1957 Mercury Mermaid

I’ve been having problems sleeping this week and for one reason or another, my body decided to catch up last night. As such, I got off to a late start this morning. To make matters worse, I sat down in front of the keyboard this late morning with no idea of what to post about. I kind of leaned back in my chair and stared at the ceiling doing by best impersonation of David Letterman. Then it came to me…

You remember the late ’57 issue of Hot Rod Magazine that featured a crazy ’57 Mercury outfitted for Daytona? I had in my mind’s eye, but couldn’t remember the history of the car at all. Google to the rescue.

In 1957, Bill Stroppe wanted to build something that had the potential to dominate the beaches of Daytona. He started with a ’57 Merc convertible. The torch made quick work of the windshield posts and the top mechanism, but it took the talent of Eddie Kuzma to create the incredible aluminum canopy that covered the cockpit. The end result is a ’57 Merc streamliner.

For power, Stroppe leaned on a Lincoln block bored to 387-inches and helped along by Hilborn injection, a Scintilla mag, H&C roller cam, and Hedman Headers. The dyno showed just a hair over 400 horses after a little tuning effort by the venerable Mr. Art Chrisman.

When the car debuted on the sand, people freaked out… The gigantic car sounded as mean as it looked. And the performance? The best one way speed was just under 160 mph, but on the last run Art Chrisman (flown in to drive) reported a speed of well over 180 mph before the motor let go.

Man… I love old shit.

Editor’s note: A few years ago, this car was recreated by a shop in Wisconsin. Check it out.