1958 Mercury Park Lane

After nearly two decades of sharing body styles with Ford and Lincoln, Mercury entered 1957 wearing its own sheet metal. During most of the 1950s, Mercury was a two-model marque, but as the 1960s came into view, it had doubled its offerings to a four-model lineup and gave customers a selection of 18 body styles. Four additional body styles were added in 1958, and each Mercury model had become a paragon of style, chrome, and gadgets.

The Park Lane model joined Mercury for the 1958 model year as a premium model line for the division and available in two-door and four-door hardtop and two-door convertibles. Its body style mimicked the Turnpike Cruiser, though its unique 'breezeway' rear window was adopted by the Continental Mark line.

The Park Lane rested on a 125-inch wheelbase chassis that was three inches longer than the standard Mercury chassis. This platform was shared with the Edsel Citation, Edsel Corsair, and the Colony Park station wagon. The Park Lane would grow to 128 inches by 1959 before shrinking to 126 inches the following year.

Power was from a 430 cubic-inch Ford MEL V8 engine initially offering 365 horsepower. The Super Marauder engine option package on the 430 CID V8 brought output to 400 horsepower before it was discontinued for 1959. All Park Lanes came equipped with a Multi-Drive Merc-O-Matic dual-range 3-speed automatic transmission and 2.91 rear axle ratio

Production of the Park Lane continued until 1961, re-appearing in 1964 and continuing until 1968.

The 1958 Park Lane hardtop sedan had a base price of $3,945 and 5,241 examples were built. 3,158 examples of the hardtop coupe and a mere 853 were convertibles. The factory base price for the hardtop coupe was $3,865 and $4,115 for the convertible.
By Daniel Vaughan | Oct 2020