Unrestored Rarity: 1967 Mercury Meteor Wagon
Mercury enthusiasts will likely recognize the Meteor name from its brief stint in the U.S. in the early 1960s. Like Ford did with the Galaxie, the Meteor was a marketing ploy to appeal to the excitement surrounding the Space Race. But it would prove to be a longer-term staple north of the border with Ford of Canada. This beautiful 1967 Meteor station wagon, located in Calgary, Alberta, is one of those vehicles and was owned by the same family for more than 50 years. With 48,000 miles on the odometer, this tidy Mercury is available here on eBay when the bidding has reached $10,100. Thanks for this cool tip, Larry D!
Ford of Canada first used the Meteor named in 1949. Over the years, the car would typically employ then-contemporary Ford bodies, with unique grilles, taillights, and other trim to marginally differentiate them from the Ford vehicles. The Meteor initially was intended to give Mercury dealers a car to compete directly with GM’s Pontiac brand in Canada. Later editions of the Meteor would be designed along the lines of the same cars sold in the U.S. In 1967, the top-line Meteor station wagon (with woodgrain side paneling) would be similar to the U.S. Mercury Colony Park
As the story goes, the original owner of this wagon bought it for fishing and bird-hunting outings. So, the vehicle was minimally used for five decades, which would explain the low mileage today. There are still faded stickers present on the windows that date back to these little trips. When the seller acquired the Mercury, he decided to leave them intact although he has reproductions should you wish to update the look.
Besides the woodgrain (which is in great shape), the wagon has an interesting use of two-tone paint, with the top being white and the bottom green. There is no rust to be found and most of the paint is original although it may have been touched up in some of the lower extremities. The interior presents as nicely as the exterior with the only apparent flaw being a small crack in the dash pad. The rear window no longer goes up and down, but the seller is having that worked on and it may just be a sticky key mechanism.
We’re told the 390 V8 and automatic transmission run like a “Swiss watch” so it’s a vehicle you could probably drive anywhere. Recently, the Meteor was professionally serviced, which included cleaning the carburetor, changing fluids, doing some brake work, and installing four new tires. The seller is in the process of thinning his herd of vintage cars, thus explaining the sale. His confidence in the Mercury is so strong that if you sent an appraiser out to look at it and he finds any legitimate reason you shouldn’t take the Meteor home, he’ll pay for the appraisal! Also, he’s certain that there would be no DMV or Customs issues if you brought the car south of the border.
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Comments
Natural born sucker for a quality green long roof, eh? Though it’s hard to judge what is going on in front of each rear wheel…
Dude, I feel you. ANYTHING that burns gas in that shade of green gets me shivering in excitement. This is gorgeous but in any other color would be flatlined.
Sorry, but that odometer has been tweaked. The numbers don’t line up. They should the “first time around. “A nice car it may be, but 48k miles it’s not.
Numbers not perfectly lined up is not necessarily a sign of the odometer “going around”. On many vehicles of that vintage, they weren’t exactly lined up the first time around.
Keep in mind that the matching tolerances and plastic injection molding methods in the 60s were not what they are today. In other words some play or looseness in the tumblers is to be expected which means they dont always line up perfectly. I dont think its accurate to make the blanket statement that because the numbers dont perfectly line up, tampering must’ve occurred.
All Ford/Mercury mechanical odometers lined up like this one. I believe the mileage is true and untampered with….
Just another 55 year old car that has travelled less than 1,000 miles per year. It seems that some 25% of the units on Barn Finds are miraculously some sort of low mileage unicorn. The claims grow tiresome.
Also, the wheel cover are off a 1966 Ford.
Question, seeing that this is a Canadian Ford, is the speedo and odometer in kilometers?
Not if it’s stock and original. Canada didn’t go metric until the ’70s.
Show of hands, who else had the woodless “Commuter” version as a Matchbox toy? I had the whole trilogy – ’67 Commuter, ’77 Cougar wagon, ’86 Sable wagon – always wondered why Matchbox chose them as subjects over the Ford Division counterparts.
I had the standard Matchbox version of the Commuter, and the larger Matchbox King Size version. I think the King Size had a trailer that went with it.
Matchbox was out of England!
Had PlayArt’s fire chief ’68 Commuter as a kid, which I just found out was a re-release of the Matchbox tooling. As to why a British company like Matchbox would pick Mercs, well maybe Matchbox just realised UK Fords like the Anglia, Cortina and Escort simply didn’t qualify to be in their ‘Superfast’ series…?
Description of vehicle use sort of brings to mind the British description of a Shooting Brake Eh.
These Canadian variants fascinate me. Pontiacs with Chevrolet chassis and engines, Full-sized Dodges with slant-sixes, Mercurys with Ford interiors; it’s like the assembly line workers were playing “parts bin roulette.”
My favorites, though, are the 1967-68 Pontiac Grande Parisienne Safaris. They were similar to the woodgrained US market Executive Safari (on a Chevrolet chassis), but they used the US Grand Prix’s hidden headlights. Supremely cool.
Talking about “parts bin roulette” I saw a Ford Topaz many years ago. (The Topaz was Mercury’s version of the Tempo).
I thought for a second it was Clark Griswold’s family truckster.
Didn’t the Matchbox version of this wagon have a dog looking out the back window?
Meteors and woodgrain are two words that you would think don’t go together.
I’ll Take It
Doesn’t get any more 60s Suburbia than this 👍 Seller also has for sale an extremely sweet Stage2 spec’d ’70 GSX tribute – IMO the king of muscle cars!
And comes with deer whistles on the front fenders!
I had a 1973 Marquis Colony Park. lost it in a divorce. Would love to replace it with this. My New Bride Would Love It
Does anyone know what the hierarchy of trim levels for these? Rideau, 500, Lemoyne, etc.?
You could probably google it. The names didn’t stay the same forever. Niagara was a trim level at one time as well.
As a Canadian who is massively into and has owned a couple Meteors..in 1967 it was Just Meteor.The Mercury name was not added until 1969.
Then clearly you are a Meteorologist.
Robert, correct. This technically wasn’t a Mercury Meteor, it was a Meteor Rideau. Still a very cool car. Love the Canadian variations we didn’t get here in the US.
just boughtan ’85 (dwn szed). This’un a lill big for me.
Basically a long roof stang. Don’t think I’ll do the 5 oh, tubed K, 5 lug etc. (well, sure, the last 1). 250/3.8 is fine. May B some handling & head changes). Just carted a palletized 500 lb motor shop-ward in it~
Best of luck w/this 1.
Going to wallyworld?
Cool car, but the seller is a shyster. For years he’s flipped cars and trucks bought with cheaper Canadian dollars to US buyers by falsely listing the selling location in the US, and then trying to convince potential buyers after the sale that it was easy and cheap to get across the border. Looks like the pandemic forced him to change format and list the true location of the vehicle.
I believe it was called the Colony Park in the U.S. and my brother had one just like it in the late 1960’s.