The Breezeway Mercuries were one of the oddities of the sixties. Why Mercury chose to bring back this design that was used on the unsuccessful 1958-1960 Lincoln Continental is hard to figure. At least it was for me, as a kid at the time. By 1963, when the Breezeway reappeared, the 1960 Continental was already fading into automotive obscurity. Maybe Ford needed to amortize the tooling, given how few of the Lincolns were built?
As this shot by Tom Klockau in his 1960 Continental Mk V CC shows, it wasn’t just the Breezeway window that was recycled; a whole lot of the Lincoln’s design was, right down to the little slanty rear fins and the triple-taillight rear fascia. But the Breezeway window itself most likely was recycled completely.
It was all part of the on-going Mercury problem, with Ford endlessly wavering between it being a cut-rate Lincoln or tarted-up Ford. The 1961-1962 clearly fell in the latter category, sharing the Galaxie’s body, and looking very similar to it, excpet for some front and rear end re-modeling. 1961 Mercury CC here.
So in 1963, Mercury’s identity pendulum swung back towards the Lincoln, in a hybrid fashion. The front end evoked the current Lincoln Continental, with its bladed fender and electric razor grille.
But that slant-back roof and opening rear window’s origins were obvious. And refreshing the Breezeway was, actually and metaphorically, by 1964, it looked decidedly dated. Slant back rear windows were a hot item on the show circuit in 1956, but eight years was an eternity, design-wise, in the early sixties.
I only just noticed now that this Merc’s rear window was open; it would have made a nice shot from the rear through it into the interior. I’m often amazed at what I fail to see when I’m standing out on a busy road trying to dodge traffic to shoot a car.
The Montclair was the mid-level trim, comparable to a Ford Galaxie 500. A mild 250 hp two-barrel 390 V8 was standard on the big Mercuries, and what probably is powering this one.
It looks to be a fairly solid and clean original car, needing a bit of TLC. I can’t really comment on the asking price, as I don’t follow these things. How does that strike you?
Regardless of its design identity crisis—or because of it—Breezeways are always cool, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see it gone from this location soon.
Interesting place to park a vehicle especially facing the wrong way since usually there are sidewalks or ditches preventing you from parking. The Merc looks alright, did not realize they dug up an old design, but someone else is going to have to give this a home. I am not Jay Leno and probably will not aim to be. I also wonder how water resistant this car is given the rainy climate of the Willamette Valley.
Until seeing the first two pictures, I had never realized the overpowering resemblance between the ’60 Lincoln and this Mercury. Wow.
I’m seeing some puffiness on both sides of the rear axle; that’s not a good sign. For $4000, that may not be too optimistic, but I would imagine a person could talk them down a fair amount. There is a certain amount of added allure for this being a two door. How much allure is subjective.
There is something else I had not realized either. This ’64 has a 250 hp 390; also in ’64, Ford put a four barrel on a 352 and advertised it as having 250 hp. Sure the 390 made more torque, but is 250 hp all that could be squeezed from a 2 barrel 390? I rather doubt it. Other than a bit of torque, what did that get a person? Not much.
I’ve found two Mercuries in the past two weeks. Historically I’ve been charitable about them, but doing so for one of them is simply impossible. This particular Mercury would find charity with me; there is a distinct novelty to that roof.
Undoubtedly more power could have been squeezed out of it. In fact, the 250 hp 390 was a de-rated engine, meaning that some tweaks were made to lower the hp rating. Actually, in the Montclair and the Colony Park wagon, the 266 hp version of the 390 was standard when the automatic was ordered. That was also a two-barrel, regular gas engine.
And what exactly was the difference between the two? Maybe two degrees more advance in the distributor curve? Or?
Any differences had to be minimal. By chance was the 250 hp 390 a manual transmission only engine? I know that was the case a few years later on Mercury, but simply cannot remember for this ’64.
Even if that were the case, why bother as the take rate on manual transmissions in a Mercury was likely less than 5%.
The 250 hp 390 was the standard engine for the Monterey, with both the manual and automatic.
Hi Paul! My name is Tony, today I decided I would do a little research on my car in regards to the Carb due to a leak and needing a seal, and low and behold I see my ’64 Mercury on your forum! =D I’m the owner of this ’64 Montclair Breezeway! I saw the plate number and was like, oh my goodness, that’s my car! lol Anyways, shoot me an e-mail! I would love to talk!
PaolaT961@gmail.com, Thanks!
-Tony
Some sources list the 250hp 2v-390 as having a lower compression ratio vs the 266hp version (8.9:1 vs 9.4:1) . The 352-4V had a 9.3:1 compression ratio. This may explain the power difference if the compression ratios varied. Often times the “advertised” data about engines in this era didn’t match the actual specs. If the compression ratios didn’t vary, I’d guess that different carb specs caused the power difference (the lower engine probably using a slightly smaller 2bbl for improved low speed response and fuel economy). My data shows the same timing specs for each engine.
For comparison:
352-4V: 250hp @ 4400 RPM, 352 lbs-ft @ 2800 RPM
390-2V: 250hp @ 4400 RPM, 378 lbs-ft @ 2400 RPM
390-2V: 266hp @ 4600 RPM, 378 lbs-ft @ 2400 RPM
I’d argue the 390-2V was used as a base Mercury engine simply because the bigger displacement sounds better for advertising. Further, the superior low end horsepower and torque would move the Mercury with more authority than the 352, especially in non-performance oriented driving.
Motor Trend tested a 1964 Mercury Montclair with the 390-2V, comparing it to a 1939 Mercury. The 266 hp 390-2V produced the following numbers:
0-60: 12.8 secs
1/4 mile: 17.6 secs @ 71.5 MPH
Top Speed (actual) : 107 MPH
FWIW, the most Ford ever rated a 390-2V engine was at 275 hp in 1966. It was rated a 270 hp in 1967, then 265 hp from 1968-70, and 255 hp in 1971. Ford did make changes to the camshaft specs over these years and dropped the compression in 1971.
I like it , being a two door .
Hopefully it’ll be purchased and cherished for decades to come .
-Nate
Perhaps when production plans were finalized Ford thought this look would have taken the world by storm. Surprise, surprise!
The Breezeway Mercuries are one of the oddest mysteries of ’60s cars. I honestly don’t even know why Ford thought this would be successful on the Lincolns in the first place. It just looks weird and unnatural. That said, they’re certainly interesting today, and I don’t think I’ve seen many 2-door Breezeway Mercurys before.
Actually, Mercury originated the operable rear window on the ’57-58 Turnpike Cruiser but it did not ‘slant back’ like the ’58 Lincoln Continental.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/a_1957_Mercury_Turnpike_Cruiser_2.jpg
Buick, Oldsmobile & Pontiac were all flying high in the 60’s & I guess this was Ford’s way of trying to set Mercury apart.
Now wait a second…the C pillar backslants, but the window doesn’t! What goes on in the resulting dead space in the trunk? The gas tank ?
I learned to drive on the family’s 63 Breezeway. When my father got the vent windows right you really did not need a/c once the car was in motion.
Us kids used to try to decapitate each other with the back window.
To me the front end said Ford, the backend said Mercury and the greenhouse said Lincoln.
And that was exactly what this was about. Far fewer people ordered A/C back then, in part because it was more expensive as a percentage of the overall price of the car. Also, the reverse slant window accumulated less snow and ice in winter, and the embedded-wire rear window defroster was still a number of years off.
Theres a 63 a on a local used car lot, I must go have a good look at it, We never had these new the Mercury brand faded away in the early 50s apart from a few private imports.
Beige must have been a popular color for Mercury’s around that time. Our ’62 Monterey 2 door, which had the normal roof (thankfully) was the same color. It had a sharp looking beige and brown interior with lots of good looking stainless steel and chrome. It had the 4 bbl 390 and bucket seats with floor automatic shifter. The factory underdash air conditioning was pretty marginal in cooling power, I don’t know what Mercury was thinking with the Breezway. The moveable rear glass was kind of a interesting idea, but why not the normal roof shape instead of this crazy looking shape? As Paul stated it must have been because Ford already had the tooling.
Nice find,I like this but thoroughly dislike the Lincolns it’s so similar to.I think it’s because it doesn’t have the Lincoln’s pre dented fenders.We had our UK Fords with slant back windows,the Anglia was made til 68ish and the bigger less popular Classic which resembles a scaled down Montclair had a much shorter run.
Yeah we had those I saw a rare Consul Classic recently
The rust monster saw off a lot of them in the UK,they were getting scarce in the late 70s
Lol, the CC effect strikes again Bryce, I saw a 315 wandering through Cambridge two weekends ago.
There’s a mint green Breezeway on the local car show circuit, the resemblance to the Weasleys’ Anglia from Harry Potter is noteworthy.
With a little imagination, you can spin it into a tale of a car that spent too much time in close proximity to magical teenagers and went through puberty and growth spurts.
I’m with Gem – Yea Breezeway, Nay ’58 Franken-Lincoln.
My 1966 Mercury Parklane Breezeway with the 410 cu. in. and 57K original miles. The last true Breezeway.
I think the 1965-66 have the best looking Breezeway roof design. The C Pillar is longer and more hunkered down (less vertical looking). All of the chrome garnish molding around the rear and side windows inside looks very expensive.
The “chopped off” look the breezeway window gives the greenhouse looks better with the car’s squarer lines, too.
Nice looking car! I always thought 1965-66 were peak styling years for Mercury, on par with the cool 1949-50 models.
Interesting analysis … as a kid I thought these looked old, but as kid I also didn’t like I the ’63 to ’64 Galaxy “softening”, so maybe this was Ford’s way of previewing the sharper-edged 1965 look.?? BTW other than appreciating (any, or at least most) cars from 1964 and the sliding reverse slant window, this car doesn’t push any buttons for me.
If it runs well and that rust isn’t structural, $4k might not be a bad price at all. It depends on the rot though…hopefully it’s not worse once you get a good look underneath.
Overall I like the design of the ’64, though I think it looks more natural with the semi-fastback roof of the Marauder than it does with the breezeway. But the breezeway is more fascinating and has strong novelty value. If I had the know-how and the money, I’d like to give this one a home. Hopefully someone out your way will give it the work it deserves to keep it on the road and get it back in top shape.
It is one of the cars that you almost never see at a car show. Ford Motor Company was sort of known for it’s innovative roof designs in the 1950s and 1960s. One reason I love Fords of this time frame.
1954-55 Mercury Sun Valley glass roof
1956-57 Thunderbird port hole roof
1955-56 Ford Crown Victoria chrome crown
1958 Edsel wrap-around plastic convertible rear window
1957-59 Ford Skyliner retractable hardtop
1958-66 Mercury Turnpike Crusier Breezeway
1958-60 Lincoln retractable breezeway convertible
1960 Thunderbird metal sun roof (the first American Car to have it)
1961-66 Lincoln Continental 4 door retractable convertible
1965-68 Mustang fastback C pillar vent system
1965-68 Ford & Mercury Station Wagon D pillar vent system
1964-66 Thunderbird rear window vent system
1972 Lincoln Mark IV opera window – starting of the craze
1977-79 Thunderbird basket handle “crown” roof
1977-79 Lincoln glass roof
$4000 seems about right if it runs, drives, and stops decently. The fact that it is parked with the rear window down does make me wonder if it works properly though. A Breezeway is on my list of cars that I’d like to have. Personally I prefer the 1965/66 but this would do.
Ford should have put this onto the Rancheros. It would have been really the hot ticket.
Ding ding ding! We have a winner here! I always felt myself that the Ranchero would have been cool with this window, especially the 70s Torino based versions. A Ranchero Breezeway….Good stuff. Too bad Ford was too broke to make something like that happen, thanks to Hank the Duce spending the farm on racing, booze, and hookers. Come to think of it, that would have been a cool option on the new for ’73 full size Ford trucks….sigh….
Well they did eventually put it on the Ranchero’s spiritual successor the Explorer Sport Trac. Yes I consider the Sport Trac a bit of a spiritual successor of the Ranchero. The Ranchero was based on a car, specifically the station wagon versions and for all intents and purposes the Explorer is the modern day station wagon and it was eventually on its own dedicated platform.
I don’t know when it appeared, but the Breezeway “migrated” to a normal roofline in the late 60s. I saw one (a 67 4 door) advertised online in the 90s that looked like a regular Mercury. I think the normal breezeways appeared in 66 and by then were only available on 4 door bodystyles.
The 67-68 Breezeway used a normal-looking C pillar, but the rear window was inset a couple of inches, and only retracted 3 or 4 inches instead of going all the way down like they did from 63-66.
If anyone wanted a matched set of 63-64’s this one is still for sale:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-outtake/cc-outtake-1963-mercury-monterey-red-is-the-color-of-loves-unheeded-call/
However the 64 seems in better shape and is less expensive.
As a die-hard car spotter in the 60s, I thought these looked weird. I was a kid, and there were normal-looking cars and weird looking cars. These Breezeways were in the latter category, along with early 60s Mopars, and most Studebakers and AMC cars.
As an adult, I have gained an appreciation for most everything I consigned to the weird bin, and these are no exception. I still don’t find them really attractive, but they are kind of cool, in a black glasses and pocket protector kind of way.
Early 60s Mopars are definitely weird.The Studebaker Hawks were very attractive but the early Larks were weirdos.
Jack Nicholson “Five Easy Pieces” ’63 Breezeway
The car Jack Nicholson’s character drove in Five Easy Pieces. Although his was a four-door. The only Breezeway that I recall seeing in the flesh was sitting in a farm field in Utah. It was gone the last time checked. I feel like the only car to look good with that rear window design was the cutesy little Ford Anglia.
It’s never easy to judge by pictures, but this Mercury looks pretty good, and the interior looks tidy. Not my thing, but I hope it finds an appreciative owner. $4k seems reasonable if the mechanicals are decent.
We had a 66 Breezeway new–being a Canadian Merc I think the name was Montcalm. I don’t remember the window being down much. Some cousins owned an identicle car and I remember riding in the back seat with the window down and my cousins allowing their little dog to walk out on the trunk–my uncle would have been jailed for that now
The only Canadian Meteor to have a Breezeway was the ’64. Starting the next year, Meteors were conventional roof only. Having said that, there was one Mercury Breezeway model available in Canada only, The Montclair.
In the US, ’65-’66 Breezeways were Park Lane and Monterey. Since there was no
Monterey in Canada (it conflicted with the Meteor’s price point) they stuck Montclair badges on it.
Am I the only one that noticed the CC photobomb in the fourth picture down?
Too bad it wasn’t in the right spot for a size comparison
I bet that Festiva could fit in the trunk if you left it open
As a nine year old in 1964 I liked the styling of these cars and thought the breezeway window was a neat feature.
Okay you could say it was a dated styling gimic by 64 and certainly by 65, but people bought the cars. Perhaps those who remembered the feature from the Lincolns and thought what a cool feature it would be to have in the family sedan.
It may have been to ape Lincoln, but I’d wager the biggest reason for the Breezeway was being a relatively cheap way to create visual distinction vs. Ford – as you note, the ’61 -’62 Mercs were way too close in looks.
Well, considering the first car I ever drove was my dad’s 64 Monterey 4-door, of course I’d like to have this car! I remember the 390 2-barrel was pretty lazy at getting up to speed, the suspension was pretty loosey-goosey, and the brakes were marginal (in common with most family sedans of the era). The Breezeway was a fabulous a/c substitute, especially in the dry air of the western U.S. Open up that window and the floor vents, and you’d get a real wind going through the car. There must have been memories of the Lincolns at the time, because I remember dad’s farmer friends saying the county was paying him too much if he could afford a Lincoln.
Ford’s (1963) “selling points” brochure:
Cool sales material.
Thanks, Eric–there are lots of such things for sale on eBay that *don’t* appear in places like oldcarbrochures.com (much less Google images)–it took only a moment to find that one tonight.
Mercury and Breezeway were sort of synonymous when I was a kid. The Breezeways made the automotive landscape a bit more interesting. The core greenhouse is a bit awkward on this car from a side view. Just a very frumpy line that was a Ford fault in those days. The ’64 four door may have been the last year for a four door hardtop Breezeway. The ’65 and ’66 four door Breezeway sedans are quite good looking.
Well I love the breezeway concept, but both the Montclair and the Lincoln are wilfully ugly designs…!
I’ve liked Breezeways ever since I met this one. Besides the roof, it’s a much cleaner and more coherent design than the Lincoln precursor.
After unceremoniously canning the 1959-60 Mercury platform which should have been developed into a viable Pontiac/Olds competitors, to be replaced with the ’61 “Ford-cury-The Better Low-Priced Car” (Better than what? The car on which it was clearly based?) something had to be done to give Mercury differentiation, however minor.
While a terribly dated design by ’63, Ford happily reached into its trick-top goody bag, ginned up a ’58-’60 Lincoln Continental feature re-do which was distinctive if an oddity at the time. The advertised advantages were real, if ill-fitting to look at. The blocky, architectural form did harmonize better with the 1965-66 styling, though unfortunately no longer available as a pillarless hardtop.
For 1967-68, the ‘normal-looking’ C-panel prevailed, fitted with a recessed window that retracted only two inches, sheltered by the upper molding. Checking for a power rear window dash switch is the only indication a car is so equipped. Poor Mercury, neither Ford “fish” or Lincoln “fowl”……
A glorious article for me; prior owner of a ’64 Park Lane convert in (25th year) “Anniversary Silver”. Thought the 64 was the best looking Merc ever, until the totally revamped 65; handsome in an entirely different way. Then Jack Lord’s black ’68 Park Lane 4 door is a beaut as well. Wish I could own them all, with a couple breezeways in there as well. I agree that the breezeway looks about as well as it can on a big 65, especially the way they tripped it out.
I S O….. THIS CAR STILL AROUND FOR SALE ??? NEED A COMPLETE CAR OR PARTS FOR ONE OF THESE…. T I A FOR ANY HELP
well i have speak up after all these negative comments. first car accident i was in my buddy was showing me how much rubber he could lay with his dads pretty new 64 mercury. apparently 120 feet before we wound up hitting a tree and a couple cars. then my brother had one a couple of years later. he complained about fuel mileage so bought a v6 olds and paid for repairs that made the. both four doors with the breezesways and 352 engines.