The blue Gurney cars were intended for the east coast and the red Yarborough cars for the west but a great marketing strategy had Ford sending the cars to opposite coasts. Although originally claimed production numbers topped 500-only 353 cars actually exist because of an alleged slight of hand on behalf of Ford and Mercury. In 1969, NASCAR required that a minimum of 500 cars be constructed to be eligible to race. It is said that due to the time required to build these special beauties, Ford was forced to mix a number of standard cyclones painted the same as these rare cyclone’s into a large parking area when NASCAR completed a visual count of the cars to verify that the minimum of 500 had actually been completed.

Mercury claimed 4 NASCAR victories in 1969 with the Cyclone II.