Jaline Woods

Text & photos by Jack Criswell
Model: Miss Mississippi USA Jaline Woodsr
Thanks to Classic Corvettes & Collectables
www.ClassicCorvettes.com

1970 Mercury Cyclone

Some of the top-10 highest prices paid for muscle cars last year at hot auction houses, like Barrett-Jackson, were for 1969 Torino-Talladegas. Ford’s Cobra Jets are also quite in demand. Makes & Models featured one in its January issue.

Those cars are already bringing top prices. Wouldn’t you rather find a great muscle car before it peaks?

Despite the disagreements over when muscle cars actually began, and what is even a muscle car at all, it’s pretty much agreed that OPEC killed them in 1970.

Production fell with 1971, and continued to plummet quickly as horsepower was neutered and manufacturers began advertising the roominess of their back seats instead of acceleration numbers. By 1973, they were gone. But who’s complaining about the loss of American muscle cars when today you can instead vacation in Dubai’s Burj Al Arab hotel, gilded inside with real gold, for only $1,160 per night, in the off-season. Or maybe you could drive a muscle car over there, where gas is only 70 cents per gallon.

Before 1970, Mercury just did not “get it” with muscle cars. They always seemed a bit unlucky, or slow, in the marketing department. Maybe they liked to hold back and test the waters a little too much. But when they did jump in, as they did with the Cyclone Spoiler, it was well done, even if too late to catch the big wave.

It wasn’t for lack of trying. Mercury’s 1968 Cougar GTE held great promise, but never caught on. For 1969 Mercury honored NASCAR drivers with special edition Cyclone Spoilers. And their 1969 Cyclone CJ (Cobra Jet) was their fastest, with ETs in the high 13s. They built 519 of the Spoiler fastbacks to homologate for NASCAR. And Mercury’s Cougar Eliminator matched the Mach I Mustang, but again did not seem to have everything it needed in the right place, and was even a better-balanced car without the higher-horsepower motor.

For 1970 Mercury made a cleaner break from Ford and built on their new redesigned Montego. The Cyclone Spoiler was the best muscle car Mercury produced. It was a “C-Code” car, with a 429 cubic inch 4V cobra jet V8 pumping a beefy 370 horsepower through a C6 Merc-o-Matic (could corny monikers be one reason Mercury is not easily associated with Muscle?) transmission, 3.00 traction lok differential, plus Mercury’s luxury appointments, including the factory luxury gauge package and factory air conditioning. The extra luxuries and associated extra pounds of weight may be why Mercury did not get as much respect as, say, the stripped Yenko Deuce Nova LT-1, but “Merc-O-Matic” didn’t help.

The Montego body was about four inches longer and a bit more elegant, and a tad heavier, but sported this curious square nose piece that looks a little like where a hand-crank lever should go. Maybe that’s part of the Merc-O-Matic.

Another value point is that the Cyclone Spoiler was produced to compete with the Plymouth Superbird, the Talladega, and the Dodge Charger, and because it was longer and actually faster on the track. Yet it is the least known of that pack.

To the base Montego, buyers could opt for pure performance and upgrade from the GT to the Cyclone, which would cost $3,238. You got 370 hp and an available Ram Air . A nice car, actually. But if you really wanted to go the next step, if your devious side had to embarrass the neighbors with their name-brand muscle, you paid $3,530 for the Cyclone Spoiler. And then the neighbors knew something was up because it came with what else, but a spoiler. Maybe it was a “Merc-O-Spoiler” – and we found no indication that it was functional. But the Spoiler did also get a front air dam, functional hood scoop, high-back bucket seats, better gauges, competition handling package, Hurst T-handle shifter and a 140-mph speedometer. One advantage Spoiler owners had over the Torino was “real” gauges. The Torino tried to be more modern with just “idiot lights.” A muscle car needs actual gauges.

The neighbors may miss the subtle Mer-O-Spoiler, so Mercury painted the cars in one of six loud “Merc-O-Grabber” colors: blue, orange, green, coral, platinum, and this Competition Yellow, with “Cyclone Spoiler” stickers.

Road Test magazine proclaimed the wonderful 429 exhaust note had “a solid pleasing roar reminiscent of a NASCAR stocker and highly pleasing...” Owners say it rumbles a little rough, but smooths out to the point it whooshes like a jet in second gear, where thrust takes over.

Only 1,600 Cyclone Spoilers were ever built, only 268 in this Competition Yellow, and even fewer with these options, and perhaps only a handful survive. The records on these are not as clear as with the bigger-named cars because few people realized what those were. Too many rotted in salvage yards, or back yards, without much attention, other than curiosity over the Mer-O-Matic snout.

Few realize that a Cyclone Spoiler can humble the hot GTOs and Chevelles. On bias-ply street tires it ran 14.10s in the quarter mile, and covered 0 to 60 in 6.2 seconds.

One other aspect that might make this car more valuable than it appears is that it suffered from a fate similar to that of the Torino-Talladega. That car also had a strange nose, an elongated front clip that was supposed to make it more slippery on high-speed tracks, a la Superbird, but which actually hurt the car and doomed its production. Maybe Mercury should have instead advertised the Cyclone Spoiler’s “Merc-O-Snout.”