This post calls forth some of the smaller details about this 1963 Mercury Meteor Custom 2-Door Hardtop Coupe. I take that angle, since this is a vehicle that has been featured somewhat often here on CC.
I will admit that when I first came across this particular Meteor, at first I didn’t know what it was. I thought it was some kind of Canadian import, since we do get quite a few of those here in New England. But after looking a bit harder (and also Googling bit harder), I realized that this was one of 7,565 1963 Mercury Meteor Custom coupes that left the factory when I was 2, within some number of months of the JFK assassination, depending on just when this car was produced. It’s not as rare as the 2-door sedan (2,704) or the station wagon (5,121 combined models), but it’s still a pretty low production number car.
So it is kind of wild – at least to me – that I should run across one 60 years later near my small town, at the general mechanic’s that I visit this time of year to get the stickah (aka, Massachusetts Vehicle Check Program annual inspection stickER) for my car.
“Six hefty adults”. As a habitué of the “husky” department of most major department stores in the 1960s and 70s, I suddenly feel distant kinship with the Meteor Custom…and wonder if the “deep dish steering wheel” was meant to subliminally suggest pie.
Now mind you, this is not one of the very special S-33 Meteors (4,865). I can tell that because this one is missing the console between the front seats.
Decorative pinstriping aside, this color – Cascade Blue – is original.
Nope, this is one of the more or less garden-variety Meteor Custom coupes.
Through its badging, the car does make quite the point of telling you what it is.
Somehow, the contrasting script between the standard “Mercury” and the flowing “Meteor” seems particularly urgent. This is a Mercury, but it’s a Meteor! It’s unclear as to which the badge reader should more care about as they’re both competing for attention.
Speaking of iconographic confusion, there’s this logo.
At first glance, it reminded me of a Thunderbird logo. Then a Chevy bowtie. Except it has the god Mercury’s head in the middle. And three….things….below Mercury’s head. Shirley someone here knows the significance of the three things and will enlighten me.
The Meteor possesses from my perspective a whole lot of little details that stand out in a world of modern cars where various protrusions and chrome bits are not exactly in style.
The phillips head screw helping to hold on the headlight trim looks like something I might have come up with myself about 35 years ago (or actually about 2 years ago on my Highlander, where it currently holds on the bumper cover). But no, this is how they made it in the Meteor. You just don’t see exposed fasteners on modern cars. So cool.
The fender-mounted turn signal indicators particularly caught my attention. I love these things. The fuselage-bodied Chrysler of my childhood had them as well and while I really cannot make a case for their usefulness, I found them fascinating. If nothing else, they add an element of visual interest for the driver.
Other great details include the opening vent windows. Like fender-mounted turn indicators, I cannot imagine how such things could be integrated into modern cars, but it would be great somehow if that could be the case. I frequently drive with my windows open, and these things would allow me fresh air at highway speeds (if I correctly remember how they worked on the last car I drove that had them…which I think was my parents’ mid-70s Fiat 128).
The Meteor’s rear does not escape the extra-adornment treatment. The exquisite tail lights have already been seen, and to these we can add a fussy chrome-work trim piece that incorporates the gas filler door and what are presumably the back-up lights. Center-mounted gas fillers are something else I love. I just think they’re cool, plus for me personally they address the fact that I have never…ever….been able to remember what side my filler is on and as often as not I pull up to pumps with the wrong side of the car facing the pump.
Don’t even get me started about how there is a little symbol next to the gas gauge that supposedly indicates with an arrow what side your filler is on. This presents a total mystery in my mind. I realize that it’s some kind of cognitive processing deficit with me, but those things only serve to further confuse me. Maybe it’s because I’m left-handed and am generally confused about most left vs. right things.
When I was 7, and as yet could not figure out which shoe to put on which foot, out of frustration and anger (two emotions he seemed to totally own) my dad grabbed a black Magic Marker and put an “L” and an “R” on the white rubber toe cap parts of my Chuck Taylor All Stars (as a now-adult, I assume he put the L on the left one and the R on the right one…but I’m not sure, and that’s really my whole point). He informed me that I’d wear those shoes every day until I “learned” my left from my right. This maybe helped me a little, but mostly it sent the message to the majority of Miss Wentworth’s 2nd grade classroom that new kid Jeff was kind of weird and perhaps a bit…well, you know.
2nd graders still do, for what it’s worth, use that word and probably will for the foreseeable future.
I think I wore those shoes most of the school year.
To this day, I encounter a momentary pause when putting on a pair of shoes. “Wait, am I getting this right?”
Anyhow, no such problem on the Meteor. It’s very symmetrical back there. Just the way I like it.
The lighting wasn’t so great for me to get many decent interior shots, but this all looks nice and tidy and very original. The large “METEOR” script in the center of the dash is yet another apparently necessary reminder of just what the driver is driving. This car does not have air conditioning – who needs it with what is obviously good ventilation? – and it does have an add-on modern-ish FM radio with cassette player. As far as those kinds of under-dash things are concerned, this one seems pretty tasteful.
It can’t be made out well in my interior picture, but another little detail that I very much appreciate is the AM radio. This picture is obviously from elsewhere. No, I didn’t steal the radio, which would have gotten me in a world of trouble not the least of which would be cutting me off from the supplier of annual stickahs for my ever-increasingly janky collection of obsolete automobiles. But look at that script on the dial. What a great font with the little CONELRAD symbols which I promise to write about soon. Those have been a fascination of mine since well before the time when my dad adorned my sneakers with inscrutable marks. I’m imagining that if this car was originally purchased early in the 1963 model year, its owner might have paid particular attention to those little triangles-in-circles symbols during 13 days in October, 1962.
Today, some 60 years later, the Meteor still has presence. It seems to hold its own size-wise with the XT5 it was parked next to. I expect that the interior experience in the Mercury is much less cocooned than in the Cadillac. For me, that’s a Meteor positive. I also of course love Cascade Blue as opposed to “Nearly Every Other Car is This Color” Black. To cap it all off, there’s the Cadillac’s lengthy list of lacking amenities such as vent windows, fender-mounted turn signal indicators, center-mounted gas filler, and a nuclear holocaust-ready radio.
Ok, if I absolutely had to choose, I’d probably choose the ProMaster for its ultimate flexibility.
Just for comparison.
I have no idea – again, many here might – if these wheels represent anything close to what the Meteor had when it was born in 1962/1963, but I do love these hubcaps. And really, the red wheels represent one more little thing that seems to make this car special.
It’s all in the details.
Great detailing on the Meteor, although it doesn’t quite add up to a harmonious whole. From the front view at least, there is a strong family resemblance to the big Mercury, which was certainly a goal of the manufacturers.
Regarding the CONELRAD symbols: They’re another thing for me to love about my Riviera, and I believe ’63 was the last year for them. I’ve always been interested in Cold War history (I’ve had a Fallout Shelter sign since before I’ve had a basement to put it in), and those two little triangles are so sinister and so weird that I’m glad I have that little footnote in at least one car.
I’m just the right age such that air raid shelter/civil defense stuff made a huge subliminal impression on me. I think it’s because I really had no intellectual concept of what any of it meant, but the Civil Defense symbols, air raid shelter signs, and air raid sirens/drills constitute some of my earliest memories. Scary and confusing things for a toddler. Perhaps if I’d been older when exposed to that stuff, I’d have developed a clearer understanding (or some understanding) of what it was all about; but I didn’t so I was scared-fascinated by it all.
I fixated on those CONELRAD symbols on the first car that I can clearly recall (a 1961 Plymouth we had).
I didn’t realize that they actually disappeared after 1963 as I could swear that I saw something similar on radios from throughout the 1960s. Then again, I’ve always ridden in old cars, so maybe they just had old radios.
I had a `61 Comet coupe, black with a red and white interior, the first car I owned. It also had an AM radio with the Conelrad symbols. The owner`s manual said this was part of an emergency radio alert system that should be tuned into in case of a national emergency like an invasion, or natural cataclysm. Kind of like the aftermath of nuclear bombs exploding over California, and that middle class family hitting the road to try to survive in that great, but very underrated movie ‘Panic in the Year Zero’ from 1962.
From the RadioTapes website:
WCCO RADIO CIVIL DEFENSE RECORDINGS (1961)
A very rare set of recordings of civil defense announcements from 1961 that would have aired on WCCO Radio in the event of a probable or actual enemy (nuclear) attack. These announcements were pre-recorded by WCCO announcers Howard Viken, Dick Chapman and Governor Elmer Andersen, and most likely would have aired from the station’s transmitter facility in Coon Rapids, MN which included a fallout shelter.
https://radiotapes.com/WCCO/WCCO-AM_Civil_Defense_1961.mp3
Thank you for that link! Chilling stuff, and yet also fascinating for its naivete. “Do not listen to rumors….” Riiiiiiiiight.
You’re not alone Jeff ;
I wasn’t a Toddler but I well remember feeling scared in 1962……
I guess you had to have been there to pick up on how scared many (? most ?) ‘adults’ were .
Building fall out shelters in the back yard and buying caned water, hand crank radios etc. etc .
-Nate
Fine article on Conelrad and the Emergency Broadcast System on Wikipedia. Fascinating stuff if you grew up in-or remember the Cold War era of the 50s or early 60s. During the Cuban Missle Crisis when we thought Russian made missles would it us,my father had our radio tuned in, but, fortunately it never happened, thank God.I remember it like yesterday, I was 9 years old.
Great expose on this car! Thanks. In 1970 when my future wife and her two sisters (one was still in Lebanon), purchased a car, it was a 1963 Mercury Comet two-door sedan painted metallic pink with a black-and-white interior. It was probably the base model. It served the family for many years including when my mother-in-law learned to drive and then she commenced to make it her daily driver for a while. The two-door hardtop has some elan to it unlike the sedan that they had.
Then again, pink with a black and white interior? That must have been like riding around inside a 1960s hair salon! 🙂
(or Barbie’s Dream House)
” When I was 7, and as yet could not figure out which shoe to put on which foot… ”
Sounds a bit like dyslexia. Or just a youthful seven year old mind busy with lots of more importing thinking.
Dyslexia never goes away. To this day, deciding what is left or right, on my part or the part of others, is a full one (+) second delay for me.
It’s too bad you did not own Chuck Taylor Black/Blacks (*). Well, perhaps not if your dad had a white marker.
But even Neo in “The Matrix” movie got confused with L and R.
Tank: “Door on your left.”
Tank. “Your other left.”
Regarding the Meteor, some styling cues similar to my ’61 4-door Comet, but with a much nicer dashboard and seats, and perhaps a V8? Also, an automatic transmission instead of a three-on-the-tree.
(*) Chuck Taylor Black/Blacks:
My dad wouldn’t have been daunted by Chuck Taylor Blacks any more so than he was by my “nice” (i.e., sunday shoes) brown leather shoes. That’s where he applied a big piece of masking tape to the end of each shoe and then got busy with the marker. He was rather insistent that he could educate/shame me out of that problem.
I’d forgotten that line from The Matrix; but “Your other left” is something that’s been said to me for about as long as I can remember.
The Meteor was a nice car in my eyes, but I guess shoppers back then felt it was too close in size and appointments to the Comet but cost too much more because the Comet was the runaway favorite of buyers.
The Comet came out along with Falcons in 1960. The Meteor came out in 1962 and like the Comet was a Mercury-ized version of the corresponding Ford, the new Fairlane intermediate.
The intermediate sized cars were about an inch and a half wider (which also showed up in their hip and shoulder room), a foot longer, and had about half a foot more wheelbase than their compact brothers. Their unit bodies were built very much like the compacts and probably shared a lot like front suspensions, drivelines and lots of other bits but were not the same cars.
For some reason the 1962 Meteor sold around 50K while the Fairlane sold about 300K. One source also puts the 1963 Meteor at 50K, even with a wagon and two door hard top added.
With only front and rear clips and trim differing between the Ford and Mercury versions of both I think they did a pretty good job of differentiating them.
What is that word you’re referring to for 2nd graders? I’m guessing here but was it “stupid”? Which of course is not the case for many youngsters. We all learn at different rates and just because one child is a bit slower at that young age than another does not mean he is in any way less intelligent. Parents, particularly fathers, can be an impatient lot when it comes to their children.
Nate guessed correctly with his second word choice in his comment below.
Yeah, different times, different parenting styles. I lived through it; and came out the other side with quite a few learnings around things that I would never do to my own kids. In that regard, I’m sure I came up with my own uniquely bad ideas.
I’m a single dad who was left with a 12 year old, I’m very proud to say he’s never had any tattoos, drugs, bastards etc. and I’ve never had to bail him out of jail, he’ll turn 46 soon and is far more stable than I ever was and makes more $, has two houses, on and on….
It’s not all that hard to learn from others mistakes, I did it so can anyone .
-Nate
Ford/Mercury had to try and stop Rambler from eating up the market, and doubling up on the Comet/Falcon and the Fairlane/Meteor ensured that they had something to offer buyers running towards AMC. From 1958 until the Pony car boom in 1964, there were sales battles surrounding full sized family cars, and smaller intermediate sized cars. The leader in that smaller market was Rambler, with their Classic and American.
This is why we see four different small wagons from Ford Motor company, along with a full line of sedans and coupes. This matched Rambler’s offerings. GM invested heavily in their compact cars, yet didn’t really field an intermediate to go after the Rambler Classic, while Ford revealed a car to compete against Rambler with this and their Fairlane.
So – now that we know that the Rambler Classic was the target, we get a better idea of how this car matches, and exceeds the leader in that field. I attached a 1963 Rambler photo to this post for reference. One can see that both are very similar in presentation, with the Rambler being rather modern with its new lines. Rambler was a powerhouse in this market and when compared to the Ford products, one can appreciate the reason. This is the second generation Classic. The first generation was wildly popular and sold nearly a half million a year. Their second generation won the Motor Trend Car of the Year award this year. Along with their redesigned American, AMC was a power player in the intermediate market. AMC sold hundreds of thousand of intermediate wagons during this time.
This explains why the Meteor looks as it does. It’s target was the Classic, not anything from GM or Chrysler.
The resemblance between the Meteor and the Rambler Classic is pretty remarkable once pointed out!
Stupid, retarded, many more ~ children can be very cruel .
I like this car although I’d prefer it in the brochure’s color .
-Nate
Great catch; all these ’62-’63 mid-size ‘Meteors are rare, for obvious reasons: they were a sales dud. There was just not enough difference between them and Comet to justify their existence. The Comet had a 114″ wheelbase; these had 115.5″. They were of course just a retouched Fairlane, so the cost to Mercury was very modest, but it had to go in ’64 when the Comet got even longer.
We could wonder what if Mercury had stretched a bit the 1962-63 Meteor to 116-117″ if things would have been different?
Still,the Meteor nameplate in Canada returned as a real Meteor for 1964. 😉
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-cohort/cohort-pick-of-the-day-1964-meteor-the-real-meteor-returns-to-canada-after-a-two-year-hiatus/
This was interesting and educational. Nice pics, too. Thanks, Jeff.
And thanks, VanillaDude, for the add’l background.
Those three lines on a 67 and I have no idea the meaning.
I googled it and found that Mercury used four stars/crosses during the 1950s production decade, and then seemed to lose one of them after the Big M era. Here’s one from the Comet from the same year
Interesting. Although there’s still no clear meaning for why there were 4 stars/crosses/things…much less why one would eventually get dropped. Then again, eventually by the 70s they had abandoned even the Roman god and went with…cats?
The introduction of the Mercury Cougar in 1967 had made the cougar, the new mascot for Mercury in the 1970s where it was referred as “at the sign of the cat”.
I did like the Sign of the Cat commercials (especially the Farrah one), but it does seem like Mercury was pretty much constantly in a state of flailing around in so many ways.
Plus, you have to figure that “The Man’s Car” was probably a tag line that even in 1967 wasn’t doing them much good.
Hard to imagine finding one of these never-common cars 60 years after it rolled off the assembly line.
More than any other medium-priced domestic, Mercury always seemed to suffer from excess chrome gewgaws, awkward lines, and unsuccessful design flourishes. In this case, the simple and clean lines of the basic Fairlane are obscured by “extras” that serve no function and add no value, which left most customers with little reason to consider this car.
Despite that, I will say that I like the interior which may indeed have been the only reason to upgrade from the very Spartan Fairlane.
Regarding the right shoe on the right foot, that was never a problem for me, as my left foot is almost a full size larger than my right. Any mistake would become quickly and painfully apparent.
To me, the Mercury had always been one of those aspirational cars for those who are not Motor Heads, they just want more sparkle .
I just watched the 1962 Mercury commercial and the car looks great to me but I’d still prefer the ’62 Ford Galaxy .
-Nate
I’m always surprised at the disdain that this car seems to inspire (full disclosure – our family had one).
I did think the grille on these looked rather cheap and flimsy (aluminum has its limitations) and the front wheel cut-outs are admittedly a little gormless (whose side am I on again?), but the tidy rear and 3/4 view with those beautifully sculpted tail lights – they got that just right IMO.
I posted the link to this commercial in the previous CC on this car – I present it here again as evidence for the defence. 🙂
I think that the one that I found really only needed a lady wearing a tiara in the passenger seat. 🙂
I have noted the disdain as well. But I actually think that there are quite a few nice bits to this car…it’s just that at least for me (and maybe lots of potential buyers in 1963) these things don’t exactly come together in a compelling way. It seems kind of a shame. The size is right, the little touches like the chrome bits are nice, the dash actually seems quite nice, and of course the tail lights. But there’s still something that’s missing for me.
One of the things I love about old cars is the almost endless number of little fascinating details. The unusual styling tweaks, the adornments, and even the occasional exposed fastener.
Ford certainly loved those fender ornaments – they seemed to be present on so many of its products in the late 50s-early 60s. I had also been unaware that the markings for the civil defense frequencies went away on radios after 1963.
I laughed about the “Husky” sizes on boys’ clothes in the years of our youth. I was not a permanent resident of that state, but was on an extended visit for a couple of years.
Fortunately, I was promoted to shopping in the regular people’s section somewhere during Jr. High.
I have always found the common (back then) use of the euphemism “husky” to be vary odd. Just a step up from “stout”, and a step down from “big and tall”.
“Hefty” – as used in the Meteor ad – is an even stranger term to use in a car ad.
Ford went in for unnecessary duplication in those years. The Comet was a huge success because it was the first return to pre-1955 fullsize, which many people still preferred. Other marketers would have caught this resonance and pushed it hard. Ford diluted the Comet with both Fairlane and Meteor, just as it had previously diluted Mercury with Edsel.
My Grandfather (Dad’s side) had a ’63 Fairlane in just this color. He complained that the car was “too light” but I think he was used to substantial cars. He replaced it with a ’72 Biscayne in a slightly darker shade.
Our neighbors in Burlington owned 2 Mercuries, a ’63 Comet and a ’68 Park Lane Wagon. Their Comet had more conventional rear lighting, and lots of chrome (front and rear grills).
My Dad owned 2 Rambler Classic wagons back then, a ’61 and a ’63. Back then he was buying his cars in green, that lasted till ’73. Much later, he owned 3 Mercury Sables in a row.