The custom car sure existed before the choppedMercurysof the 1950s , but it did n’t take off as a ethnical phenomenon until these 1949 - 51 Mercurys and other postwarcarshit the market .
Prior to the 1949s , postwar models were just rehashed 1942s . buffer were separate , hoods were tall and narrow-minded , front wicket were ordinarily upright and orthogonal , and rear ends dropped off sharply in a rounded bustle .
Then make out April 29 , 1948 , and the acquittance of the 1949 Mercury . Though it did have a modern gasbag body , the figure was n’t specially progressive , with its dated two - piece V - shaped windshield , thickheaded slabsided torso , rudimentary fadeaway front fenders , and rounded , fadeaway rear end .
Custom Car Image art gallery
Other cars from Cadillac , Oldsmobile , Hudson , and evenFordwere more modern in design , but it was actually the 1949 Merc ’s aesthetic quirks that made it so likeable to customizers .
southerly California shops had been custom-make 1940 - 48 Fords and Mercurys for old age . The new motorcar were certainly dissimilar , but element of the old cars remained , making the fresh Mercs easier to function on than other , more modern new purpose .
Plus , the dowdy Mercs on the face of it beg for bodywork . These cars presented themselves as vacuous self-propelling canvass .
Mercury changed the cars slenderly for 1950 , then more significantly for 1951 . The 1950s received a different front - end treatment , new hubcaps , and revise cut back all - around .
The 1951s got an even bolder grille , extended rear fenders with upright taillights , and a more modern , reshape rear window . Coupes were the preferred body style , but a fewconvertiblesand even sedan chair receive the custom intervention .
magazine publisher such asHot Rod , Hop Up , andMotor Trendcaught on to the growing customise trend and sport the nerveless rods and customs . This led to more business for existing shops and the growth of new ones .
Business was thriving for the likes of George and Sam Barris , Valley Custom , the Ayala brothers , Joe Bailon , and Gene Winfield , and much of the workplace was devoted to 1949 - 51 Mercs .
The first known 1949 Merc to be chopped was Sam Barris ' automobile done at the Barris shop in 1950 . Others soon follow and the trend reached its in high spirits breaker point with Bob Hirohata ’s refined 1951 done by the Barris workshop .
There ’s no telling exactly how many 1949 - 51 Mercs were actually chop up and customized in the fifties . Barris ' shop class discharge mayhap 35 - 50 cars , and the sum in all likelihood is n’t more than a couple hundred . By 1957 , the 1949 - 51 Mercs had largely been upstaged by newer , sleeker Detroit design that necessitate less work to bend heads .
Just as the 1932 Ford is the quintessential hot rod , the 1949 - 51 Mercs are the ultimate customs . A few impost automobile fans recognized that fact as early as the 1970s , and since then , many more custom Mercurys have been build in that classic 1950s expressive style .
But it was those blue-ribbon few Mercury customs build in the other to mid fifties that created an aesthetic all their own . Those Mercurys , build by legendary artisans , propelled the Falco subbuteo forward more than any eccentric of car in the history of customize .
