One Step Forward and Two Steps Back: The ’39 Merc.

You know that old saying, right? And it really applies to customizing cars. I had a perfectly fine and dandy ’39 Mercury convertible, but just couldn’t leave well enough alone. After nearly 10 years of making subtle mods and rebuilding the broken stuff, I finally got the bug to have the convertible top chopped last year, which was chronicled here, here and here. I can’t speak highly enough about Keith Tardel’s amazing metal skills in pulling off the very difficult task of making the gracefully chopped top fold up and down mechanically and meet the 3″ lower windshield post perfectly.

So I finally got the time (and the space available) to pick up the Merc from Keith a few weeks ago, after leaving her sitting under a nasty tarp at Tardel ranch for way, way too long. The old girl was almost like a stranger to me, all odd and out of sorts. The entire set of old interior panels were piled up in the trunk, along with the interior handles, stainless trim, and miscellaneous bits. It was a bittersweet ride home as I realized that I had forced my own hand to now invest in a completely new interior, a new top, and lots of rubber pieces just to seemingly get the car back to where it was a year ago. That’s how it goes with customizing though- Chopping a top always means metal, and glass, and stainless, and interior work. If it was easy and cheap everybody would do it… Well, the hardest work is done, and it only gets better from here, right?