#mercury comet

[wheelsgoroundincircles]

1974 Mercury Comet GT

[flmboyz]

1957 Mercury Turnpike Cruiser

[stone-cold-groove]

Stuck on you - a vintage Beaver Patrol Ed “Big Daddy” Roth decal.

[detroitlib]

Rear view of a man posing in a 1963 Mercury Comet convertible. Simulated moon in background. Label on sleeve: "Ford Motor Co., Mercury Comet convertible rear, 1963."

Mickey McGuire and Jim Northmore Boulevard Photographic Collection

National Automotive History Collection, Detroit Public Library

[vintagepromotions]

Advertisement for the Mercury Comet (1960).

[misforgotten2]

Wow! Specially equipped cars performed well in a company designed test? Who da thunk?

[a-c-e-t-y-l-e-n-e]

Comet

[thewordwideweb]

Word of the Day: Galaxy

The Word of the Day is “galaxy.” When the ancient Greeks looked up at the night sky (there was much less light pollution back then), they saw countless bright white stars swirling across the heavens, as if some deity had stirred a godlike amount of milk into the inky blackness.

They needed a name for what they were looking at, so they called it the Milky Way. Well, they would have called it that, if they had spoken English, but this was ancient Greece, so they spoke ancient Greek. And they called that swirling mass of stars “galaxias kyklos,” meaning milky circle or – wait for it – milky way.

As for that idea that some god had spilled milk in the heavens? Well, there’s a Greek myth about it. Zeus, that old horn dog, tricked and seduced a mortal woman, who gave birth to Heracles (Hercules). Zeus took the baby to Mount Olympus, and laid him on the breast of his sleeping wife, Hera, so Heracles would drink her divine milk and become immortal. When Hera awoke, she pushed the baby away, but some of her milk spilled and created the Milky Way. (You can’t make this stuff up…unless, perhaps, you’re an ancient Greek.)

For the Greeks, the Milky Way was the only galaxy. It wasn’t until the 20th century that scientists confirmed there are actually billions of galaxies out there, some presumably milkier than others.

In case you’re wondering what got me thinking about the origin of “galaxy,” I was remembering an eventful trip from NYC to Buffalo during a blizzard with my friend Mike in the early 70’s. I seemed to recall his car was a brownish-goldish Ford Galaxy with a manual transmission and the gearshift on the steering column. I checked with Mike, and as it turns out, it wasn’t a Galaxy after all; it was a ’62 brownish-goldish Mercury Comet. (Hey, I knew it had something to do with space.)

For the record, “comet” has nothing to do with milk. It comes from the Greek “komē,” meaning “hair.” The comet’s tail resembled long hair streaming out behind it in the winds of space.

As I said, it was an eventful trip, which ended with Mike and me being herded into the back seat of a patrol car of a Broome County sheriff’s deputy. But that’s a story for another time. Or, to protect the innocent, perhaps never.  

[clark-sons]

[cosp00ramcummins]

[mercurycomet]

[wheelsgoroundincircles]

1964 Mercury Comet Super Cyclone

[flmboyz]

Coyote Swapped Ford Falcon on dyno. Sounds mean too@

[stone-cold-groove]

From the car files: cover artwork from the 1965 Mercury Comet brochure.

[carburetted]

Comet

[scarowsims]

Mercury Comet