For those who don't know, the "XM" stands for eXperimental Mercury.
John Najjar you may recall was the key designer of the 1954 Mercury XM-800 Concept car that I restored a few years ago.
This website will be primarily devoted to the restoration of this extremely rare automobile.
You can search the internet and find a lot of information about his car but here
you'll find photos never before seen. I will place a lot of them here over the coming months.
Here are a couple:
This is an original engineering drawing of the XMTC
This is an early advertising photograph that was never used
Note that there are no identifying emblems on the car yet
Notice the "butterfly" roof sections over the driver and passenger seats, These are clear plexiglass sections that open automatically
when the doors are opened and close again automatically when the doors are closed.
They are activated by micro switches in the door jambs and are powered by electric motors at the rear of the roof under the headliner panel which are
connected to the "butterflys" by drive shafts.
The XMTC was lower than any car of its era and this was done to give more headroom getting in and out of the car.
Watch this video on youtube to see the car in operation and also in the special van Ford built to tour the XMTC around the country and display it.
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Thank you!
Please note, images on this website are copyright protected and cannot be reproduced without my written permission
Go to CHAPTER 1, PART 2