It was definitely a strange choice--like I said, the 80s. I was nervous about posting this car because of the front end treatment. I figured the cool aspects of the car outweighed the strange ones, so I crossed my fingers and posted it. Thanks for keeping it up so the discussion could continue! E Ok guys, @DANSLED brought up an intriguing thought. There may have been two different cars. Since I never got a good view of the back of the red version I assumed it was one in the same. This makes something I experienced in my search for information on this car very puzzling. On one of my Sled Scene East videos, there is another '49-'51 Merc with this front end treatment on it. It looked to be a darker red than the red version of this car. Matter of fact, it was more like a deep, dark kandy burgundy. It seems the car had body mods that were somewhat different than the custom (customs?) featured here. I didn't document it with notes or pictures because I assumed it was another car. In the next few evenings I'll dig into the DVDs and get pictures and show information to post and maybe we can clear this up a little bit. Could there have been two or maybe more different Mercurys with the stacked dual square headlights and a Torino grille? It doesn't sound possible, but who knows? E
It is for sure a 51 merc, found another pic of it (not mine and cant post yet without permission), antenna is farther back on fender on the white car, however the scallop on the white car matches the work on the red ones antenna, (?). Regretfully it appears that Mr. Hayes passed away in April of last year. The picture I'm referring to is on his daughters Facebook page.
"Franklin – Billy Vernon Hayes, 86, passed away April 16, 2019, in Southampton Memorial Hospital. Born in Suffolk, he was the son of the late George Hayes and Annie Marie Holland Hayes and was also predeceased by his wife Aleene Castellow Hayes and a son-in-law Jack Knapp. Billy was a US Navy Veteran and served during the Korean War. He collected classic cars and loved spending time at his summer house on Buggs Island Lake. Billy enjoyed boating and loved his friends." https://www.wrightfuneralhome.org/obituary/billy-hayes
Thanks for the information guys. Another sad find as Mr. Hayes is no longer with us. Rest in peace..........E Thanks for posting the pic Sancho. I like the looks of the car despite the 80s style touches. I'd cruise the wheels off of it! E Ok, I did some research tonight and I found the other Merc I was telling everyone about. Maybe I'm watching way too much video these days, as it seems like a lot of these leadsleds are starting to melt together (lol)! The car I was talking about is definitely not Mr. Hayes' car. This car was a '49 four door with square headlights and a Sabertooth grille. For those of you that have never heard of a Sabertooth grille, they were manufactured by a company here in the states in the 90s. They were chromed plastic and were roughly patterned after 50s Corvette grille teeth. I haven't seen any Sabertooth grilles or teeth in years. I don't think they were made very long as I don't think they sold very well. This Mercury was at Sled Scene East in 1994, and it's really not very close to the style of Bill's car at all. Besides, we know that by 1994 Bill's car was white with the gold scallops. Sorry to post another square headlight car gang, but I just wanted to give everyone the update that I was telling you about earlier today. Looks like this was no help about the differences in the red Merc and the white one. It definitely seems like there could have been two different cars considering the amount of work it would have taken to change the '50 back window to a '51, as well as the quarter panels. Maybe someone will chime in and help clear it all up. E
We now know where all the Ron Box cars went. Member @roundsy has them! He posted these on the Kustoms blues thread... https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...ee-some-kustoms.946075/page-645#post-13509461
What Ever Happened To..........? number 211. 1949 Mercury Owner: Ken Brown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania I watch more hours of video these days than I care to count. If there is one good thing that has happened for me with this corona virus is that many of the normal distractions around here are not a problem right now. I'm sure all of you that are homebound can relate to that. That being said, it's a little discouraging when I watch hour after hour of video, search through endless stacks of books and magazines and search the internet from front to back and top to bottom and a certain custom eludes me of any information. This week's car is one of those. Thankfully it was at one KKOA show that I have video of, and even on that video there is just a short interview of about one minute. Ken Brown dragged his custom Merc to Sled Scene East in 1987. It's a completely home built car with the exception of the interior. In the interview Ken did say he took the interior out of the car and took it to the upholstery shop, had everything recovered and re-installed it himself! Other than that he did it all. So technically, I guess you can say he did do it all himself. He also mentioned in the interview that he bought the car in 1958 and cruised it around as a mild custom. After a while the drag racing bug bit him and off to the races he went and the Merc got mothballed for many years. He said he enjoyed drag racing, but it was getting too expensive so he decided it was time to go back on the streets. He dragged the Merc out of storage and got to work. From the interview it sounds like he knew his way around an engine, and he hopped up a small block Chevy 400, put it with a turbo 350 transmission and dropped it in the Merc. After the car was up and running, he decided it was time to get on the body. He shaved the doors, hood and trunk, frenched the headlights, and removed some of the extras on the stock grille. Ken said in the interview that he wanted a chop job done on the car, but when he shopped around to get a price, he found that all of the estimates he got were too expensive. He decided that since he couldn't afford to have the car chopped, he would try it himself and hope for the best. Having never done this kind of work before, he said he was a little nervous! In his own backyard, he set out to work on his Merc. He decided that 6 1/2 inches out of the back and 5 1/2 in the front would give him the profile he wanted. He never mentioned how long it took him, but I think it turned out great! Nice profile with the classic leadsled look. After all the body mods were done and the car was in primer, Ken figured that if he could do bodywork, he'd give painting a shot. He chose bright yellow for the main color of the car. After that was done, he decided it could use some flames so he started laying out flames and masking the car. He chose blue for the flame color and then used some green on the tips to give it a fade effect. I think it all turned out well. The flames are true 50s style and the colors of the car make it look as if it just jumped off the cover of a little book from 1958! You can tell that Ken did his homework and studied many an old Rod & Custom, Honk! or Car Craft for sure! One neat old time touch was the reverse flames around the headlights. Really a simple trick that gives the paint job an extra amount of neat detail. Out back the sled was cleaned up nicely and left simple. With a yellow Mercury you really don't need a lot of extra doo dads to stand out. One interesting little detail is the "Playboy" bunny on the corner of the trunk. I'm sure there were a few stories behind that. I would have loved to hear all about it! After the interview was over there wasn't much else on the Mercury. There were a few shots of Mr. Brown cruising his Merc through a roundabout in town, but no other real good footage. Getting good moving shots was difficult again this week as my copy of the 1987 Sled Scene East is on a VHS tape. Old tape and moving images make for bad pictures. Sorry I couldn't find more images to share that are of better quality. After the Sled Scene East in '87 this car vanished. I watched video after video thinking I'd seen this car somewhere before, but every other yellow Merc I found was another car. So what ever happened to the ex-drag racer Mr. Brown and his awesome homebuilt '49? We may never know.......... I hope that everyone out there isn't going stir crazy. I think if this virus had started in the late fall or early winter in the U.S.A. and we had to stay in, it wouldn't be a very big deal at all. Heck, it would be freezing outside in many places. But, the weather is getting better, the grass is starting to green up and many of the songbirds have made their way back from their winter grounds. That makes last summer's cruising seem like an eternity ago having to stay inside with no extra driving (make that cruising) right now. Hang in there! Hopefully things will get somewhat back to normal before the summer flies by. Take care and be safe out there! 'Til next time, see you around! E
Yellow! I predict this will be another one that's hard to track (at least for me). The two most distinguishing features are the paint and the use of the cleaned up stock grill. If it was repainted with a grill swap it would be hard to identify as the same car.
You know Sancho, a lot of these customs that were at the KKOA shows in the early days are really hard to find anything on. If these cars never made the show coverage in a magazine or as a feature, most people never saw them. A few lucky folks saw them at the show, or we re-discover them by watching these old videos. We are really spoiled nowadays. It seems the whole world has a camera on them, and car show pictures abound. Then with the web, we can see pictures from all over the world without being there. With all that being said, even with all the technology we have today, those old show days were way better! E
When you post pix of East Coast Customs that your looking for I can't help you,You need more people that went to Leadeast and Sled scene East that live on the East Coast today that can help as long as they know about the HAMB and your thread. As far as the Midwest goes,I went to most of them starting in 82 and 84 Des Moines Ia as a spectator,then entering my 56 Dodge at the 86 Spectacular in Springfield Mo only missing the 91 Hamilton Oh and 99 somewhere in Kentucky. All the rest of the shows were exciting because they changed states each year and always drew cars from the region and either out East or up North. The Springfield Oh Spectacular from 1993 show was the biggest and all Customs,then for some reason Jerry took the show on the road and went to Huntsville Al. Mark (Moriarity) and I drove our Customs down south with the other 180 Customs from around the states but it was tough for the diehard KKOA members to come back after that dismal showing of Customs. Each year the numbers increased but still nothing like 93 Springfield.It was exciting to return to Wichita in 2000 (20) years later from where it all began in 81. Then again Jerry took it on the road and traveled back to Ohio but this time skipping Springfield and going to a city no one heard of,Lancaster in 200-2004. I skipped the 1st year and went the next year 2002. It was small,smaller than Huntsville Al.show but just as far from Minnesota. I didn't go back in 2003 or 2004 as I drove even further to Hartford Conn for the Road Agents show which was a great show but really too far for a short one day show. I heard from several people that the 2004 Lancaster show drew a very disappointing 80 cars. The next run for Jerry is the Salina show,I never thought he would keep it there for all these years,but it makes sense as there's nothing that large in the middle of America so it continues with the 40th this year,Hopefully it will still go on.
What Ever Happened To..........? number 212. 1951 Mercury Convertible Owner: Gene Wright Springfield, Missouri This week's car is like so many others we've discussed here that seemed to make a short appearance and then disappeared. From the video, this looked like a quality build that was magazine quality. All my searching through books and magazines came up empty on that, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't featured somewhere. I just couldn't find it in any publications that I have. Gene Wright took his beautiful tu-tone purple Mercury to the Leadsled Spectacular in his hometown of Springfield, Missouri in 1986. One quick side note here. It is so strange that of all the different years the Spectacular was held in towns known as Springfield, that 1986 was the only year it was in Springfield, Missouri. On the '86 video, there was very little footage of Gene's Merc prowling around the fairgrounds or even sitting on the fairgrounds during the show. Thankfully, Rowdie saw fit to interview Gene and his family. Gene, his wife and young son are all pictured here being interviewed by Jerry Titus' daughter Denise. Gene gave a nice rundown on the car including the custom mods done to the car and the great paint. He called it dark violet on the top, with lighter violet under the Buick side trim. It had all the traditional tricks like shaved everything, frenched headlights and rounded corners. Gene did mention that the original '51 front clip was changed out to an earlier '50 unit. He never mentioned the grille, but it is a Pontiac grille that looks to have been modified, as I don't think it is completely stock. Out back there were custom taillights, but Gene never mentioned what they were, and I couldn't tell what they were in the video. At any rate, the back end looked custom. You can see that Gene had someone letter "Purple People Eater" below the quarter windows. This is the name Gene gave the car. Here's another view of the lettering up a little closer, although the picture quality is poor. Under the hood Gene went all out on paint, chrome and detail on the tri-powered small block Chevy. Moving to the interior we see tons of white tuck'n'roll. This was a great choice as the white had a nice contrast to the dark violet paint on the car. The interior was spotless! Another nice touch was the underdash record player. Mr. Wright never said if it worked. I would have loved to know! I searched quite extensively on my other videos and I never saw the car again. There were a number of real convertible Merc customs at the Leadsleds in the early years, whether they were real 'verts or Carson topped cars, but I never saw the "Purple People Eater" again. After the '86 Spectacular this fantastic Merc quietly faded away. Did the right person come up to Gene and make him an offer he couldn't refuse and he sold it? Maybe Gene wanted to build another sled and parked the '51 in the meantime. Does anyone out there recall this beautiful sled? Hope so.......... Not to sound like a broken record again this week, but I hope you all are well. I also hope that those of you that can work are still at it and are safe. For those of you that aren't working, I hope you get your unemployment or whatever you need to survive. Be strong and keep the faith! These are unprecedented and very strange times we are going through right now. Like I mentioned before, there is a reason we are going through this and He knows why. Have a Happy Easter! I'll see you next Tuesday! E
Great looking Merc for this weeks WEHT, Ed. My guess is the grill is lower bar from a '55 Chrysler New Yorker. Sorry, no help on the Merc. Never seen it before ... which is one the great things about this thread. You always shine the light on some unknown kustom builder/owner. Thanks for all the research and note taking you do to keep us looking forward to Tuesday night on the HAMB.
Thanks for posting the pic Jim! Nice to see a clear picture of this Merc. Looking at your picture this car looks like a sedan that had the top cut off and wasn't a real convertible. On the video it looks like a real 'vert with the top boot and all. Never saw it with a top or the top up. Hmmm........E Great eye Bill! No wonder the grille looked Pontiac--but not quite. It was the width that made me think someone had done some work to it. The Chrysler grille totally makes sense. Glad you're still hanging out on our W.E.H.T. thread and using your sharp eyes to point out details! E
Dragging this one up from December 2018 Going back to this one because I just found it for sale on Facebook Market place. https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/125878785528086/
Not trying to hijack this thread, but this custom Fairlane popped up on the Bring a Trailer website this morning. It’s called the white pearl, and was customized in the late 50s by John North out of Connecticut. Not connected to the sale, just thought you might find it interesting.
Small world. I put this out to some of my friends. Turns out that one of them used to own this car. Maybe with my corona-virus incentive check, I can bring it home.
this car was at the fall Auburn auction last year. I think it bid to 30 grand and did not sell. there is plenty of checked, and cracked paint and bodywork issues. granted the car was done a long time ago but the pictures make it look a ton better than it really is.....
Yeah, if you look close at the pictures...it has some issues. Still, I wouldn’t kick it out of the garage.
What Ever Happened To..........? number 213. 1953 Ford Convertible Owner: Jim Geiger Brookville, Ohio For this week's sled we are going to continue on with the same trend we have been on for the last few weeks. That being cars that seemed to only make it to one KKOA show, and then quietly cruised off into custom history. Jim Geiger took his sensational '53 Ford convertible to the Leadsled Spectacular in Springfield, Missouri in 1986. In the early years of the KKOA, the tu-tone light blue and dark blue paint job seemed very popular. There were a number of cars with a similar paint scheme, and that made tracing this car a little tricky. With all the tu-tone blue customs, this one was one of the bunch that stood out. Ironic that Jim's custom wasn't on the video other than the interview with Rowdie's girl Denise. Here she is talking over the finer points of the '53 with Mr. Geiger. Jim said that he did all the work on the car at home himself with the exception of the interior. The car was chopped 3 inches and the convertible top was reworked and functioned perfectly. It had the usual dose of custom modifications all pulled off nicely. In front, the hood was shaved and louvered and the stock headlights were frenched. Jim also molded the grille opening and filled it with a DeSoto grille. Pontiac side trim was added to separate the tu-tone paint. Out back Jim shaved the trunk, added Packard taillights and neatly tucked in a '56 Chevy bumper underneath. This combination all works so well together--custom perfection! The interior was classic white tuck'n'roll, and included a cool pleated spare tire cover in the trunk as well. On the video, the trunk looks like it may have still been under construction, or maybe Jim just had his travelling gear back there hiding the custom trunk work. Under the hood is a nicely detailed V8. Jim never said what it was, but the gold block and the chrome valve covers and air cleaner assembly look really sharp! The interview was short and sweet, and I thought maybe that was all there was on the car. Magazine and internet searching didn't turn up a whole lot, but I did find one excellent picture on Rikster's site that was taken by Scott Pavey. I'm assuming this was at the '86 Leadsleds as I didn't see the car on any other tape. I'm hoping that one of you lucky folks that were at that show and the years around it can confirm other sightings. Anyway, it's nice to see a clear and sharp picture of Jim's Ford. Funny, it seems that Jim never had the top down all weekend. Maybe one of our custom faithful can dig up more pics, and possibly one of the car running around topless. Unfortunately after 1986 I found no more on the car. Searching for more information I decided to do an internet search on Mr. Geiger and that turned up nothing. I guess it would be better for me to leave the super sleuth work to @Sancho and @John B 'cause I usually don't have much luck with the people search (lol). So I guess that's all for this week. I sure hope you guys have more than I could find. It would be nice to learn more about Mr. Geiger and his fabulous ragtop! It seems like the States have been "shut down" for months instead of just weeks. I have to admit I'm getting a little restless what with the weather getting nicer and all, but I'm trying to be patient and look forward to the time when all this passes and we can get on to our long awaited summer fun. I hope you all are well! Take care and we'll get together to check out another interesting custom next week. See you then! E
That car had been to the Custom car revival at least once. Also it was owned by Ed Meurer from I think Michigan. He had passed away and his car collection was sold at the fall Auburn auction in Auburn Indiana . I attended the event and the car sold no reserve for something like 15 grand. He also had a custom 41 ford conv that sold for similar money
A previous listing that features several top-down photos: https://classiccars.com/listings/view/1258241/1953-ford-custom-for-sale-in-rogers-minnesota-55374 And here's a good shot of the uncluttered trunk:
Thanks for the great pictures and information guys! Great to see Jim's car with the top down. The profile shot looks like a picture from the cover of a little book. I liked the car with the wire wheels, but I like the four bars even better. My fuzzy pictures really hid the beauty of this car. So beautiful! E
It was shown in the Oakland Roadster show in 95 and was in a back ground shot in the book about the history of the show. It had a pretty good spot in the show as well as it was sitting on the end and next to the Royal Emperor. A long trek from Ohio. It also looks like it has a Carson style top as well. Wide whites and flippers and also looks a bit lower in stance. r.
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