Mercury Montego nose emblem

was the nose emblem omitted in 1976? Mine has a build date of 6/1976 and it does not have the 4 holes to accept the emblem.

 

Google '1976 Mercury Montego images' and see if any have the badge. There is the possibility someone eliminated the badge, because that's what some people do. Can you access the backside of the outer skin through a hole for the latch of the hood, perhaps see or feel if there's filler or weld material where the holes would be?

 

I checked the back of the nose panel and there are no pre drilled holes. Here’s a pic from behind.

 

Then that would answer part of your question--for whatever reason, this factory hood didn't get a badge. Next question would be, is this hood used on newer MY versions of this car? Or, conversely, is this the base model, and Mercury just didn't was the 30¢ for a badge?

 

That was about the time Mercury was dropping emblems on a few of their cars. If you look at the tailgate of the ‘76-‘77 Marquis wagon the emblem was dropped from the upper middle over the Mercury script. I guess $ 0.30 is a bunch of money over several thousand cars. It’s like when Ford dumped the emblem on the 2 door LTD’s in favor of the etched glass emblem. Country Squires/ LTD wagons also dropped the LTD emblem on their tailgate as well. I did google ‘76 Montego’s And some didn’t have the emblem. Maybe by summer of ‘76 they were winding down production and just left it off. Would be interested to know when the others I’ve seen without it were built. Ive seen late production cars with some follow year carry over. I’ve got a friend with an ‘85 Mercury with the ‘86 center mount stop light. That car was built in September.

 

I do like the looks of the emblem. Our ‘75 had it and I’ve always thought it was a nice touch. I may have to attach one with double sided tape.

 

Yeah either way. You have a very god looking car regardless.

 

Not knowing the car, if the hood had been replaced with a new one at some point in the last 45 years, it might not have come with the holes in. I used to work on Mustangs, and the Ford fenders didn't come with the holes for the emblems, I had to drill them. That hood sticks out quite far, the hood might have been replaced, and there was no other damage.