1971 Mercury Cyclone Spoiler
Rare & Fully Restored, 1 of 353 Cyclone Spoiler 429CJ V8 4-speed Ram Air
1 of just 3 1971 Cyclone Spoilers produced with a 429, Competition Yellow paint and White upholstery
This YouTube video was made ~3 years ago when this car was offered for sale by RK Motors. At about 2:40, you can hear it run in several poorly done video clips. I read that it sold for ~$140,000. The original sticker price was $4,852.40.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZskKeLM06c
Can to imagine a major car company these days making only 350 specimens of a specific car model ?
ReplyDeleteHell no, Dan.
DeleteThese day they just stamp out an endless line of mostly boring cars that look like every other make and model. They don't want you to have a choice.
There is no style or creative design thought that goes into 95% of the car market today.
This way you actually have no choice because they are all equally bland.
You can thank Uncle Sam for a lot of that (although I acknowledge that the big three sent teams of people and tons of money to Washington to help influence the current mess of regulations). Something as simple as swapping out an automatic transmission for a manual requires a complete re-testing of the car - mileage, crash safety, etc. and so on. That pretty much doomed manual transmissions on all but a few performance models. That also limited us to only one or two engine choices, versus the 5 or 6 choices our parents had in the 60's. Govt regulations drive more of the design choices than anything else, include consumer desires. They really don't care what we want, they just push out metal and rely on the govt to bail them out if things go bad.
DeleteYou're correct, Don.
DeleteFortunately, the Trump administration is making a few moves to reduce some of the government regulations including the MPG regulations.
One thing that I hear the most about around here is the "Right To Repair" (I hope that's right) deregulation that they have done to the farming equipment, the main offender being John Deere.
For fun, I put in a webpage calculator what that amount in 1971 invested in IBM, reinvesting dividends, would be worth today. A little over $350,000. So don't kick yourself for not getting the car.
ReplyDeleteReally had nothing to do with the money ... or the investment in it. It was about the bad ass car.
Delete