The Hawaii Five-O Mercury That Hid A Rare 428 Under Country-Club Luxury
Buying a luxury car with a truckload of power in the ’60s wasn’t as easy as getting the keys to a ferocious muscle coupe. The decade was all about the muscle two-door, with power and torque outputs going through the roof and stop lights becoming de facto drag strips. It took a while for carmakers to realize that these same engines could be inserted under the hood of giant luxury barges, and when they did, they inadvertently started the whole Sleeper Cars genre. What you got were country-club looks with a faintly absurd amount of power under your right foot. One of these was a rare 428 Mercury that had undeniable star power.
Sleepers Are A Fairly Modern Idea . . . Right?
The sleeper car’s rise is often attributed to the E28 BMW M5. This stealthy sedan packed a 3.5-liter DOHC inline-six—M88/3 in Europe with 286 hp and a catalytic S38 variant in North America with 256 hp—that could trace its roots to the BMW M1 supercar. Launching in 1984, it was the perfect antidote to the era of excess, acting as a low-key exotic when your Lamborghini Countach was in the garage.
The idea quickly caught on, with everything from the Volvo T-5R to the Audi RS2 offering wild performance that wasn’t obvious from the unostentatious looks. This carried on in the 2000s and up to the present day with a line of Audi RSs, BMW M cars, AMGs, and the Cadillac V-Series. What a lot of people don’t know is that the sleeper actually became popular in America in the ’60s, when carmakers started putting big-block muscle cars in innocuous-looking sedans that were laden with luxury. And one of the best came from Mercury.
The 1968 Mercury Park Lane Brougham Hid A 428 Under Country Club Styling
The Mercury Park Lane arrived in 1965, borrowing a lot of what made Lincolns of the era so great. That is a huge presence and the kind of blocky proportions that would make a Lego car seem streamlined. By the following year, the standard 390-cid V8 was pushing out 300 hp, but this being the era of the unhinged muscle car, customers were crying out for wild horsepower wherever they could get it. By 1966, the engine had grown to 410 cubic inches and 330 horsepower, but in 1967, for the 1968 model year, the luxury Park Lane Brougham package, with wood trim and extra trimmings, was introduced. This car was available with a Super Marauder 428 ci 4bbl V8, which turned it into something of a sleeper of its day.
The 428 Had Muscle Car Output
That 428 pushed out 345 hp and 462 lb-ft of torque. Bearing in mind that this was a 4,200-pound hunk of luxury metal (or slightly less depending on who you ask), it was never going to be a rocket ship, but it could still hit 60 mph in nine seconds—quick for a land yacht of the time. The engine was paired with a Select-Shift Merc-O-Matic C6 three-speed automatic. Along with the 428, these powerful sedans had power front disc brakes, power steering, power windows and seat, air conditioning, AM/FM radio, and cruise control. The Brougham also had extra insulation, and buyers could spec a “yacht paneling” option, which was, perhaps disappointingly, nothing more than wood-grain stickers down its flanks.
The 428 Park Lane Was A Star Of Hawaii 5-O
If the 428-powered Mercury Park Lane looks and sounds remarkably familiar, that’s because it was driven by television detective Captain Steve McGarrett in Hawaii Five-O, often witness to those immortal words: “Book ’em, Danno.” A Park Lane was used from the series premiere on September 26, 1968, and remained in use until the 1974 season, when it was replaced by a Marquis. It had a hard life, including partial destruction as McGarrett battled Hawaiian mafiosos. Jack Lord, who had the lead role, apparently loved the car so much he refused to give in to pressure to replace it with something more modern until the car, which didn’t have a stunt double, was all but falling apart.
The 428 Option Was Incredibly Rare
Of the 21,094 total Park Lane units in 1968, it is estimated that roughly 600 were fitted with the 428, although it is impossible to get an official figure. Park Lanes were popular with police forces for an unusual reason. A number of state law enforcement agencies had a minimum requirement for wheelbase length of between 122 and 124 inches, which meant that the 119-inch 1968 Galaxie was too short. The Park Lane had a 123″ wheelbase, so it could comply. Forces such as Missouri and Indiana were said to have favored the Park Lane and its 7.0-liter option for highway patrol. No doubt a 428-specced Park Lane would catch plenty of speeding muscle car drivers by surprise.
What Happened To Steve McGarrett’s 428-Powered Merc
What is thought to be the actual car from the show was saved by collector Michael Timothy, who went all the way to find it in a CBS warehouse in Hawaii—dented, partially burnt, and with a mongoose living in the trunk. He restored the Park Lane, which he says isn’t 100% the show car but has many clues pointing to that fact (the roof was drilled for a dummy antenna and damage in line with the final episode) and restored it over three years with nine parts cars. The engine is untouched and unrebuilt, with (at the time of Timothy’s posting on his website his website) 75,000 miles on the odometer. All exterior sheetmetal was replaced. The vinyl top was replaced, as was the mongoose-inhabited interior. Its days of fighting crime may be over, but with that 428 under the hood, the 1968 Park Lane could probably still give a warmed-up Civic a run for its money.
Sources: Fiveohomepage.com, Ford, Mercury
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