Projects A Speedster Comes Out of the Weeds—Build Thread

Very cool!! I'm watching this one for sure!

 

Neat!

 

I didn't know this was the really rare Chevrolet version when I made my last post, yes the vintage Chevy chassis would be the right match for it. This photo shows the Pinky Randal Chevy MERCURY Speedster. Bob

 

Only the passenger door is original. In 1920 these cars had no doors, and a passenger door was added starting in 1923; I think they were getting complaints from the ladies, who didn't enjoy hiking up their skirts to climb in. Somebody added a driver's door to this one, which resulted in a new problem I had to solve. I'll explain shortly.

Yes, there's good information and pictures there.

Hi Matt! Yeah, that would have been my friend Russ. His old Doctor's Coup is a hoot to driv;.

Volvobrynk, you've pretty much nailed my plan. Bring the body back to its original configuration, keeping a few of the original builder's cooler modifications. Hot rod the running gear and chassis--but all of it will be of the era.

 

Cool!

 

awesome! following.

 

Someone needs to find you a 3port Oldsmobile or Fronty for Chevy head if you don't have one already. Bob

 

Real cool!! Lots of ideas looking at this thread.This car has stoked my interest in building a one off custom speedster.It will have to be a closed car since I have ear problems.The use of a hood for the tail seems to make sense and is a good foundation for a swept back look.Thats what it looks like in the dig out pictures.
Cant wait to see this back together.Some off these look like they are going fast just sitting still.More pictures please!!

 

That is too cool. It amazes me what is turning up lately.

 

It just doesn't get much better than this. Clark, you are the right guy for this car to be with. Looking forward to the progress pics, especially the body work/repairs. Tim

 

These responses are great. Thanks, everyone. Lots more to come.

This is the point where I’m supposed to explain my plans for the car. All along I had wanted to build a hot rod, but the discovery that I had come across something of a rare bird threw me for a loop. I spent many evenings staring at the thing and wondering if it didn’t deserve a more formal restoration. (This time wasn’t wasted however—I used it to take a welding class.)

It was my wife who finally put everything into perspective. “I don’t want a museum piece,” she told me. “I want a car we can have fun with. And besides, I thought you wanted to build a hot rod.”

My wife is very smart.

So this will be a hot-rod speedster, if there is such a thing. I’ll keep some of the original builder’s cooler touches—like the hood—while repairing much of the damage he inflicted. It will be era-correct, more or less. I envision a car somebody could have built in the late ‘40s or early ‘50s—as the original builder did—to emulate the Indy/Champ/Racecar look.

I should also warn everyone right now that this will not be one of those threads that dazzle you with stunning metal work and meticulous welds. I am not Flop. When I started this project I had never welded or done bodywork in my life, and my fabrication experience was limited to a few simple brackets hack-sawed from angle iron. Bringing this car back required a steep learning curve, and the HAMB was my primary resource. I’m pretty proud of the results, and feel I’m doing the car justice. But the best I can aspire to is “competent.”

I'm including this image just because: I felt like a Central American explorer discovering a Mayan ruin.

 

Model T Ford W/ M ercury body...

 

Bob is that Mercury in Alaska now? There was one here on the East Coast, a nice older restoration that sold to someone in the PNW and had its original Mercury fenders and Buffalo wires removed and added to another out there, wonder if this is the same car? Bob

 

To get started, I stripped all the components off the body and built a rolling work platform. The body is all one piece and very light—two of us were able to transfer it easily.


The biggest problem is obvious: the cowl is badly racked, and folded right in front of the driver’s door. This probably happened when the outbuilding it was stored in collapsed. These shots show how far off everything was (sorry about the kitchen overflow in the background—this was taken during a home remodel).





Earlier, Bob/The37Kid asked about the doors. The driver’s door on this car was a later addition—these cars originally did not have doors. In 1923 a passenger door was introduced, so the ladies could get in and out with more dignity, but they never had a driver’s door.

When the body was cut for this car’s driver’s door, the only bracing added was a thin piece of wood for the forward door latch (they’re suicide doors). With the structural integrity compromised, everything buckled when the building fell, and then just continued to settle over time under the weight of the heavy homemade windshield and soggy bushes.

My solution was to affix a large wooden framework to the platform, and use a portapower and pipe-clamps to pull the cowl back into shape. I’m keeping the driver’s door, so I put my new welding “skills” to work building an internal supporting framework out of square tubing to hold the cowl in place.

 

I am building a model A Speedster for T. R. O. G. I will be watching your build for ideas. Don down the way from the Region ,

 

That is so cool, Clark! I love to see progress!!
You are on to something, right there.

Wil it be four or six banger? A 1928 and 1929 share the same frame. And '29 is the first year of six shooters.

If you post a pic of the frame, someone can ID it.

There is a nice thread about the Chevy banger on here. There is some good reading in that.

There is also a nice thread about an home build speedster on here called: what did I buy? Or something like that. Started by 2ndchance.
Also worth a look.

 

Nice progress so far. Can't wait to see where it goes from here.

 

Bob,the yellow Mercury is at the Fountainhead I do not know any of it's history.

 

And another sweet rebuild from the jungles of the neighborhood.Keep the updates coming.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo

 

Since several of you are expressing interest in the running gear, this is a good time to talk about the chassis. While I was starting on bodywork, I kept looking over at the old chassis in the next bay and wondering what to do. Although the chassis looked like it might be Chevrolet (I’m not sure; the PO thought it was Willys), and I realized my car body might be a Chevrolet model (I didn’t yet know), I was quite sure this particular frame was not original to the car.

Original or no, saving the frame would be a heroic undertaking, because it was a mess. For starters, it had square tubing welded the to the frame horns, to which the leaf springs were attached. I’m guessing this was to raise the nose. Has anybody here seen anything like this? It looked pretty sketchy to me.



Also, if you look close, you’ll see that the central cross member appears to be welded under the frame rails. This was probably to accommodate the Plymouth 6-cylinder I’m told it once had.

But worst of all, at some point a notch was cut out of the left frame rail to make room for a larger steering box, thereby turning the C-channel into L-channel. It ran that way for a long time, apparently, and frame had twisted so badly that I deemed it unusable. It went to scrap.

With that decided, I debated my options for a while—Model T, Chevrolet, etc.—before finally settling on the old dependable Model A chassis. I found a good one on the HAMB. It was an older restoration in need of freshening up, but it had all the right stuff: ’39 brakes, split bones, ’35 wires, and a ’34 axel that gives it a nice “gentleman’s drop” stance. The banger had been warmed over a little—down draft carb, Model B head. Someday I’d like to find a period high-compression head, but that’s for the future.



I have since learned that a number of these old Mercury Body Speedsters are now on Model A frames. So apparently it’s a common retrofit.

 

If that MERCURY body could talk, I'll bet it would say it has a great caretaker now. Bob

 

You may not get it finished without getting some grief about junking the frame but you sure saved yourself a bunch of work! Wish I lived nearby so I could visit with you. I'd love to help you with that, it's the kind of work I thrive on. Tim

 

Oh wow....that is a really intriguing find.....it is so unique, and the pics as it is pulled outta the weeds is very much in the ''cool factor'' idea of it all....nice project for sure

 

Enjoying your build- like the model A frame and drivetrain-

 

What an amazing find, in the weeds too. When you first posted pics, I was trying to figure out the rear, I thought it was a hood from another car. Had never heard of these bodies before. Keep the pics coming.

 

never know where you will find gold. many years back, in the City of Fullerton - Calif, there was a huge clump of vines in a rear parking lot of a business on the main drag. someone finally took some interest in trying figure out what was in there. turned out to be the first jail building.

 

That is a neat body, it had me fooled as well. The first pics I thought the rear tail was hood. Keep us posted with plenty of pics!

 

Some were in California after a wild fire ended there was a Mercury Speedster body that was found and later restored. This was the maroon one that used to be featured in the Lucas Tire ads. Bob

 

When I first saw the pics of the car in the bush, I thought that a car or truck hood had been used to form the boattail. Seeing a Mercury body under there was a complete surprise!

I have been restoring/building model T's for the past 15 years and hanging out on the MTFCA Forum. I'll echo what volvobrynk said, that those Mercury bodies are quite rare and highly sought after. It would be a shame to alter the body in such a way that it couldn't be restored at a later time if someone wanted to do that. Knock yourself out building the chassis any way you see fit, but please preserve the body. BTW, I think the LaSalle hood is WAY Kool, and I hope you can figure out how to make it work with the Mercury body.

 

X2 on the model A chassis - I'm in.