Arguably one of the rarest of all the Aero Cars, by number still on the street, the 1969 Mercury Cyclone Spoiler has to be near the top of the list. According to our Registered cars as of July 20, 2017 there are only 27 Cale Yarborough cars remaining and only 17 Dan Gurney Spoilers! That is a ridiculously low total of only 44 cars! Granted, we don’t have every Spoiler still in existence Registered. However, if the ratio of Registered Spoilers to actual survivors for all of the cars in our Registry are the same then it is a reasonably good approximation.
Just consider that we have 127 Talladegas and 50 Spoiler IIs Registered. Obviously, the Spoiler is the rarest of all. There were 617 Cale Yarborough Spoilers manufactured and 352 Dan Gurney Spoilers built. A total Spoiler production of 969, nearly twice as many as Spoiler IIs (503).
Of the 617 Cale Spoilers we have only 27 (4.4%) Registered. Of the 352 Gurney Spoilers we have only 17 (4.8%) Registered. Of the total production of Spoilers only 4.5% remain and are Registered. For the Talladegas we calculated an 18% survival rate as Registered and 12.7% for the Spoiler IIs.
If you are looking for a good Spoiler for a project you may have better luck finding a Spoiler II or even a Talladega.
Here are the Spoilers Registered by condition as reported by the owners at time of Registration. (I know some of these cars have been or are being restored since being Registered).
Cale Yarborough Spoiler by Condition
Condition Number Reported
1 = 0
2 = 7
3 = 6
4 = 5
5 = 6
6 = 2
Junked = 1
Dan Gurney Spoiler by Condition
Condition Number Reported
1 = 0
2 = 4
3 = 2
4 = 2
5 = 7
6 = 1
Unknown = 1
Summary / Conclusion:
These numbers confirm my suspensions that there are far fewer Dan Gurney Spoilers on the planet than any other areo car. Our Registry has nearly twice as many Dan Gurney Spoilers IIs as DG Spoiler II! Why do you think this would be?
Why has such a low percentage of Spoilers survived? I have one theory. Because the Spoilers have no unusual body work like the Talladega and Spoiler II it is easy for one of them to get a cheap repaint in a non-original paint scheme and be lost for ever. Once the obvious two tone paint and decals are gone they are just another Cyclone with a spoiler added to the back.
What do you think; are there far more Spoilers out there that have not been Registered?
I have a hard time believing that 969 Spoilers were built . A total of 9,143 Cyclones were built in 1969 . That makes 10.5 % of all Cyclone production Spoilers . I don’t think they built that many counting the Spoiler II’s Maybe I,m wrong but I just don’t see it . They built 3,363 Cyclone CJ’s in 1969 .
I agree with Alan, but sure give Richard credit for trying to find out the real numbers.
I need help figuring out if mine is considered a spoiler car or not pulled a marti report on it and it has the race mirrors and the cyclone spoiler package mentioned in the equipped with section but dosent say it was a dan or cale special statistics say 1025 equipped with the Cyclone spoiler package
Send me an email at rfleener@comcast.net and I will help you out. The Marti Report should tell you if it is a Dan Gurney or Cale Yarborough. We can also tell by the data plate on the driver’s door.