Stolen from Dean Jeffries' shop, but rumored to still be around: https://www.customcarchronicle.com/custom-cars/zupan-mercury/
I've heard everything from it's "in the possession of a certain notorious motorcycle club" to "it's on the (insert direction here) side of Pueblo in a semi trailer untouched since it was taken from Jeffries' shop"... It'd be awesome to find it of course, but I'd hate to get shot over it!
Bob is from St Cloud Mn about an hour north of where I live. I saw this car a lot in the 80's. It was sold at the 86 kkoa show when someone from the east coast showed up with a briefcase full of money and bought a half dozen chopped mercs at the event. this one and I believe also Misty blue. don't remember the others off hand. the rumor at the time was an unheard of amount of 13.5 grand each was paid... oh how times have changed. Bobs next car was that god awful 51 Merc that custom rodder magazine used as part of their logo for years. Billet wheels Porsche red , Don't anybody dare post a pic of it I will delete it because its off topic. Bob later got into low riders and had a 63 Impala. Haven't heard anything about him in a pretty long time....
I`ve been a little busy lately, I`ll post some pic`s later. I heard that it was called State of Shock because that was the state he was in when it was painted with the flames. I think the first version was in one of Mike Keys books. Maybe someone can post the pic`s. I`ll try to post tonight.
Great minds think alike Bill. I blew up that picture, tried looking at it with my magnifying glass and I couldn't make it out either. Maybe it says something like "State of Shock" that Jim (@stanlow69) mentioned. E As always, @Sancho's sharp eyes have picked up some details I missed. I think it's cool when a car goes through some tasteful changes and can be chronicled through photographs. E That would be great @00 MACK! I'm sure everyone is as excited as me to see any additional information. E Thanks for the post, Mark. I will never understand what makes a guy go from having a cool traditional car like Bob's Merc to the contemporary tweed interior billet wheeled side of the hobby. E
I still can't believe a Guards Red, billet wheel, tweed interiored, custom Merc' ever existed. Made me wish it kept driving to the right .... to tumble off the cover, and never come back again. Poor thing. I think it still looks as it did, too. Ever sadder outcome. Some people's kids .... ( )
It actually IS the same car! The car was originally maroon with silver scallops and UNCHOPPED. It was a decent mild custom. It was for sale for a while around here (Minneapolis), then it was purchased by Bob and redone into the more radical version. It was listed in the classifieds of Classic & Custom before Bob bought it for $3900! If you look closely, many of the details like the taillights, grill opening and bumpers are still there. It won MSRA(Minnesota Street Rod Association) Custom of the Year in Bob's version in 1985. His "Hi-Tech" Merc won the award in 1988!
Scans from Super Hot Rods and Customs. It`s in the Merc issue. If you find it. Buy it. The color of the car appears darker, @54delray. More pic`s to come later. .
stanlow69 is correct, I found these three pictures in Mike Key's "LeadSleds" book. I also remember seeing it at the '86 Leadsled show.
While scanning the pictures from Mike Key's book, I saw another Mercury I remember. I think it is for sale on eBay now. Is it the same Merc?? It has a "Mid-Century Mercury" bumper plaque, but I never saw it at the Kenosha show. The last two pictures are from the eBay ad.
I also saw Bob Schuh's Merc at the '84 LeadSled show. There are some nice pictures of Bob's "Hi Tech" Merc in Mike Key's second book but I better not post them.
Thanks for posting those pic`s Brewtown. Here are a few from mine and my dad`s collection. And one more pic to be posted tomorrow.
While scanning the pictures from Mike Key's book, I saw another Mercury I remember. I think it is for sale on eBay now. Is it the same Merc?? It has a "Mid-Century Mercury" bumper plaque, but I never saw it at the Kenosha show. The last two pictures are from the eBay ad. Good to see it's still around. Looks like it was pinstriped, triple lake pipes added and skirts pulled (off in the pics at least) and someone added stainless side and rear glass stainless which looks much improved. Late model mirrors need to be lost. https://www.ebay.com/itm/1951-Mercu...ash=item33dda4cf32:g:n6EAAOSw3RZaORZd&vxp=mtr
I`m trying to get work done. I could post every pic I have of the car, but then what would I do the rest of the week. This way I earn more LIKES.
Not was I was referring to. I’m well aware of the versions of Bob Schuchs Tangerine merc and how it looked in Mike Keys book, unchopped. I was referring to a car that was mistaken for it in Holland Mich painted light blue.
Definitely Duane Flahertys old 51 from cannonsburg pa, built in early 80s Sent from my SM-G955U using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
This pic was taken by the Late Dave Barnes with an polaroid instamatic camera. His girlfriend gave me his two photo albums he had. Dave owned the merc that I mentioned in Phil Van Tassel. in the previous W E H T feature. There weren't many pics that I thought he should of had. But he did take one and only one of Bob`s Merc. Later, Dave owned a chopped 67 Riv with swivel seats. I`m thinkin this was taken at the Merc Duce Reunion in Kansas. Enjoy. The Reunion was a week after the Leadsleds in Des Moines. In the article above on Bob`s Merc, it mentioned the it had tilt and telescopic steering wheel. I thought at the time that it was a big deal to have that. Dave`s Merc also had that from a Caddy in his Merc. You rarely here people using that now in any vehicle being built. But it was common back then. Notice the little mat in the car like in the Lil Miss Vicky car.
Here is a feature Ed did on page 18, And a pic I had posted earlier. And here`s one I just found in Truckin magazine from Sept of 88.
I thought I would post a video I made a few days ago of the little corner of Christmas in our house. Kind of an "electronic Christmas card" to all my kustom family and friends that frequent this thread. Thanks for sticking around and participating to make this such a fun place to hang out together. Wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas! See y'all tomorrow night! E
What Ever Happened To..........? number 94. 1949 Merc "Fiftys Forever" Owner: Bob McQualdy Decatur, Illinois Ok everyone, this week's W.E.H.T. has been a real brain buster for me. This week's post is also going to be a first--three feature cars! I figured that we would send out 2017 with a bang on this thread! It all started a long time ago researching these cars, and @BrewtownPrez's post a few above this one made me decide to finally grab the bull by the horns and get these three cars done. The common thread on these cars is that they all had Riviera side trim on them. I found an additional Merc with the Riv side trim that was very similar to the others but I couldn't find any pictures of that one, but I'll fill in the details on that later. The first car was a '49 Merc owned by Bob McQualdy. His car made its debut at the 1986 Leadsled Spectacular in Springfield, Missouri. The car had all the usual custom modifications including the usual shaving and chopped top, but Bob went the extra step and made the car a hard top. From the front the car was pretty mild with the stock grille, but it had frenched headlights, shaved hood trim, side marker lights and rounded hood corners. Bob was an upholsterer by trade, and he did the interior himself. He added "be-bop" dancers to each door, as well as stitching a jukebox into the headliner. It's pretty hard to imagine what I'm talking about, but the only place I saw it was on the video. Sorry no pics. The interior would probably be considered cheesy by today's standards, but it looks like it was a huge job to do. It must have impressed the KKOA brass as it nabbed the "Koolest Interior" award at the show that year! Bob made the drive to Springfield, Illinois for the Spectacular in '87. The video showed him towing a trailer into the fairgrounds and the rear end sat up real high. He must have had air shocks. He can be seen cruising around the fairgrounds throughout the video without the trailer, and the rear end was much lower. After the '87 show, I never saw the car on video again. My search for pictures on the internet and in magazines turned up empty. I'm sure that such a radical car in the 80s was featured in a magazine somewhere, but it isn't in my collection. Thankfully, Jim (@stanlow69) was nice enough to send me pictures from his vast custom photo collection to put up here to show everyone the car. Thanks Jim! So, there's number one. The similarities of the next cars will probably surprise everyone. I think once you see all the cars you'll understand why researching these Mercurys almost drove me crazy (lol)! E What Ever Happened To..........? number 95. 1949 Mercury Owner: Robert Earl Jones Sr. Bakersfield, California This car is one that I'm not real sure that I have all the facts straight on. I believe this car was built in the Midwest in the early 80s. Unfortunately, I have no idea who did the work or who the owner was at that time. You'll see in the pictures that it had Iowa plates on it, then Nevada. I saw glimpses of this car (at least I think it was this car) at the Leadsleds in '87 (Springfield, IL) and the '93 Spectacular in Springfield, Ohio. The only way I know the name of the owner, at least as of 2003, is that the car was in the second KKOA book on page 31. It mentions there that the car has been in California for 17 years (as of 2003). If you compare all the pictures I found of the car on Rikster's site and from Jim, the car looks to be the same with only minor changes such as hubcaps and the addition of lake pipes and two different styles of skirts. I'm hoping that the information here is fairly accurate. Hard to believe that there were at least three Mercurys that were red and white with Riviera trim..........E What Ever Happened To..........? number 96. 1951 Mercury Owner: Duane Flaherty Canonsburg, Pennsylvania This Mercury was brought to light a few posts back by @BrewtownPrez. He found the car on Ebay, so it isn't lost. Well, we know where the car is right now, but how did it get there? Duane Flaherty built this car in the late 70s or early 80s. From what I've read, this car was around the scene a lot until around 1983. I searched magazines and watched the few early Leadsled videos I have and I never saw the car at a KKOA show. The car was featured in the article titled "Those Mercs" in Custom Cars by Hot Rod Volume 1 number 5 printed in 1983. Early on, and in the first picture BrewtownPrez posted, you can see the car had Ohio license plates on it. Later on in my search, I found the car in the back of the May 1983 issue of Classic & Custom in the classifieds section. Just $7500! Man those were the days! You'll notice that Duane's address was in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania at that time. Seems like he may have made a move out of Ohio to PA. I have no way of telling if Duane sold the car in or around 1983, or how many times it has changed hands, but it looks to have stayed in the east as it is currently for sale in Maryland. The first pictures are the ones BrewtownPrez posted. One from a show way back, and the other pictures are from the Ebay auction. The other pictures are from the magazines I mentioned above. Early in the post, I mentioned another Merc with Riviera side trim. This car was a '51, all red, heavily chopped with straight "B" pillars. It had a '53 Chevy grill complete with the marker light ends and 9 teeth. It had stock style skirts and '57 Cadillac hubcaps. Out back it had the exhaust through the bumper and what look to be '54 Packard tail lights in the rear fenders. It was on my '86 and '87 videos of Sled Scene East in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, but I couldn't see where the plates were from on the car. I never saw it on any Leadsled Spectacular video, so it seems like this guy only attended east coast custom car shows. In the '86 Sled Scene East video, the car was cruising by the camera in "How Cool Can You Cruise". Jerry Titus was describing the cars as they crept by the camera. He never mentioned the owner's name, but I did hear him say something about Jack Peed. It sounded like Jack had something to do with the construction of this awesome sled, but I can't say for sure. The audio was kind of muffled and hard to hear, so I couldn't clearly make it out. I searched and searched and found no photos of this car. The only reason I was looking for information on this car is because I thought that maybe it was one of the red with white trim cars that had changed hands and a new owner added the white below the trim. I'm pretty sure that this is not the case with this car. Does this one sound familiar? I'm sure that one of our east coast regulars might have something on this one. We'll see. Well, that pretty much sums up the post for this week, and the last W.E.H.T. of 2017. I'm sure you folks out there will have quite a bit to add. Let me be among the first to wish you all a Happy New Year with hopes of great health and prosperity in the coming year! You guys take care out there, and as the corny old joke goes, "See you next year"! E
Correct me if I`m wrong, but is Roberts car different from the others listed above it. My pic`s are from about 86 in Springfield Il. The leadsled book came out after that. The Nevada pic`s are from a later date. The location of the Riv chrome is mounted higher. Yet a different car.
I thought the same thing. I didn't know the order of the pics, but a few of the pics looked more recent. I noticed the trim too, but thought maybe it was camera angle. Confusing isn't it? These cars have been a challenge! E
I noticed the Bakersfield car hasn't the rounded hood corners.. ..before, after? ..And the B&W shot of Duane's hasn't rounded corners either. It is confusing! Dave
The Mercury hardtop with the musical notes on the door panels also had a working Jukebox mounted on the headliner (I believe).
At a couple of the shows, McQualdy had a remote start on his Merc. He started his Merc what seemed like every 10 to 15 minutes startling people as they would lean in to look at the Jukebox on the headliner. You could clearly hear the starter crank and the car rumbled pretty good too. He would be back a ways, they would look around and couldn`t figure out who did it. He also had a remote kill switch too. Paso John is right, it looked like a real jukebox. I tried to get a pic, but it didn`t come out. I guess if I laid down in the front seat it would of came out. The top of the jukebox was towards the rear window. If I remember right.
The Jalopy Journal
