History Details of the Sonzogni Merc...

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Details of the Sonzogni Merc...

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I met Larry the current owner at the Merc Gathering at the Sacramento Autorama in 2009. It's white now with a 354 hemi in it. When he found it, it was a burned out shell. He drives the crap out of it. He even showed me one of the original dash knobs that Bob Hirohata made for it.

 

Interesting that they were already worried about so many 1949-51 Mercs being customised and the difficulty in being unique.

 

Here's a pic of the dash knob that Larry Dames showed me, made by Bob Hirohata! It survived the fire,.

 

Great to see it still survives.
Torchie

 

I took a pic of it in the 80`s in Illinois.

 

I seem to remember an article in one of my little pages where Bob Hirohata showed how he made dash knobs and shifter knobs but i can't remember which title. Car Craft maybe?

 

November 1953 issue of Rod & Custom Courtesy of Rik Hoving CCC.
https://www.customcarchronicle.com/custom-history/custom-plastic-details-1/

 

Good job @K13 !

 

Great story. Always loved the car, would like to see it in its original colors again.

 

One of my favorite Mecs. I second the motion of seeing it in original colors/side trim.

 

Apparently the owner had talked about doing it. But haven't heard or seen anything to indicate that it is moving in that direction.

 

Great story, the guy I bought my 51 Merc coupe from was the craft's shop teacher at Toppenish High School at the time and taught his students how to make laminated dash and gear shift knobs. The Merc didn't have any and I was too wrapped up in auto mechanics class to take another shop class.

 

A big thank you for the photos. Looking at them was inspirational on a -25 degree morning.

 

cool car, I'd never read about that one before.

 

I remember seeing something on FB, I can't remember if his son or nephew said he likes to drive it too much to re doe it at this time.

 

I wonder how it burned.

Really like the DeSoto grille. The Ford grille hubcaps are outstanding!

 

One of my favorite Mercs of all time. I had a '54 DeSoto grille for awhile. I think I'll build mine more similarly to the Bettancourt/Zupan Mercury.

 

I'm curious to know how that side trim was made from '53 Dodge pieces. I can see elements of it, but it must have had seams, and also curious to know how he got it to follow the shape of the body going down to the rocker panel. I really like that element.

 

Here are a few pic's I just saw on FB!

 

Here is an article Rik Hoving did on the car a couple of years ago on his CCC site.
https://www.customcarchronicle.com/cc-builders/barris-kustom-shop/frank-sonzogni-mercury/

and a link to all the pictures of it in his photo archive.
https://public.fotki.com/Rikster/11...ustom_cars/barris-1/frank_songzoni_50mercury/