Final Parking Space: 1966 Mercury Colony Park
The station wagon has become a bit player in the American automotive marketplace as we approach the second quarter of the 21st century, but the junkyard reminds us of a time when that type of vehicle was the choice for family hauling. Since we haven’t seen a proper big Detroit wagon in this series prior to now, here we go with an imposing Mercury recently found in a Denver-area boneyard.
We have admired a few discarded wagons prior to this one, but they were all a good deal smaller: an AMC Eagle, a Toyota Tercel, and a Subaru GL-10 Turbo.
Those were fine machines, but here we’ve got an iconic 1960s American longroof that scales in at well over two tons and was capable of transporting the entire nuclear family around the continent in comfort. The United States reached Peak Wagon, i.e., when the largest number of distinct new wagon models were available, in two model years: 1964 and 1977.
This is a Colony Park, mechanically identical to the Ford Country Squire and sharing its faux-woodgrain siding. Both the Colony Park and Country Squire were based on the full-sized Ford chassis used under the Custom, Galaxie, and LTD.
The Colony Park was the most opulent station wagon sold by the Ford Motor Company in the United States for the 1966 model year, with an MSRP of $3502 ($34,723 in 2024 dollars). Its cheaper no-woodgrain sibling was the Commuter, counterpart to the Ford Country Sedan.
The Colony Park in front of the Del Monte Lodge in Pebble Beach (renamed The Lodge at Pebble Beach in 1978) in the ’66 Mercury brochure has the same colors as today’s car.
This one appears to have been sold new in St. Paul, Minnesota. It must have moved to a less rusty place soon after purchase, because the body is reasonably solid.
Still, there’s enough corrosion to have made this car a challenging restoration project.
This car was purchased with some costly optional equipment, including air conditioning. That was $430, or $4264 after inflation.
The engine has been purchased and the car’s build tag is missing, so we can’t know what the original engine was. What we do know is that it must have been some member of the FE-series big-block V-8 family, with 390, 410, or 428 cubic inches of displacement.
The transmission in this car is a three-speed Multi-Drive Merc-O-Matic, not to be confused with the earlier two-speed Merc-O-Matic. I believe this is a first-year C6 automatic; the “green dot” shift position between “Drive” and “L” gave you all three forward gears, while the “Drive” position locked out low gear and started you out in second for better snow traction.
This is the new-for-1966 “Dual-Action Tailgate” (known as the “Magic Doorgate” on Ford-badged wagons), which could be opened either as a sideways-opening door or as a fold-down tailgate.
The interior still has some good parts to offer Colony Park aficionados.
The Colony Park name as the designation for the top Mercury station wagon lasted from 1957 all the way through the final Grand Marquis Colony Parks in 1991. That means there were new Colony Parks available for more than half of Mercury’s 1939-2011 existence.
As late as 1982, Mercury offered three sizes of station wagon with fake wood siding; Ford stayed in the North American wagon business until the final 2007 Focus wagon was sold. The newest Detroit wagon you can buy today is the 2020 Buick Regal TourX.
Kids are murder on a car, whether it’s a Ford or a Mercury.
It’s the best ride on the market (this side of Continental).
Yes, there was official 1966 Mercury theme music!
Was a 4-speed available on these wagons? I know GM made a 4-speed available on most of their wagons from before the malaise era, but were rarely ordered that way.
Not sure about Merc, but there’s a Barn Find Hunter episode where Tom Cotter featured and eventually bought a sweet ’66- 4spd. Galaxy wagon and it was apparently the only one produced that model year w/the 4 spd. and the 428. He drove it in a few episodes touring around looking for “finds” and then mentioned a year or 2 later he had sold it to a collector friend of his.
1963 was the only year that Ford offered a 4-speed in a full-size wagon as a Regular Production Option (RPO). Other years it had to be special-ordered.
My dad had the Parklane 2 door. Was à beautiful car inside. She’s rusting away between trees now.
I learned to drive on my dads new olive green 9 passenger roof rack A/C with a 410. It was a sleeper with all the torque but not a c6. I tore up the torque converter 2 years later and my dad traded it in.
That looks so much like the 66 Colony Park I had. That one was featured here a couple years back. It has a factory 4 speed and had a 390 originally, Now sports a 428. One could have ordered a 410 or a 428 in this wagon back in the day. according to the sales literature you could not get a 4 speed in a wagon. But if you knew the right person…
Got a 1966 Mercury Comet Voyager wagon in my garage and listed for sale on Hagerty. New tires and up to date inspection sticker. Drove it as my regular vehicle until the late 80’s
My memory of a red country squire was my aunt driving on the freeway. I pulled up beside her in my Alfa 2000 GTV. I waved. She hammered the throttle and disappeared in the distance! Didn’t recognize me I guess. Hahaha!
I miss the 60s things will . never be the same again