mongooz
.
(i hope this goes better than the corvette)
(and of course........
)
(i HAVE to post almost the whole story. it's a good read. guy had some stones)
hen John Kroll wanted a new car that nobody could beat on the street back in 1966, he went right to the top.
Some 55 years later, the Gladstone, Mich., resident still has the fabulous unicorn Mercury that he got special ordered, and he’s gotten a lot of practice retelling the amazing story about how he got his 1966 Park Lane coupe.
“I was a little bit of a hot rod guy when I was young. And I had a 1960 Mercury that I bought brand new, a Park Lane. And I was ready to buy another one,” remembers Kroll. “The Oldsmobiles, Pontiacs and Buicks were giving me a little bit of a problem, they were beating me on the street. That hurt. Just by a little bit, but they were beating me. So when I [was looking for] a new car I wanted to make sure that this car was not gonna take second place.
“So I ordered this car through the dealership, but the owner of the dealership couldn’t order this car unless he used the name of a police department. So he used the name of a chief of police in Escanaba, to order this car. He was friends with the dealer. The order went to Detroit, and the owner came back in a week or 10 days and told me ‘cancelled!’ No reason given.”
Luckily for Kroll, he wasn’t in the mood to take no for an answer. He had been a loyal FoMoCo man in the past and at least needed an explanation why his order wasn’t going to be accepted. The dealership didn’t know why, and several weeks went by and Kroll figured he was never going to know unless he took matters into his own hands.
“So I came home from work one day and told my wife, I’m calling the Lincoln-Mercury Division in Dearborn, and see if they know why. Well, I called them and asked to talk to the boss, the superintendent or whoever was in charge. Well, a guy named Lee Iacocca got on the phone… I knew he was the father of the Mustang. I called him Mr. Iacocca [laughs]. I told him about the order being cancelled, and he said, ‘Give me a few minutes,’ so I hung on for a few minutes and he came back and said, ‘Mr. Kroll I can tell you what happened. You ordered a Park Lane, top of the line, two-door hardtop, with a Police Package. But we don’t make police cars in two-door hardtops. So that’s the reason why.’ But he said just hang on a minute I want you to talk to the manager of limited production vehicles. So a guy by the name of Frank got on the line, a three-way conversation, and he said, ‘Frank, if you can do something for this guy, go ahead and do it.’ So Frank says ‘Yes, I can do that, but I don’t know how long it’s going to take, or how much it’s going to cost.’”
It turns out it was going to take about six weeks to build and deliver Kroll’s special 428-cid Park Lane/S-55/Police Special, and the total bill was only going to be about $100 more than the original price. Kroll jumped on the deal.
And before he got off the line, Iacocca offered one last bit of advice. “He chimed in and said, ‘Mr. Kroll, if you are fortunate enough to get this car made the way you want it, never sell it. There will be many made like it, and some will look like it, but there will never be another one made like it, and someday it will be worth something.’”
Ironically, Kroll says he only wound up having one race with the car. The big 428 Q Code-powered Merc retired undefeated. “I beat an Oldsmobile 4-4-2 and nobody wanted to race with me again,” he laughs. “I had one race!” Instead, he decided turn the car over to his wife Leona, who drove it gently and only in the summer.
read the rest: https://www.oldcarsweekly.com/features/car-of-the-week-1966-mercury-parklane-s22-marauder
(and of course........
)
(i HAVE to post almost the whole story. it's a good read. guy had some stones)
hen John Kroll wanted a new car that nobody could beat on the street back in 1966, he went right to the top.
Some 55 years later, the Gladstone, Mich., resident still has the fabulous unicorn Mercury that he got special ordered, and he’s gotten a lot of practice retelling the amazing story about how he got his 1966 Park Lane coupe.
“I was a little bit of a hot rod guy when I was young. And I had a 1960 Mercury that I bought brand new, a Park Lane. And I was ready to buy another one,” remembers Kroll. “The Oldsmobiles, Pontiacs and Buicks were giving me a little bit of a problem, they were beating me on the street. That hurt. Just by a little bit, but they were beating me. So when I [was looking for] a new car I wanted to make sure that this car was not gonna take second place.
“So I ordered this car through the dealership, but the owner of the dealership couldn’t order this car unless he used the name of a police department. So he used the name of a chief of police in Escanaba, to order this car. He was friends with the dealer. The order went to Detroit, and the owner came back in a week or 10 days and told me ‘cancelled!’ No reason given.”
Luckily for Kroll, he wasn’t in the mood to take no for an answer. He had been a loyal FoMoCo man in the past and at least needed an explanation why his order wasn’t going to be accepted. The dealership didn’t know why, and several weeks went by and Kroll figured he was never going to know unless he took matters into his own hands.
“So I came home from work one day and told my wife, I’m calling the Lincoln-Mercury Division in Dearborn, and see if they know why. Well, I called them and asked to talk to the boss, the superintendent or whoever was in charge. Well, a guy named Lee Iacocca got on the phone… I knew he was the father of the Mustang. I called him Mr. Iacocca [laughs]. I told him about the order being cancelled, and he said, ‘Give me a few minutes,’ so I hung on for a few minutes and he came back and said, ‘Mr. Kroll I can tell you what happened. You ordered a Park Lane, top of the line, two-door hardtop, with a Police Package. But we don’t make police cars in two-door hardtops. So that’s the reason why.’ But he said just hang on a minute I want you to talk to the manager of limited production vehicles. So a guy by the name of Frank got on the line, a three-way conversation, and he said, ‘Frank, if you can do something for this guy, go ahead and do it.’ So Frank says ‘Yes, I can do that, but I don’t know how long it’s going to take, or how much it’s going to cost.’”
It turns out it was going to take about six weeks to build and deliver Kroll’s special 428-cid Park Lane/S-55/Police Special, and the total bill was only going to be about $100 more than the original price. Kroll jumped on the deal.
And before he got off the line, Iacocca offered one last bit of advice. “He chimed in and said, ‘Mr. Kroll, if you are fortunate enough to get this car made the way you want it, never sell it. There will be many made like it, and some will look like it, but there will never be another one made like it, and someday it will be worth something.’”
Ironically, Kroll says he only wound up having one race with the car. The big 428 Q Code-powered Merc retired undefeated. “I beat an Oldsmobile 4-4-2 and nobody wanted to race with me again,” he laughs. “I had one race!” Instead, he decided turn the car over to his wife Leona, who drove it gently and only in the summer.
read the rest: https://www.oldcarsweekly.com/features/car-of-the-week-1966-mercury-parklane-s22-marauder
