For my money, the 1964-65 Comet has earned a place in Mercury’s top-five offerings over their long, sometimes illustrious history, right up there with the bathtub 1949s and the 1967 Cougar. For 1964, Mercury canceled its slow selling Meteor intermediate and began a scorched earth marketing campaign for the only-slightly-smaller Comet, sending it to Daytona for a 100,000-mile endurance run, Africa for the East African Safari Rally, and the dragstrips of America with a 427 stuffed between the fenders. Even if it was clearly a spiffed-up Falcon, Mercury gave the Comet a racing image, and as such, cars like this nice little ’64 Caliente offered on eBay in Fraser, MI, have more swagger than you’d otherwise suspect. This one was sent to the Barn Finds offices by the reliable Curvette, and its asking price is $27,900 or best offer.

The eBay Caliente, however, is far from a race car. It has a non-original 164-horsepower 260 small-block (the seller says that it’s from a ’63 model, which has few if any differences from a ’64). All ’64 Comets had a generator for the last time, but this car has power steering and power brakes, and the engine compartment is nicely detailed for a driver. The transmission is the new-for-1964 C4 three-speed Merc-O-Matic, and the rear axle ratio is code “6” on the data tag: 2.80:1.

The Comet’s interior is code “69” Medium Palomino, and although it’s been reupholstered in a non-original vinyl and velour pattern, the colors seem to match the door tag. What doesn’t match is the paint; it was also originally “Palomino,” but the car got a new white paint job in March of 2024. All the jambs were painted, but there’s a little overspray here and there where it doesn’t belong. Regardless, bucket seats and a console were options on the Caliente, but the bright trim and woodgrain insets were standard, and the seller mentions that the wood trim shows some wear. The AM/FM radio this car has was an original option; the spare radio in the trunk tells me that it might not be original (or it doesn’t work).

The seller doesn’t include a picture of the door tag, but they mention that the District Sales Office code is “54,” which coincides with the Seattle area and might explain the Comet’s almost complete lack of serious rust. Someone at some point gave it a shot of undercoating, but it doesn’t look like anything recent, and there aren’t any signs of serious rust repair in the pictures. Unsurprisingly, the car was built at the Los Angeles plant, with a scheduled built date of December 12, 1963. The exhaust system is new, according to the ad.

Aside from the non-stock paint color, the only obvious modifications are the Magnum 500 wheels and (perhaps) the vinyl top. A black or white vinyl top was optional on the Cyclone models, but I found no mention in the sales material of it being available on the Caliente, but that doesn’t mean it’s not hiding on a sheet somewhere. I like it; single-tone white might be a little too much white for this car, and the contrasting top color looks good. The whole car looks good, as a matter of fact, and even if you won’t be tackling the roughest roads Africa has to offer, the little Comet should handle Michigan’s potholes just fine.