1957 Mercurys, the ugly duckling and Bill Stroppe's M335

It is not a handsome car, and that Continental kit strapped on the back doesn't help a bit. Neither do the fender skirts, nor the canary yellow paint. It's up for sale at Motorland in Arundel, Maine. However, the bare-bones edition of the '57 Merc is not bad-looking--see the car at the bottom of this post. It's actually more of a sleeper than a stripper,. The bones are anything but bare-- 

For 1957, the famous racing shop of Bill Stroppe in Long Beach was hired by Mercury to race and homologate the '57 Mercury. The result was a modified 368 motor known as the M335. The engine featured twin 4-barrel Holley carburetors, solid lifters and performance cam producing 335hp. Stroppe's shop pulled cars from the Mercury Los Angeles plant to do their conversion. Meant for business, all the cars were post sedan with 3-speed column shift and most options deleted. This particular M335 car had heater and radio installed. It was sold in a Barret-Jackson auction a few years back. Looks lost as good as a '57 Ford.

And here's one of Stroppe's Mercurys hard at work: