Greetings from the Middle of Nowhere

[evil erik]

Hello,

My name is Erik Johnson and I hail from the middle of nowhere (aka Minnesota.) I am a documentary filmmaker currently working on a project with the Midwest chapter of the Lucky Bastards car club, who inspired me to find a helluva lucky deal myself in my '50 Merc Coup.

My plans are to finish shooting and editing my film over the summer and debut it at the Minneapolis Messaround car show in August, (which is where it all began last year.) Here is a link to the trailer for the doc.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmQFHyjeEV0

In addition to filmmaking I also beat the drums in punk and rockabilly bands ( but am taking a break from that to work on the film) and am a family man with my wife, 3 greaser punk boys and 2 gals who all fit into the Merc for some back country drives.

I hope to do some work on the Merc, such as converting it over to 12 volts and swapping out the tranny for an overdrive, and after lurking around here at the HAMB have seen some helpful advice for such projects.

Here is a link to the 50 Merc Photo:
http://i285.photobucket.com/albums/ll47/tchcprod/50MercCoupe.jpg

Cheers,

Erik Johnson

[Tom davison]

Nice Merc, Erik.

[hollowpoint]

bitchin' ride dude.
do yourself a favor and don't let anyone talk you into chopping it up.
stock merc's as clean as that one appears to be are getting real hard to find.
sure, chopped mercs are real cool cars but the stockers just lowered and cleaned up really turn heads. do the 12V conversion just cause it needs to be done and maybe throw on some chrome wheels with baby moons or some other cool wheels, some twice pipes and a killer stereo and cruise it.
my 2 cents worth.
oh and my family came from fairmont which is just south of the middle of nowhere. a looong time ago

later dude
chuck

[evil erik]

Thanx man!

Some of the guys who saw the Merc for the first time last weekend counld'nt believe that it was a Minnesota car with minimal rust, but the story I was told is that it belonged to an old timer that owned a chain of movie theaters in northern Minnesota, who the guy I bought it from picked it up from when the original owner was forced into a nursing home after a stroke.

As far as the not chopping it goes, at this point I agree! The chop does look rad, but like other guys I have met with cars is that there is a "to do" or "someday" list, but for me there are a few other things that would be higher on the list like the 12 volt conversion, overdrive tranny and some interior work. It doesn't have a headliner or interior door panels which at this point is fine by me, but eventually would be nice to have, and the ratty seats were fixed with a few Army blankets and suspenders, but again would be nice to fix down the road. Also I am looking around for a set of side mirrors, as the one that is on it is cracked and on the small side.

It does have the dual exhaust which is cool, but isn't very loud which is fine by me, but on Saturday I was driving to my first show with the Merc with a group of guys and we had to pull over in a parking lot to check on a guys Model A overheating and when I went to start it up again, at first I couldn't tell if it was starting or not because the sound was drowned out by the other car's loud pipes!

Thats cool that you are a Minnesota transplant, I know of a bunch of people who are out west from here ( and some that moved back again.)

Cheers,

erik

[7"Chop]

Kool Merc Welcome