GOING FULL CIRCLE IN EARLY FORD V-8’S

 

It all started in 1955 with the purchase of my first car, a 1939 Mercury convertible which had a new Thomas rebuilt engine and new brakes.  It was not a nice car; both rear fenders were destroyed, interior, although original, was worn out and it turned out there was rust in the rocker panels. I was 15 years old and knew even less than I do now.  Being born in California I knew nothing about rust in cars – I found out the hard way.

The ‘39 Merc, in my opinion, then and now had some ugly features such as funny tin can type tail lights, half skirted rear fenders, too much trim on the hood, and ugly hubcaps.  The 1940 Mercs were much improved style wise, although they shared the same body.  First, I put dual steel pack mufflers on the car and second I installed a pair of 1940 Merc rear fenders and tail lights.  What an improvement!  Next, a new set of full moon hubcaps and hand painted, white sidewalls.  Lastly, I painted the wheel rims red.  Next, off came the goofy hood trim and I added seal beam headlights.  At age 16 I painted the body myself with 14 coats of nitrocellulose black lacquer which was rubbed out to the point of making a mirror finish, at least in the areas that showed.  With the top down the car became presentable and suitable for a little street racing.  Having flunked kindergarten (another story) I was a year older than most of my classmates and could legally drive when in the 10th grade.  Overnight I became quite popular between having “down time” on the Merc, due to broken axles and broken transmissions caused by racing guys on the street; I lost about 9 axles and 10 transmissions in total during my high school days.

In late 1957 the new ‘58 Chevy Impalas came out offering a new color, silver blue metallic.  My girlfriend, at the time, thought the Merc would look much better in this new color, So I painted the Merc again in silver blue lacquer, rubbed it out, again, and the Merc looked pretty good.  Of course, shortly thereafter, my girlfriend’s parents did not like me keeping their daughter out until 3:00 AM and the romance ended.  Oh well, the hell with it; I moved on and sold the Merc – another mistake in life; although, I kept track of the Merc until it collided with a train in Oxnard several years later.  That was the end of the Merc but I never forgot that car and vowed that someday I would own another.

That someday came in 1984, when my friend, Jerry Hunter, found a bright puke yellow ‘39 Merc convertible for sale at the Pomona Swap Meet.  I hated the color and the fact that it was not a restored car; it was kind of “fixed up” but it was still a ‘39 Merc convertible and I could afford the asking price so I bought the car.  At this time I had been in the Early Ford V-8 Club since 1969 and had owned at least 10 other early Ford V-8s.  I had also been involved in judging and had held many offices on the local and national level of the V-8 club.  It was safe to say I was committed to the purpose of the club:  to restore and preserve the early Ford V-8 as Henry made them.  With the help of Tim Krehbiel, Jerry Jensen, the late Art Knapp, Rick Williams and many others during a five year period we completed a total, body off, restoration resulting in a respectable 984 point Dearborn Award restoration.  I might add that our own Valley V-8er, Jerry Jensen did the interior, trunk and convertible top on this car and as you would expect, none of this part of the restoration received a single point deduction.  After owning this second ‘39 Mercury convertible for 30 years I sold the car because I had a secret project in progress with our 3rd ‘39 Mercury convertible purchased in 2006, which is currently pretty much finished.  This current Mercury project was started because I wanted to recreate my high school car with the ‘40 Merc fenders etc.  This time I wanted a few more things I couldn’t do the first time because of the financial burden.  I always wanted to chop the windshield and top two inches, install a 40 Merc grill and numerous other custom touches.  I could have done these things to my Dearborn award Mercury; but, just couldn’t bring myself to undo a high point restoration.

This third ‘39 Merc project started out being a worse car than the others, requiring this purchase of a solid original ‘39 Merc four door sedan which ended up being the donor car for the project.  We used the complete chassis, drive train, steering, suspension and floors off this donor car.  It took Rick Williams over two years to put it all together, Rick also chopped the top two inches, including making custom stainless steel door glass surrounds and modified the top frame to make the convertible top fully operational.  Plus, he made numerous other custom modifications and finally painted and assembled the silver blue body pieces.  Next the car went to an upholstery shop in Ontario, Ca where a dark blue and light grey leather interior was installed.  The quality of this upholstery installation was ok, but didn’t hold a candle to the quality of work our member Jerry Jensen had done on the second Mercury project.  Why didn’t we ask Jerry to do the upholstery; we did, Jerry was retired and he meant it, we lost. 

Several months ago members Larry Caplan, Ed Warnock and I were having lunch and Ed asked me if I wanted the internally modified (4 inch crank and Isky Max one cam etc) engine in his award winning ‘39 Ford convertible.  As part of the deal Ed said he would go through the engine completely and ready strip the block.  How could I turn down a deal like this?  Back in 1981, I had driven this very correct, stock appearing engine which was installed in his award winning ‘39 Ford convertible to the V8 club Western National Meet and at that time I had probably never driven any Ford V-8 that performed better than Ed’s car in my life.  This month that engine was installed in my silver blue ‘39 Mercury convertible and has been fired up; with dual 97 carbs and Offy heads plus an electronic ignition.  It should be a real thrill once we get it street ready to drive.  Yes, I think it’s fair to say it’s been a full circle lifetime dream come true.

Ralph