1974 Mercury

This 1974 Mercury Montego NASCAR racer was campaigned in the 1975 Daytona 500 by Dick Trickle and was also reportedly raced by Bobby Issac, Herschel McGriff, and Richie Paunch. It has been kept as part of Ray Evernham’s private collection for the last three years and underwent a body-off refurbishment in 2020, including a repaint in its period metallic purple and white #75 livery. The car is powered by a 351ci Ford Cleveland V8 paired with a four-speed manual transmission and equipped with a fuel cell, a roll cage, a rear lip spoiler, side-exit exhaust pipes, and chrome bumpers. This Montego race car is being offered in Mooresville, North Carolina with photos from the refurbishment, a DVD copy of television show AmeriCarna that features the car, and a bill of sale. The bodywork received a bare-metal repaint in metallic purple with white stripes by Evernham’s shop, Big Iron Garage, in 2020 and is mounted to a chassis built by famed racer and fabricator Banjo Matthews. Various period sponsorship decals have been applied to the body along with hand-painted lettering and #75 decals on both doors. Additional equipment includes hood pins, a mesh front grill, rear lip spoiler, chrome bumpers, flared fenders, side-exit exhaust pipes, and metal headlight and taillight covers. The gold-finished wheels are wrapped in yellow-letter Goodyear slicks, and braking is handled by drums at all four corners. The stripped cabin has been powder coated black and houses a single black vinyl-upholstered seat as well as a multi-panel wide-angle rearview mirror and a padded roll cage with door bars. A fire extinguisher is mounted to the right of the driver. A two-spoke steering wheel sits ahead of a custom black powder coated dashboard housing toggle switches for vehicle functions, a central 9k-rpm tachometer, and a suite of auxiliary Stewart Warner instrumentation monitoring oil pressure, coolant temperature, oil temperature, and fuel pressure. No odometer is fitted, thus total mileage is unknown. The 351ci Ford Cleveland V8 features a Holley four-barrel carburetor, a Bud Moore intake manifold, a fuel cell, and stainless-steel braided fuel lines. Power is sent to the rear wheels through four-speed manual transmission, and additional underbody photos are provided in the gallery below. Photos from the 2020 cosmetic refurbishment are included in the sale.