The 1949-51 Mercury played a key role in rebuilding the Ford Motor Company, and then it carved out its own special place in American car lore.

We’ve written often here at Mac’s Motor City Garage about the critical importance of the 1949 Ford for the automaker. As historians have noted, the radically modernized product probably saved the company, which had fallen desperately behind the times. In a similar way the 1949 Mercury, also brand new and completely redesigned, reversed the fortunes of Ford’s Mercury division.

With styling by Bob Gregorie, the ’49 Mercury was originally designed to be a Ford before executive vice president Ernest Breech decided in August 1946 that it was too large for the low-priced field and reassigned it to Ford’s sister division. It was the right call for Ford, and it was the right call for Mercury as well, as Mercury sales more then tripled to 300,000-plus cars in 1949—the brand’s best year in history up to that point.

Already prized by hot rodders and racers, for 1949 the famed Mercury V8 was enlarged to 255.4 cubic inches with a four-inch stroker crank, boosting the output to 110 hp. (The otherwise similar Ford version was 239 CID.) Front and rear suspension were overhauled with independent coils at the front and an open driveline and parallel leaf springs at the rear replacing the antiquated buggy-spring setup. At nearly 3700 lbs, this new car was several hundred pounds heavier and six inches longer than any previous Mercury, while Gregorie’s styling gave it a new bearing and presence. Prices were set in the $1900-2400 bracket, right in the middle of Oldsmobile territory.

The ’49 Mercury was rolled out on April 29, 1948 in four body styles: Coupe, Sedan, Convertible, and Station Wagon, and with some minor revisions (annual trim changes, new tail lamps and a larger rear window in ’51) the same essential package was continued through 1951. The ’49-’51 Mercurys no doubt reset the fortunes of the Mercury brand, but what we remember them for today is for their key role in the ’50s custom car movement. When we think of the classic kustoms of the lead sled era, we picture a chopped and dropped, nosed and decked Mercury.

Leading hot rod historian Pat Ganahl has identified why the Merc was so popular with the kustom crowd. In his 2001 book The American Custom Car, he noted that the ’49-’51 body style, while redesigned, used many of the same rounded shapes and contours as the familiar pre-’49 models. It was a look that spoke to them and they knew how to work with it. The ’49 Mercury of Sam Barris (above) was long assumed to be the first customized ’49-51 Mercury, but the experts now say others were probably completed first. In any event, the Barris brothers, Sam and George, worked on many of the other early Mercury customs as well, and they were in the thick of it all.

Easily the most famous of the early Mercury customs is the car known as the Hirohata Merc, below. Based on a  ’51 Sport Coupe that young Bob Hirohata purchased when he cashed out of the U.S. Navy in 1952, the Merc was radically altered by the Barris brothers and Frank Sonzogni, a Los Angeles policeman who worked part-time in the Barris shop. While it’s still recognizable as a Mercury, in fact nearly every square inch of the exterior sheet metal has been reshaped.

The car is still in existence today, preserved and restored by its long-time owner, the late Jim McNeil. In April of 2017, the Bob Hirohata Mercury was named to the National Historic Vehicle Register in recognition of its importance to American automotive history and culture. Photo below courtesy of the Historic Vehicle Association.