Triumph at Daytona: The 1964 Comet 100,000-Mile Durability Run

1964 Mercury CometThis slick 1964 film from Ford Motor Company tells the story of the legendary Mercury Comet 100,000-mile record run at Daytona. We weren’t there to see the spectacle, unfortunately, but here’s the next best thing. 

 

 

It’s a shame the Motor City automakers don’t do insane, wonderful stunts like this anymore. This one was cooked up by the late Fran Hernandez, a pioneering hot rodder, Ford racing guru, and head of the Lincoln-Mercury division’s performance program. The plan: Assemble a team of specially prepared 1964 Mercury Comets, and then run them around the high-banked oval at Daytona for days and weeks on end, setting a whole slew of international speed and distance records.

Wheeled by a stellar lineup of race drivers including Iggy Katona, Buddy Baker, Danny Byrd, and dozens more veterans, the four Caliente hardtops ran their laps at 112 mph day and night for 40 straight days, pausing only for pit stops and driver changes. At around 76,000 miles, the 289 CID V8 in one of the Comets suffered a valve spring failure, but the car was quickly repaired and sent back out to complete its 100,000 miles. There’s much more to the story, naturally, and this slickly produced film does a fine job of telling it. Please enjoy.

 

 

3 thoughts on “Triumph at Daytona: The 1964 Comet 100,000-Mile Durability Run

  1. I would love to see this done again today with eco boost fusions and see if they could improve on the time

    • That is an awesome, excellent, killer idea. The Fusion EcoBoost should easily exceed this performance by a wide margin. A few Ford people are reading. I hope this fires them up!

  2. Ford here in Oz did a similar thing at the You Yangs Ford test track with XP Falcons. 65? I do not know the speeds but they were quite high. Though cars went off track, blew [road] tyres. At least one rolled. But they hung in there and did 70000 miles as a Durability run to show off the cars reliability. Until then Falcons had less than a satisfactory reputation.
    Masterminded by Bathurst winner as a driver and team boss Harry Firth they used drivers from where they could find them.
    I suspect probably a far harder event on cars as the venue was not near as good as Daytona.

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