17-02-2025
'67 Mercury Cyclone Is the Man's Car for Men Who Like Their Action Big
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links."
From the moment Edsel Ford introduced the world to the new Mercury brand in 1938, marketing the rival to GM's Pontiac and Chrysler's Dodge proved a challenge.
Nearly every Mercury model had a cheaper yet similar-looking sibling with Ford badges, so a heavy dose of marketing was always needed to differentiate them.
For the 1967 model year, the Lincoln-Mercury Division went with a "Mercury, the Man's Car" theme. Here's a magazine advertisement for the 1967 Cyclone, a sporty two-door derived from the Ford Fairlane.
Did the "manly" '67 Mercuries really seem more masculine than the competition, and did this campaign even make sense during a year in which plenty of men were growing their hair long and adopting more androgynous fashions? What makes a man?
And were Mercury's marketers any more successful 35 years later, when their advertising targeted "smart women?"
