History What Ever Happened to..........?

Man, you guys are really making this information hunt fun! Jim, that page has some serious Mercury history there. What a line-up of Mercs! Lincoln Land Kustoms was a serious club with a bunch of customs. This makes my old Lincoln Land Kustoms plaque I have hanging up in my garage that much more valuable to me. I have to ask, are the Lincoln Land Kustoms still around? Can't say that I've ever seen any of their plaques, club T-shirts or jackets at a show.
Thanks for finding Rusty's name. I'm going to update W.E.H.T. #2o. Does the article mention where Mr. Bethley was from?
Love the Flatheads Suck art on Jon Gullet's Ford. Definitely looks like 50's style art like Von Dutch or Jeffries would have done!
I found out something interesting this week watching video for the thread. I don't know how I missed this. We were wondering if Jon drove his Ford (W.E.H.T. # 11) to the Spectacular in '86 as I never saw it on the video. Well, come to find out, he was there, just not in the shoebox. He was interviewed at the show, and he told of how a few months before the show he bought a '60 Impala from California. He had Russ Johnson (owner of the Barris Villa Riviera at the time) repaint it kandy apple red. He also had fellow Lincoln Land Kustoms member Ken Barber do the interior. Jon said this was no show car, but a daily driver family car! Wonder if Jon still has it. E

This is another club that I wonder if it's still around. One of the most interesting Mercs that I remember from the 1985 video was an ex-four door in dark gray primer with lighter gray or white scallops. The thing that made it so different is that it was chopped, and the rear doors were split. The top of the back doors were welded to the roof and filled in, so there was no longer a rear side window. The owner then capped the door top where it was split, but left the bottom half of the door functional so there was this little "doggie door", for lack of a better description, for kids to crawl through, or the dog or just to load luggage or something. In the video, it looked like there was a good size gap between where the top of the door was welded to the roof, and the capped top of the lower door section, and you can't really see any kind of a seal. I'd worry about water getting in if you drove through a serious "side rain" down pour or when you blasted it off at the car wash.
Towards the end of the video, the car is sitting in the fairgrounds with the doors open to display this modification, and there was a Mid Century Mercury Club jacket draped on the back seat for everyone to see.
If I remember right, this car ended up painted a really loud neon green. I thought the primer/scalloped version was was way cooler..........E

 

This is the Merc I think you are talking about. I took this picture in Minnesota`s Back to the 50`s show about 15 years ago. I believe he was from Wisconsin and he called the car slimmed. When he opened the front door, the panel where the rear side window would be, would slide out. Then you could open the rear door. And since I have room. Here is a scan from the KKOA Leadsledders article from LLK`s 2nd annual show. You can see a picture of Rusty himself. Enjoy. It would of been KOOL to of attended one of there shows.

 

Great stuff, Jim--keep posting! I thought the top of the door was permanently welded to the top. The way you described it makes way more sense. This modification may not be everybody's cup of tea, but I like it because it's different and may shake off some of the 4-door taboo that a lot of people have (not me though). I also noticed in the pictures you posted when the car was green it had cruiser skirts. It looks like the rear doors were reworked to go around them--that would have been a ton of work. In the '85 video the skirts were the stock Mercury type.
Is this Merc in the missing group too? E

 

Rusty Bethley was out of Lindenhurst, Illinois. At least was at that time.

 

I notice in Jim's photos it has a visor. In the Scott Pavey photo the visor isn't there but it has spotlights.

Are the grill and side trim black? Also looks to have green front signal lenses......

 

I remember that car, it was called "slimer" and had the character from ghost busters on the trunk. He was always at The Fiesta of the 50's in my hometown of marshall,mi

 

Thanks, Sancho! Now I can finally update the heading for Rusty Bethley's "Night Rider" (W.E.H.T. #20).

I noticed that the car does have green front lenses, also that it has a visor in some photos and doesn't in others.
As far as the trim goes, it's hard to tell if it's highly polished and shadows make the trim look black, or if it really is black. I think it is black though, as the grill in Jim's photos looks black. Must have been about the time when the street rodders were doing a lot of painted chrome. E

 

Don't mean to derail your thread Ed but I keep finding more photos.....
Here is yet another version. Looks like the trim is all chrome here. Digital photo? Perhaps more recent......

 

Don't worry Sancho, post away bro! That's a nice picture, car looks sharp. I hope the black chrome thing was just shadowy pics playing tricks.
In this picture it sure looks like the door tops are part of the roof and permanent. Be neat to give this Merc the once over in person. Like I mentioned before, this car might not appeal to everyone, but you have to admire the amount of work it took to build it.
@Leadsled52 mentioned he saw it at a show in Michigan frequently. Maybe he comes from Michigan. I have the 1992 Holland, Michigan Leadsled Spectacular on DVD. I'll watch it this evening and see if I can spot the car. It's tough going though, as that DVD doesn't play good on my home machine or my computer. We'll see what happens. E

 

Dave Purdy is the owner of the "Slimer" 1949 Mercury.
And from what I can find he owned it as recently as 2011.
From Michigan but haven't been able to narrow that down yet.

http://abc7.com/archive/7620519/

Dave Purdy's lime green dream is known quite simply as the Slimer. "It's a 49 Mercury. Originally a four-door, cut down to two doors. It runs good."

 

Look at Jim's photos and you will see the reveal or the outline edge of the back door windows. I would guess that area got smoothed out later.

 

Found this from a 2014 article. Maybe a "convertible" now?!?

Dave Purdy, president of the Michigan Cruisers, a classic car restoration club that participated in the show, said the Cruise-In and multiple rolling cruises that take to the streets of Flushing each year are an important aspect of a town dedicated to the automobile.

He drove his lime-green 1949 Ford Mercury convertible into the show.

"It's just something that's been here for years," Purdy said of the event. "It's the way I was raised. People are just here to love cars. (Flushing) has been a car community forever, and we want to keep it a car community."

Although cars entered in Michigan Cruiser events must be from 1964 or earlier for membership, at the Flushing A Cruise-In, anything with wheels was allowed. Purdy hoped the large crowds, and myriad models would bring more visitors to Flushing.

"You could come here in a horse and buggy," he said. "It's Michigan, and it's Flint: the car capital of the U.S."

http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2014/06/cruisin_with_the_classics_flus.html

 

Okay, last one. Dave is the president of the Michigan Cruisers and still has it. I found the following pictures on their FB page. I think the article I posted earlier just got the convertible part wrong, maybe a "converted" 4 door is what they meant.

 

Here is another scan about LLK club cars. Read what it says about Jons shoebox is gonna get chopped by Ed Lepold this winter. Which would be the 83-84 season. I don`t know if it happened or not. Bill(54Delray) posted a pic of a car similar a few pages back. It looks like he also founded Lincoln Land Kustoms.

 

Bringing this back from page fourteen. The picture I referred to of the shoebox with the Plymouth quarters is the one of Phil Johnson (second down on the right).

 

Great searching Sancho. Glad to hear that the top didn't get cut off. That would have been a waste of a lot of hard work.
Have you ever seen a close-up picture of the trunk? I'd like to see the art on it mentioned a few posts back. I'll watch some video later tonight and see if I can add anything. E

Looks like those early KKOA newsletters had a lot of interesting tidbits in them. I can't recall ever seeing Jon Gullett's shoebox chopped. I thought I saw someone post that Jon had shown up at a CCR show, without a car--I think. Anyone recall this or am I confusing him with someone else? E

That's a sharp eye and a great memory 'Mo. I've still been looking for some info on the car that @Gray Ford was asking about. Maybe he'll chime in one of these days and let us know for sure if this is the car he was talking about. E

 

Mo, here is another shot of Phil`s car from the frontend more than likely taken at the Des Moines show. Maybe it will jog somebodys memory. This pic was in my dad`s(Jerry) collection, He liked 49-51 Fords. And still does. Here are some photos of SLIMER that I took at the Holland Michigan show. I forgot I had them. It looks like all the trim is black. Notice the wide whites with spun aluminum hubcaps with the portrait of James Dean. Also the decklid is louvered. You can see what Ed was talking about the rear door window opening. I really must of liked it since I took 3 photo`s of it. The following year I took a pic in Holland of it but it was sitting under the trees and was a horrible pic. It went to a skinny whitewall and flipper hubcaps. It also has the taildragger stance missing in the photo`s in the other posts.

 

Thanks for the pic, stanlo69. That sure looks like the shoebox Gray Ford described.

The green Merc certainly dances to a different drummer. That rear door opening (around the skirt) is wild!

 

Hi ... That IS the car that I'm looking for .. Phil Johnston was the owner/builder ....The second photo with the primer hood , (IIRC), is from a hood latch release at 50+MPH...He was very fortunate that it did no roof damage ....
Can anyone blow that photo up so the quarters & tail lights are visible ??

Thanks ..
Bob ...

 

Great pictures, Mark! That is one slick shoebox. Thanks for posting. I'm sure you made @Gray Ford's day! E

 

This whole thread makes my day. Somewhere in my 4x6's, I've got a close up of Slimer's rear quarter window, taken at the Merc/Deuce ReUnion in Holland MI. Can't find it, will keep looking.

 

Busy, busy weekend, but I finally managed to sit down and watch the '92 Leadsled video. No Slimer that I could find, but, I did find a lot of new stuff for "What Ever Happened To..........?" in the upcoming weeks.
I did see Rusty Bethley's '50 Merc (W.E.H.T. #20) in the video, so as of '92, he still had it and was around the scene. I've often referred to this car as the "Night Rider", but I was wrong. On the '92 video, there was a close-up shot of the interior, and on the glovebox door it had "Knight Rider" lettered on it. So, for the record, I'll start referring to it as the "Knight Rider".

Glad you're still checking out the thread @54delray. I'd love to see the pics you have of the Slimer car. There's something about this car that I really like. It is different, and really blurs the "traditional" line, but sometimes the different or even the weird are appealing (lol)! E

 

Thanks Mark for the photos ... That is the car I was describing .... I wonder where it is today ???

Bob ...

 

Since Mark posted those photos, I guess I have a couple more of it. Now that I know what I was looking for. I don`t know if this version is before or after Marks pic`s in ~92. I guess we will know by the design of the license plate.

 

According to this, before. That plate design apparently ran from '88-'90 and the design it was running in Mark's photo runs '91-'93.

 

Nice pictures, Jim. If I'm not mistaken, in the background of the first picture, I think I see Mark's '61.

Sancho, when you search, you really dig deep. Maybe you should have been a detective. Nice work! E

 

What Ever Happened To..........? number 40.

1950 Mercury
Owner: John Schmidt
Chicago, Illinois

Wow, can you believe that we've already covered 40 old customs? It has sure gone fast! I appreciate everyone hanging in there and still participating and checking out the thread.
Usually when a holiday is coming up, I'll do a "Two fer Tuesday". Well, this week's car turned into quite the project and I just didn't have the time to put together a second custom for Christmas. I hope that the story of this Mercury will make up for it.
This week's Merc was built by John Schmidt out of Chicago, and as far as I can tell it made it's debut at the 1987 Leadsled Spectacular. The car had the usual mods like shaving and a chop. What set it apart were the frenched stacked quad headlights, rolled front and rear pans with no bumpers and a full length taillight. It also had an electric trunk lid that went up and down at the push of a button. The car was finished in a pearl yellow and white paint job that resembled a Gene Winfield style fade. It really was a beautiful car. John was interviewed at the '87 Spectacular and he said the car took about four years to build. He also said the car was Oldsmobile powered.
Now, this is where the story kind of wanders off track. I watched A TON of video this week, and the deeper I dug, the less I found out about Mr. Schmidt, and the more I found out about Mr. and Mrs. Wehr.
Last week I took time to sort through my copy of the '92 Leadsled video looking for video of the Dave Purdy '49 Mercury known as Slimer. I didn't find anything on that '49, but I did find more on the Schmidt '50.
Now, I have to take a step aside and do a little more explaining. As mentioned, I'm always watching a lot of videos and DVDs. One of my favorites is a copy of the 7th Annual Custom and Lowrider Car Show from Sterling/Rock Falls, Illinois from July 22-24, 1988. This video has a little of everything. Lots of interesting lowriders, as well as a bunch of mid-west customs that were a lot of the same cars hitting the KKOA shows in the 80s. Some of the notable sleds were a group of cars from the Wanderers Car Club based out of Coralville, Iowa. A few of the more famous cars being the Bozarth '51 Buick, and the Daryl and Deb Lewis '60 Impala. There are a ton of great cars on this DVD. If you happen to see it on Ebay or some other place for sale, it is definitely worth buying.
Well, on this video, there is a couple in a gorgeous, but mild chopped '49 or '50 Mercury convertible. In the video it looked to be a pinkish red, but it's hard to tell. The mods are minor, but a car like this doesn't need very much. It was shaved, nosed and decked, and had scoops in the hood. It also had '53 Buick headlight assemblies, but that was about it. It still had the stock grille and taillights. In the video it's cruising around with the top up and down, so it was a functional rag top and not a Carson. It had Illinois license plates that read "WEHR 1".
The Mercury won a few awards at the show, and the Wehrs were interviewed at the awards stage. Norm and Jan are definitely a couple that a person would remember. Jan had a unique fashion style, and is quite memorable.
Ok, now jump back to late last week and my mention of watching the '92 Leadsled video. I was watching the video, and I see a lady drying off a beautiful Merc after a heavy rain at the show which was in Holland, Michigan that year. It took me a few minutes to put it all together, but she looked really familiar. Come to find out after a little video review, it was Jan Wehr. The Merc she was drying off was the John Schmidt '50. The giveaway was the unique front end treatment and the full length taillight. Aside from the familiar custom modifications, the car had changed quite a bit. It now had Buick side trim that divided a teal and a lighter turquoise two tone. It also had the rear quarters re-worked so that the fender skirts were molded to the quarter panels similar to the way the skirts are on Ed Lepold's Merc. It had "Twilight Zone" lettered on the rear quarters as well. When John had the car, the Illinois plates read "I CUT IT". The plates in '92 read "TWI ZON 1". After more video research, I found out that the Wehr's bought the car around 1988.
Something that was popular for the KKOA to do in the early 90s was to build a giveaway car. They would have a lot of famous customizers work on the car at the show, then they would ultimately give it away to a car show participant. In '92, the car was a chopped purple Mercury. It was more of a modern custom with black walls and such, but still a cool car. Well, as luck would have it, the Wehrs won the car! How unbelievable is that?!?
In further research, I found out that the Wehrs had a lot of customs over the years. If you're counting, there was the chopped 'vert, the Twilight Zone and the P & J giveaway car. I also found in the KKOA Commemorative Book (thanks Jim!) they had at least two other Mercurys--a beautiful chopped '39 and a fiberglass '39 Zephyr similar to the purple one Terry Cook had (has?) in the early 2000s. The book was printed in 2003, and sadly both of these cars were presented as "In loving memory of Norm Wehr". So, Mr. Wehr passed away sometime before 2003.
As far as the Schmidt Merc goes, aside from the video, in magazines I was only able to find a small picture of it in Leroi Tex Smith's Custom Car Magazine volume 1 #1 from 1989 on page 48 in their coverage of the 1988 James Dean Run. I'm thinking it was a Custom Rodder feature car, but I'm still searching for that.
I did find a few pictures on Riksters' site of the yellow version from front views only, but I couldn't find any of the Wehr's teal version. Also, I couldn't find any pictures of the Wehr's chopped Merc, but hopefully one of you guys out there have some luck finding pics of these great sleds. I'm also posting few pictures of the Wehr's '39 Merc and their Zephyr that I scanned from the KKOA book. Sorry the scans didn't turn out too good. It's a big book and my scanner is small.
So, for now, that's a "wrap". A little different story this week, but I think that most of these cars aren't on the scene these days and are missing. Hopefully Mr. Schmidt and Mrs. Wehr are still around and doing well.
In closing, I wanted to tell everyone to enjoy the special time with friends and family this upcoming holiday, and to remember the reason for the season. 'Til next week, Merry Christmas! E