Mercury Park Lane 500 Coupe 1959

by

Model number: 5163

The biggest Mercury ever and Top of the line: Mercury Park Lane 500 Coupe.

If you like me love the US. Cars from the late fifties. I'm sure a low wide coupe with fins and big taillights, can make you heart beat fast! You don't have to look any further. Mercury Park Lane 500 Coupe is the answer. And the car won't let you down. In my opinion this Mercury 59 is a rolling piece of art. Just look at the fines that has it's out springs from the forward fenders and all way back to evolve in statement of design and craftsmanship. It all ended in one of most expressive taillight design ever. The front grill and the forward look of fenders and front lights, is a lasting proof of the designer had his pen with ink flowing in the right direction. In 1959 when the car rolled out of the factory it's was not the cheapest or the most expensive car on the marked. But I think it was one of the best designed ever - But okay it's just me others can have another opinion.

Sun Star made the Mercury in Coupe, open and closed Convertible. So here we have a broad variety to choose from. I have always had a soft spot for coupe's, a beautiful roofline end with a nicely curvet rear window and further over a big trunk. It's a flowing line that give a car its personality.

From the un-boxing till I had the model in my hands, It was with no disappointments. No flaws and no loose parts. Sun Star did a marvelous job and quality control was at it's best. Picture say more than words - please enjoy the pictures below and judge for yourself.

I will give this model 6 out of 6 stars  ******

Below here are pictures of the model, historical description, old brochures and technical data. So please enjoy!

Park Lane Prestige - 1959 Mercury Park Lane hardtop article from Hemmings Classic Car

The recession of 1958 hit fast and hard, and while it affected every American car builder with the exception of Rambler, it clobbered Ford harder than most. The company launched Edsel to the yawning indifference of everyone; 63,110 Edsels sold in 1958, making it the second-best new-marque launch ever (behind Plymouth), but it was calamitous against sales estimates of 200,000. The reasons why are beyond the scope of this story, but with $400 million spent in development, Edsel was a disaster. The Continental Division folded into the Lincoln Division; the new combined Lincoln-Continental division's new unit-body cars lost Ford $60 million from 1958 to 1960.

 Ford had also spent money on a pair of new V-8 engine families in multiple displacements to power its automobiles. The FE family (for Fords and low-line Edsels), displacing 332 and 352 cubic inches in Fords, and 361-cu.in. In Edsels. The MEL (Mercury-Edsel-Lincoln) was available in 383- (Mercury only), 410- (1958 Edsel Citation and Corsair only) and 430- cubic-inch displacements.

 After all of that investment, even Ford's bread-and-butter rides stopped selling. The Ford line sold 1.5 million automobiles in 1957, trumping Chevrolet in the annual sales race. For the 1958 model year, Ford sold fewer than one million cars; Mercury's numbers also dropped precipitously, from 286,000 to 153,000 automobiles.

 But when the 1959 Mercury Park Lane was being considered, all of this news had not yet come over the transom. To emphasize its top-of-the-Mercury-food-chain nature, the Park Lane became the largest Mercury ever made--bigger than even the Turnpike Cruiser. With an exclusive 128-inch wheelbase, the 1959 Park Lane measures three inches larger between the wheel centers than the new-for-1958 model, and two inches larger than the 1960 cars. Overall length was up 2.6 inches over the 1958 cars, and for 1960, it shrank by 3.6 inches.

 For once, the Mercury's extra length was said to be functional. Extending the front suspension and engine forward, and tipping the powertrain back slightly, gave engineers a way to reduce the size of the transmission hump that intruded upon interior room. Indeed, this was accomplished without a third U-joint in the driveshaft, and the floorpan relief was said to be nearly halved compared to previous models.

However it was positioned in the chassis, power was not a problem. The new-for-1958 430-cu.in. MEL V-8, rated at 345 horsepower in Mercury applications (and slightly higher in contemporaneous Lincolns) was standard in the Park Lane and optional across the Mercury range. The triple-two-barrel version, rated at a healthy 400hp, was a 1958-only model, while the 1959 Park Lane seen on these pages used only a single four-barrel carburetor. (A year later, in a quest for greater economy--out of 430 cubic inches!--Ford reduced the engine's camshaft lift, as well as its power rating.)

 Brochures boasted that the Park Lane body wasn't shared with any lower-line Ford product, suggesting a custom elegance unavailable on cars from other companies that used the same bodies between divisions. Hardtop models were all called Cruisers, and reverse-slant C-pillars allowed rear glass as expansive as the windshield. Ford called it Clean-Dynamic styling in its brochure, but it was ultimately evolutionary: The concave-side motif seen in 1957 and '58 continued for the 1959 model year, with no complementary color in the cove itself. (Park Lanes did receive an anodized aluminum panel to help distinguish them from lesser Mercury’s, in case your eye couldn't tell the two-inch-longer wheelbase at a glance.) Beyond the heavy bumpers front and rear, an egg crate grille that previewed that of the 1960 Lincoln and the canted taillamps, the 1959 Mercury line was largely free of external ornamentation. Could this relative lack of stylistic drama, in an era of fins and three-tone paint finishes and jet-engine taillamps and faux-space-age frivolity, have contributed to the marque's sluggish sales for 1959?

 Work on the 1959 models was completed in early 1958, in the middle of Detroit's recession year. Ford was having such a torrid time with the new lineup on sale in showrooms that management considered killing the Park Lane altogether. Since it was already completed, however, they elected to go ahead with bringing it to market, with the idea that even poor sales would help them recoup their investment. In retrospect, this was probably wise, as most of Ford's divisions needed all the help they could get. Mercury was 13 units shy of 150,000 cars for the 1959 model year, and just 8.3 percent of these were top-of-the-line Park Lanes. Slow sales were a hangover from the down-in-the-dumps 1958 model year. More alarming, perhaps, is that while almost all of the American car companies bounced back for 1959, the only ones that didn't were in the Ford camp. Mercury was down, as outlined above, but so, too, was the newly-combined Lincoln and Continental division (the separate divisions sold more in 1958 than the combined division in 1959).

What this means today is that Mercury’s of this era are positively uncommon.

 This Silver Beige Metallic two-door hardtop with Mauve interior, one of just 4,060 made for the 1959 model year, is owned by Scott King and Sandy Edelstein of Palm Springs, California. They've owned it since 2011, and one previous owner had a new coat of paint applied; otherwise, this 45,000-mile car is all original and is mercifully unencumbered with rear skirts, a Continental kit, or any such doo-wop-era accessories. Scott and Sandy allowed me to slip behind the wheel and get a taste of the good life, circa 1959.

 As with many '50s cars, it's surprising how you have to contort yourself to get into such a large car. Combine the low roofline that wraps around to meet the side windows, the high-up seat, the large-diameter steering wheel and the wraparound instrument panel, which has been known to rush out to greet many an errant kneecap, and taller drivers may not be able to enter the premises as elegantly as they'd like. When you're scrambling to get inside, the deeper footwell only suggests that the door sill feels a bit high. Perhaps slighter body types would have less of an issue entering the driver's side.

Once you're safely ensconced inside, it's a different story: The smaller transmission hump, minimized thanks to the angle of the driveline, and the "cow's belly" floorpan, really open up the interior. The Panoramic Skylight Windshield and thin pillars, said to require more than 35 square feet of glass around the perimeter of the cabin, really do allow a tremendous amount of light into the interior. The windscreen rolling up into the roof may have been designed so drivers could better see traffic lights, but we found that it also added to the airy feeling inside, no matter the driving situation. All the better to see the ergonomic fingertip-accessible pods that allow you to adjust your seat or fiddle with the climate controls without removing your hands from the steering wheel, the delicacy of the brocade cloth, and the repeated pattern of dots on both the armrest and accelerator pedal. That pedal, by the way, points toward one o'clock, a perfect fit for your tester, since that is exactly how my foot extends when seated behind the wheel. The seat foam still feels firm, despite being five and a half decades old and having 45,000 miles' worth of seat time--it keeps you upright, maybe a little too much, as my head grazes the headliner. Only the clock, at the far right-hand side of the instrument panel, seems poorly placed; it's hardly visible from the driver's seat.

 Now, plenty of muscle car fans would drool over the thought of 345 horsepower under their right foot, and the year's tagline that Mercury’s are the "liveliest" luxury cars in town might encourage this tendency further. (The Park Lane's power and weight are not far off the Marauder X100, a Mercury model offered a decade later as a full-sized entry into the raging muscle car wars.) But the reality isn't quite as frenzied as all this might imply. With the Park Lane's generous proportions and highway-friendly gearing in both the Merc-O-Matic transmission and the differential, the urge to jump off the line has been severely blunted. Creamy smoothness is the emphasis here, and the driveline delivers; 480 pound-feet of torque whisks you away briskly enough, but without ruffling a hair on your head.

This Park Lane is easy to pilot around town despite its 80 inches of width, thanks in part to the power steering and brakes. The ride is supremely smooth and composed over most surfaces. There isn't a ton of movement needed on the pedal for those 11-inch drum brakes to grind things to a halt, and power steering both lightens driver effort and quickens response nicely. Combine the light controls with the leisurely gearing, and the space with the smooth ride, and together they give the impression that this is the sort of car that's built to drink in long distances. The ability to stretch its legs is clearly there, but around town, it won't buck or resist your efforts.

 The 1959 Mercury Park Lane may not be the first car that pops to mind when one thinks of a '50s American car--there are far too many other clichés higher up the list for that--but it certainly embodies the archetype: long, low, wide, smooth, effortless, powerful, stylish, full of comfort and convenience, laden with jewelry, yet stylistically restrained, and aimed at the portion of the market that seemed both aspiration and achievable. That it didn't sell better nearly six decades ago is understandable, given the climate of the day; that it isn't better known today is perhaps the greater crime.

Owners' View
Our favorite things about our Park Lane are the style and the color--both of which are iconic of the era. I mean, when was the last time someone offered Mauve as a car color--with a matching brocade interior? It is a show-stopper of a car, and you rarely see these. 'Fifty-nine Cadillac’s are a dime a dozen. But 1959 Mercury’s? If we were to change anything, it would be to make it more "fun to drive"... but then, that's not what these cars were about--they were about style and flash. The "driving experience" was secondary. --Scott King and Sandy Edelstein.

1959 MERCURY PARK LANE SPECIFICATIONS

PRICE
Base price: $4,311

 ENGINE
Type: OHV V-8, iron block
Displacement: 430 cubic inches
Bore x Stroke: 4.30 x 3.70 inches
Compression ratio: 10:1
Horsepower @ RPM: 345 @ 4,400
Torque @ RPM: 480-lb.ft. @ 2,800
Valvetrain: Hydraulic valve lifters
Main bearings: Five
Fuel system: Single four-barrel carburetor, mechanical pump
Lubrication system: Pressure, gear-type pump
Electrical system: 12-volt
Exhaust system: Dual exhaust

 TRANSMISSION
Type: Ford Multi-Drive Merc-O-Matic three-speed automatic
Ratios: 1st: 2.40:1
2nd: 1.47:1
3rd: 1.00:1
Reverse: 2.00:1

DIFFERENTIAL
Type: Hypoid, semi-floating
Ratio: 2.71:1

STEERING
Type: Ford recirculating ball, power assist
Ratio: 19.5:1
Turns to-lock: 3.2

 BRAKES
Type: Hydraulic, four-wheel manual drum
Front/rear: 11-inch drums

 CHASSIS & BODY
Construction: Body-on-frame
Frame: Box-section perimeter frame
Body style: Two-door hardtop
Layout: Front engine, rear-wheel drive

 SUSPENSION
Front: Independent, upper and lower control arms; coil springs; telescoping shock absorbers
Rear: Solid axle; semi-elliptic leaf springs; telescoping shock absorbers

 WHEELS & TIRES
Wheels: Stamped-steel disc, drop center
Front/rear: 14 x 6
Tires: Bias-belted, wide white sidewall
Front/rear: 8.50 x 14 (stock)

 WEIGHTS & MEASURES
Wheelbase: 128 inches
Overall length: 222.8 inches
Overall width: 80.7 inches
Overall height: 58.4 inches
Front track: 60 inches
Rear track: 62 inches
Shipping weight: 3,955 pounds

 CAPACITIES
Crankcase: 5 quarts
Cooling system: 22 quarts
Fuel tank: 20 gallons
Transmission: 20 pints
Rear axle: 4.5 pints

 CALCULATED DATA
Bhp per cu.in.: 0.75
Weight per bhp: 11.46 pounds
Weight per cu.in.: 9.20 pounds

 PRODUCTION
Total Park Lanes: 12,523
Park Lane Hardtops: 4,060

PROS & CONS
+ Not often seen
+ An archetypical '50s American car
+ Smooth operation imparts luxury feel

- Not often seen
- Tough for sizable frames to get in and out
- Specific trim bits nearly impossible to find

 WHAT TO PAY
LOW: $8,000 - $10,000
AVERAGE: $18,000 - $20,000
HIGH: $30,000 - $35,000

This article originally appeared in the May, 2016 issue of Hemmings Classic Car.  

By Jeff Koch

Old brochures of the Mercury 1959

This is a rare car today I have not found any Video clip of the Mercury Park Lane on the net.

Slideshow of an beautiful 1959 Mercury Park Lane

© 2004-2024 Aeronautic pictures. This website, the content, the design and the pictures and are intended for public non commercial use, and may be redistributed, freely printed, or electronically reproduced in its complete and unaltered form provided distribution is for private use only. Partial and other distribution means require the permission of Aeronautic Pictures. All rights reserved.