Well using the following website and my VIN number I was able to determine some facts about the originality of my 1965 Mercury Comet!

http://www.61thriftpower.com/thegallery.shtml

Built: Metuchen, New Jersey

Body style is a 4-door sedan Caliente trim

It has a V8 289 CID engine with a 2-barrel Carb. (Knew that)

Sticker price in 1965 was: 2$,327 USD and it was appraised at $3,000USD a few months ago.

There were 20,337 Mercury Comets built in 1965, and mine was number 12,399 which left the factory on October 19th 1964.

Recently I've also acquired the original owners manual (grandma found it) as well as a shop manual and the Ford Lincoln Mercury master parts list for 1965-1966. Hopefully I'll be making a trip up to conneaut in the near future in which to fix the coolant guage problem and power steering noise. Once I do this I'm fairly confident that it is capable of driving the two hours to get it down at my house, after which I have to pay to store it, but then I would have something to work with and play with the rest of the summer!