1976 Mercury Marquis Colony Park

http://www.kijiji.ca/v-classic-cars/winnipeg/76-mercury/1176710959?enableSearchNavigationFlag=true

 

Three whole photos, and that one of the dash is pretty much worthless. No description, either. Hell of an ad.

 

Seen this one before.

 

We got a new pic.

 

C7500 works out to $5752 US. I hope there's a good deal of room for haggling. I understand these cars have gone down in price lately. I don't think I'm seeing quite that much here. Mercurys (at least of this vintage) have historically brought less in the collector car market than their Ford counterparts. Unless they are finally getting their long overdue recognition now that they are an orphan make, I would think something in the neighborhood of $4k - $5k would be appropriate, depending on the condition of the car that you can't determine from the photos.

 

I called the owner and also had a Friend who lives near there check it out. The owner is very nice to talk to but told my buddy that he had 4 guys interested in it so thought he'd up the price if he didn't sell it. ( which he did ). He's only owned it a couple of months and now wants to sell it to get a truck that he's really interested in. I'm not a particular fan of this style but I thought it might be a good deal to ship or drive it down here. Also the owner of a garage I worked at in the early 80's owned a blue one like this and I always thought they were pretty deluxe. Here's what I found out for anyone who's interested. Sorry my buddy didn't take any additional pictures.

1. Spotless interior with cloth seats and vinyl sideways third seats, no cracks in dash.
2. Power locks and drivers seat but no power windows.
3. a/c blows cold according to the owner.
4. Paint is very nice. However wood grain needs work especially bad on gas tank flap.
5. Big crack on passenger side of windshield, needs to be replaced.
6. Carb has been replaced with a Holley, apparently a real mess under the hood now as far as vacuum lines go.
The owner said it had idling problems but he reconnected some hoses and it seems to run better.
7. EGR system has all been removed which is probably part of the mess of hoses under the hood.
8. Replaced factory exhaust with dual's. More than likely no catalytic convertor anymore.
9. Oil sprayed everywhere under the engine bay I guess to keep it from rusting.
10. Flaking rust underneath the floor. ( Probably just mostly surface rust and/or undercoating rusting off. )
11. Something going on with that rear bumper area. From the picture you can see it looks to be hanging a bit.
My Friend said there's a rub in the paint around there so he figures it's been bumped and needs the brackets
straightened out.
12. Very hard to start even after warmed up. My Friend said when they were leaving he saw the guy try for quite
awhile to get it started. Either flooded it or that Holley isn't set up correctly.
13. All the factory service manuals are there and included with the car.

Anyhow it would be a real pain to get that thing smog legal out here being that 76 is still required. That plus the
hard starting and aftermarket carb, vacuum hoses disconnected etc.. removes the possibility of driving it home.
I think the previous post about the value is right. I'm guessing the owner will take less than his original 6K Canadian asking
price since he really wants that truck and if someone pointed out the mechanical work it needs to sort it out,
that's at least a grand for a shop to do it. Thanks

 

I'm told that the Holley replacement was actually a factory authorized fix back in the day for the stock Motorcraft 4350 4V on the 460. I checked, and there is a part number for the Holley in the Merc Master Parts Catalog. That may have a bearing on the smog status for some states. In MD, no smog or safety inspection is required if it's registered as an Historic vehicle. It's also not an issue for importing into the U.S.

 

The seller did mention that the guy he bought the wagon from went to a Ford dealer to get the Holley. It also has an electric choke. For a smog check in CA they aren't normally going to pull the air cleaner off to make sure the carb is legal however not having EGR and/or catalytic converters is an instant fail. Based on what my Friend told me, I just don't think the plumbing under the hood is done correctly based on how the car started etc..

 

What would CA do for my '76 Canadian Montego? No cats required that year up North, and the federal gov't had no problem with having imported to the U.S.

 

Well my 76 Buick Estate was from Arizona which had different Federal requirements back in 76. For example it is a 455 4bbl while my Friend in the Bay area had an originally from California 76 Buick Estate 455 but hard to believe it had a 2 BBL carb. I think for your Montego, you'd have to put a cat on it if a 76 California Montego came with one. Thankfully 75 and older cars are exempt from testing. Any 76 and newer out of state car imported into California has to pass the current smog test which includes visual for a cat. There are a couple of small pluses to having your car smogged though. Generally if it passes the dyno test, then it's probably in a decent tune. The other required test for ~1993 and older cars is when they pressurize your gas tank and lines with maybe 1 psi of air after crimping the rubber hoses in the engine bay. This tests for fumes leaking in the fuel system. When I had my pressure test done it showed a bad leak. I was arguing with the guy that his machine was wrong because I just had it tested two weeks ago before bringing it down for a smog because I didn't want to fail and pay twice. Sure enough when we looked under the car there was a small puddle of gas leaking right by the exhaust. One of the return hoses had cracked. So I didn't even want to drive it with gas leaking right next to the muffler. I recommend to anyone with an old car to change any rubber fuel line hoses after mine cracked like that.

 

Your advice about fuel hoses is excellent. They tell me the ethanol additive is particularly corrosive to rubber parts. But I'm still not putting a cat on an historic/antique car that wasn't equipped with one originally. Guess I'll stay in MD.

 

More pics. Now priced at $6500 obo.

http://www.kijiji.ca/v-classic-cars...on/1185871447?enableSearchNavigationFlag=true

 

Now at $4999 at HMN.

http://www.hemmings.com/classifieds/cars-for-sale/mercury/colony-park/1862779.html