one of the actual 1964 Mercury cars that was in the African Safari endurance trials

you might have noticed the handles mounted to the trunk in the previous photos, I noticed that they were the only handles I've ever seen on the top of a trunk

Mercury had a lot of endurance races to prove the durability of their Comet... I don't know why it was a question, or if they just needed some publicity stunts to get free press....  but here's my post about the around the world, and north to south continent runs they had these Comets do http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-1964-mercury-comet-durability-run.html