When you think of a traditional custom car it's hard for anything but a 1949-1951 Mercury to come to mind. Because of their longtime status as preferred custom platform there is certainly no shortage of nicely executed chopped Mercurys from this time period.
Having said that, we haven't seen one that appeals to our personal taste in some time quite as much as this one in some time. Chopped and lowered, this Mercury has the right look without any of the extra nonsense that always seems to attract itself to custom cars.
Underneath the hood is the original flathead V8 and although the steering column has been shortened five inches it still has the manual shift for the three speed overdrive transmission. The wide whitewall tires are brand new and we actually kind of like the yellow powdercoated steel rims.
It might not be a revolutionary car but the mixture of original flathead/three on the tree and mostly period correct modification is just right. It would seem from the bidding we aren't the only ones fond of this super cool custom Merc. With a few hours left on the auction bidding has reached $22,000 which is—judging by the $25,000 buy-it-now price—awfully close to the reserve.
Is this the perfect custom 1950 Mercury? Obviously the answer depends on taste, but we'd say it's certainly the closest we've seen in a while.
[Ebay]