna’ bees) in the late ’70s, it was only sold in a few very select West and East Coast locations.
Given Eugene’s role as something of a second home to the Grateful Dead and a more permanent home to many of the band’s followers, it was not all-too surprising to run into this very rare example downtown back in 2009. Why it’s taken me so long to write it up here is something of a mystery, but then Mercuries work in mysterious ways.
Let’s get one detail out of the way right off: no, this purple Mercury was not colorized via Photoshop or such. It’s the real deal. A bit too much so, actually. Is “Brougham” more important than the name? Apparently so.
No one would dare paint over the Marquis’ heraldic crest. This identifies the Marquis as a true noble, and not just some pretender.
You think old hippies didn’t go in for big American cars? Eugene’s own celebrated Ken Keysey, one of the proto-hippies, drove an early ’90’s Buick Roadmaster Estate wagon around town in his later years. Much more comfortable than his old psychedelic school bus Further.
There’s an awful lot to like here. The overarching question is where to start…and where to end.
CC 1974 Mercury Marquis: The Costume Makes the Character J.Shafer
A mauve Mercury well why not. Hippies where I come from drove Jaguars, Rovers and old Chevrolets in fact anything that could be kept running easily.
The Marquis, in his purple reign.
I would call it Lavender color.
Well, a Marquis is lower than a Prince, but I’ll take it.
I can only think of a squatting, hulking Easter egg.
This what I would call a “10-step car.” Most vehicles you can walk past in 3 or 4 strides when they are parked along the curb. This one would add at least 10 steps to your step count once you’ve traversed the distance from one 5mph bumper to the other.
This purple works surprisingly well here. The current owner obviously has a Purple Passion.
The color also succeeded in providing a new experience – I thought of Barney The Dinosaur in the same instant I thought of Jimmy Hendrix. Now Barney’s theme song (“I love you, you love me…”) being sung by Hendrix – complete with guitar solos – is going through my head.
It’s obvious the charms of this Mercury have not diminished over time.
I could have gone all day without having the Barney theme song implanted into my brain. Thanks for that . . . .
I also kind of like this. I think with another whitewall on the front and maybe a white roof as well it would actually look pretty good.
#EvahBuddysDiffnt.
Not necessarily better, not always worse, just…..different.
We had a turquoise ’63 Impala wagon that would glow purple at dusk.
I feel like purple could work on one of these old yachts, if it was a very dark purple/maroon, and offset by a cream-colored vinyl top.
For years I read Car and Driver where the editors could not resist indicating that they were waiting for the “de Sade” edition of the Marquis every time the model year changed.
I no longer read Car and Driver.
No do I. Useless and trite.
The perfect car for when you want to violet the speed limit.
That is just plum funny
This reminds me of an old joke:
“What is the color of a belch?”
“Burple!”
Sorry! I could not resist.
On youtube’s Hoovie’s Garage, he let his 7 y.o. daughter choose the paint color for his Porsche convertible from the Maaco catalog. Despite his attempts to distract her, she stuck with a vibrant plum metallic. It actually doesn’t look bad at all.
I’m not sure if it’s the light or the paint but that is an amazingly lurid shade.
The astonishing thing about these 70s barges, like yesterday’s Lincoln rerun is the amount of wasted space. 20′ bumper to bumper is a crew cab pickup with a 6.5′ bed, which has a similar sized interior, a much larger trunk and frequently better gas mileage. My extended cab long bed gives up some back seat room but has an 8′ box and gets 12-15mpg in general use. Ironically the truck rides better too with none of th seasick wallowing of old luxury cars with soft springs and weak damping.
When we bought our house about ten years ago, it was newly painted in a fairly generic beige. But in a few spots one could see traces of exactly that shade of purple. And the concrete pad between the porch and sidewalk was still in that color … and we found a leftover gallon of purple outdoor epoxy in the basement. About five years later we rented a floor polisher and bought a diamond disk and ground it down to bare concrete (not an easy task).
Within a few days of moving in, as neighbors greeted us, most told us they were glad the purple was gone. But a non-trivial number of folks said they missed the purple, perhaps thinking we were responsible. There are still a few colorful houses in town, but like the cars, most are more muted shades. Footnote: the leftover purple has worked well to paint some of our backyard furniture. Where only we can see it. In fact, my wife is repainting a chair with that paint today.
Looks like a colour used on the early Renault 12.
When you can’t afford the Wisteria 1956 Lincoln?