I’ll be honest with you—if there’s one car that keeps me up at night in 2026, it’s not a seven-figure Ferrari or a forgotten Hemi ‘Cuda convertible. It’s a weird, wonderful, windowless-fastback-adjacent Mercury that I will probably never see in the metal. The 1972 Mercury Montego MX Cyclone. One built. None found. And the more you dig into its story, the more it feels like the automotive equivalent of Bigfoot riding a unicorn while listening to an eight-track of Boston.

Back in the early ‘70s, Mercury was Ford’s slightly more sophisticated middle child. It had access to all the Blue Oval’s best toys—engines, chassis, styling cues—but was supposed to use them in a slightly more grown-up way. Mercury politely ignored that memo whenever it could, and the Montego was its rowdiest response. Launched in 1968 as a swankier cousin to the Ford Torino, the Montego got a full glam-up for 1972. The second-generation car arrived with a choice of body styles, and the real party was in the rooflines. The GT got an aggressive fastback profile that looked like it was doing 90 mph standing still. The MX wore a more formal notchback silhouette, like it was trying to pretend the 60s never happened. Both could be had with the Cyclone performance package, and that’s where things get wonderfully ridiculous.

The Cyclone Treatment: More Than Just a Sticker Pack

Now, if you’re thinking the Cyclone package was just some stripes and a fancy badge, let me stop you right there. Mercury went properly old-school muscle with this one. Open the hood and you’d find either a 351-cubic-inch Cobra Jet V8 cranking out 248 horsepower and 299 lb-ft of torque, or a 429-cubic-inch V8 with 208 horsepower. That might not sound like much in an era of electric crossovers that can out-sprint a Hellcat, but in 1972—right as the muscle car curtain was starting to fall—those numbers meant you could still embarrass most things at a stoplight. The base Montego GT made do with a 302 V8 and a rather sad 140 horsepower, so ticking the Cyclone box was like swapping a librarian for a linebacker.

The Cyclone kit also threw in a hood scoop with “Ram Air” graphics, special striping, dual racing mirrors, and enough Cyclone badges to make sure your neighbors knew you weren’t driving a base-model commuter. Inside, you got a sporty three-spoke steering wheel. Underneath, standard-issue F7-14 tires got the job done for the Cobra Jet, but 429 cars rolled on wider G70-14 rubber. Transmission choices? Every 429 Cyclone came with a mandatory four-speed automatic. Cobra Jet buyers could pick a three-speed auto or, if they were feeling spicy, a four-speed manual. This was the kind of option sheet that makes modern car enthusiasts weep into their oat milk lattes.

The Sales Numbers That Make You Want to Weep

Here’s where the story takes a turn from “cool muscle car” to “holy grail territory.” According to the 1972/73 Mercury Montego GT Registry (Hemmings has the goods), Mercury sold a grand total of just 29 Montego GT Cyclones in 1972. 🤯 Let that sink in. Twenty. Nine. Cars.

Let's break that down, because the numbers are so tiny they’re almost cute:

• 20 units equipped with the 429-cubic-inch V8

• 9 units equipped with the 351 Cobra Jet V8

That already makes any Montego GT Cyclone rarer than most people’s common sense during a Black Friday sale. But the undisputed king of scarcity, the one that haunts my dreams, is the MX. While the GT buyers were out there snatching up fastback glory, exactly one person in the entire world walked into a Mercury dealer in 1972 and said, “I want the notchback MX... with the Cyclone package... and the Cobra Jet V8.” One. Single. Car. Nobody else. Not a second order. Not a dealer demo. Just this one beautifully bizarre specification.

The Great Unicorn Hunt of 2026

So where is it? Your guess is as good as mine. As I write this in 2026, the whereabouts of that one-of-one 1972 Montego MX Cyclone remain a total mystery. It might be rotting in a collapsed barn in rural Ohio, or it might have been cubed into a washing machine sometime during the Reagan administration. That’s the heartbreak of these ultra-low-production ‘70s cars—many of them simply disappeared. They weren’t valuable enough to save when they were just “old used cars,” and by the time the collector market woke up, they were gone.

If that car turned up tomorrow, it would instantly become one of the barn finds of the decade. I’m picturing the YouTube thumbnails already: some wide-eyed guy in a baseball cap pointing a flashlight at a dusty Cyclone badge, the title screaming “RAREST MERCURY EVER FOUND IN JUNKYARD?!?” And you know what? I’d click. I’d click so hard.

What’s It Worth in a World of Six-Figure Muscle?

Valuing a car that literally doesn’t exist (as far as we know) is a fun exercise in pure speculation. Hagerty lists values for a 1972 Montego GT with the 351 Cobra Jet V8—a package that cost an extra $518.10 back in the day (chump change for a V8 upgrade!). Even a concours-condition GT Cyclone might only set you back around $24,000 today, which feels bizarrely affordable for a car with a single-digit production count. But the one-off MX? If it ever surfaces, I’d expect bidding to go absolutely bonkers, purely because of its “only one ever built” mystique. Would it crack six figures? In today’s market, where a rusted shell with an interesting VIN can fetch crazy money, I’d say yes.

The 351 Cobra Jet engine itself is part of the charm. Two hundred and forty-eight horsepower, 299 lb-ft, and enough character to make you forgive the fuel economy (which I’m guessing was measured in “gallons per smile”). It went on to power a ton of Fords and is rightly considered one of the great small-block muscle engines.

So here we are, four years after that 2024 article first reminded the world about this ghost car, and I’m still checking online forums, still scanning auction listings, still hoping. Is it crushed? Probably. But part of what makes the car hobby so addictive is that tiny, irrational spark of hope that maybe, just maybe, the strangest Mercury ever built is waiting for someone with a flashlight and a love of the weird. I’m ready. Call me when you find it. 😉

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