The Benesch Merc is still alive and well in their garage. They took it to an event in Biloxi, MS at the first of the year. -as told to me by Mike's son via Facebook Sent from my LGL158VL using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Dad (Mike Benesch) still has the Duchess and here’s a picture from its trip to Biloxi MS where it spent a week in display in the Palace Casino. It’s awesome that car is still remembered since it does not get driven very much anymore. Little about the car. Dad built the car in the garage in the mid 80s doing pretty much everything himself. The car is sitting on a 67 Chevelle station wagon frame, Chevy 327, Turbo 300 trans, Cadillac power seats, Chrysler 300 tail lights, Corvette grill, the back glass is flipped upside down. I believe it’s a 3” chop on the top, frenched the headlights, and channeled the floor pan.
Thanks Steven. Glad that you joined up. We love hearing that these customs are still around. Sent from my LGL158VL using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Thanks for chiming in @Steven Benesch. We appreciate the great color photos! Your Dad's Merc still looks incredible! Best wishes to your folks Mr. and Mrs. Benesch. Take care! E
Don't want to forget to thank you, @John B. Thanks for taking the time to search Facebook and reach out to the Benesch family. It got us some great information and killer pictures! Thanks for your efforts John. Appreciate it! E
In every group there has to be that one guy who will call or message total strangers with no sense of shame. I guess that's me. I also talk to people I stand in line with at the store. Just ask @stanlow69 Sent from my LGL158VL using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Have you noticed how, unlike Hot Rods, customs don't seem to change owners much? Seems like when one is discovered, it is either with it's original builder or only sold once or twice over the years. I don't know it proves the theory that if you customize a car too much, it will only appeal to a very select market or custom builders just get too attached to them and rather park them then let them go. Just seems for every Moonglow that went to the scrapper; there are two Hirohatas that survived.
Dad had a couple opportunities to sell the car but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He said the money was hard to turn down but once the money was gone so was the car and he would be left with nothing but memories. He feather keep the car and make more memories with it.
Hello All you cool custom bad cats; as for the Yellow Number 41.1952 Ford Sled. The Body's Sheet-metal design work and surfaces is all my doing.... My first radical custom with no picture inspired; Verbal directed by my friend John Abee of Fenton in 1985ish, All pictures I have showing every phase of the build. Had the time of my life doing this one...
What Ever Happened To..........? number 134. 1954 Chevy Bel Air "El Wanderer" Owner: Weldon Haynes Loveland, Ohio Right about now all of you custom faithful are looking at the little calendar on your computer or on the wall or maybe at your wristwatch thinking "Hey, today's Monday, right?" Well, yes it is. I have family coming into town tomorrow so my time over the next few days will be limited. So, I'm posting our usual Tuesday night W.E.H.T. on Monday night. Hope that's ok with everyone. Next week we'll be back on our regular schedule. Since I knew I would have company, I literally spent all weekend doing research hoping to come up with a great feature car. Since I had planned on staying in all weekend doing research, I took my time and tried to dig deep. The car I was originally going to feature went on the back burner after information about this week's car started falling into place. Now you might remember a while back I did a feature on Mercurys with red over white paint. I started out with three different cars and if memory serves we ended up with around five! That was some confusing research. We have also talked in the past about how many red '49-'51 Mercs there were running around in the KKOA in the early days. Well my friends, we have another common car built as a custom in the ever popular red. I started researching a few different red '53 or '54 Chevy Bel Airs early on and it has been confusing just like the Mercs were. I have notes on six (yes six!) red Bel Airs. Luckily enough my marathon research weekend cleared up at least one of these great sleds. Weldon Haynes built this neat little Chevy in the late 80s or early 90s. It was chopped, shaved, had lake pipes and frenched antennas and so on. The car was pinstriped in a distinct style on the hood and "C" pillars and this was huge in being able to identify this car. It also had "El Wanderer" lettered on the trunk and this helped out a lot as well. The tricky part was sorting through all of the pictures of the chopped red Bel Airs I found and comparing custom grilles, wheel covers and so on to help identify this car. I originally saw the car on my copy of the 1991 Leadsled Spectacular from Hamilton, Ohio. In this video the car was pretty much the same as it is all through the pictures with a few slight exceptions. In '91 it had front bumper guards, and it still had stock style taillights with Lee lenses installed in them. At this point it already had "El Wanderer" on the trunk and the striping on the hood and "C" pillars. This is also around the same time frame that Weldon sent pictures and information of his car to the KKOA for their upcoming first KKOA book that was released in 1993. In the picture you can see the bumper guards. The next time I saw the Chevy was on the 1993 Leadsled Spectacular video from Springfield, Ohio. This time the Chevy was changed up some. The front bumper guards were gone, the striping on the front of the hood was gone and the lake pipes were molded. The stock '54 taillights were gone as well. Weldon decided to switch to popular Packard taillights and the Chevy underwent serious surgery. The car turned out great! After this I never saw the car on any more videos, but Weldon still was taking the car to various shows. The first picture below I found on Carnut's site and it was taken at one of the James Dean Run shows. I'm not certain of the date. The other pictures I found were from Rikster's site. I'm unsure of who the photographer was, but I know the pictures were taken at a 1993 KOA show in Tennessee. I tried to find out which show it was but I had no luck. The car looks the same as the photo above but the license plates are different from the earlier photos and the video I saw. Possible owner change? Either way the car looks gorgeous! After the pictures from '93 the trail seemed to fade away on this fine custom. Weldon may still be hitting the car show circuit in and around Ohio, but recent sightings are no where to be found. I'm sure some of you Ohio, Indiana and other Midwest regulars might have more on this one. We'll see what comes up. Until next "Tuesday" (lol), we'll catch you later! E
Have I never told you that Weldon & Phyllis Haynes are my adopted parents? Well of a fashion. They took me in sometime in the 90s and made me their son. The 54 is in their garage and still as stunning as ever. They still show a bit locally around Cincinnati. They also have a awesome 51 Merc that they drive a lot to shows. It was the James Dean Run shirt car in 2005. Sent from my LGL158VL using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
That is great John! Glad to hear the Haynes' are still with the Chevy and doing well. The Merc sounds cool too. E
I definitely like it better with the wide whites in 2017 vs the 3/4 inch in other pics. John B, do you have any pics of their 51 Merc, if HAMB appropriate?
It's not really HAMB appropriate. But I can message them. Sent from my LGL158VL using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Cousins. Here they are at a cruise-in at Quaker Steak & Lube last summer. Weldon on the left, Jerry on the right. You might recall that Ed did a WEHT on Jerry's 58 Chevy. Sent from my LGL158VL using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Don't know if you're all tired of me posting about this car yet.. Ignore my friends talking in the background. Couple of goobers.
That is very cool @John B.--thanks for posting! Nice video with some great interior shots. You have to admit that chopped '53 and '54 Bel Airs are right up there with '49-'51 Mercurys. E
Still alive and well in Ontario. Looks a little different Sent from my SM-A520W using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
And there's another one! I did see @stanlow69 call the attention to this on a cruiser skirt thread and I meant to point it out here but got sidetracked and forgot.
Went on a 3 and a half hour roadtrip north east of me with a friend to pick up a 58 Pontiac parts car. Saw the guy wanted to save the trim plate on the trunk. I noticed it was from Hampton Iowa. I asked if he knew Larry Spear, he did. He saw the car a month ago all repainted and looking good. My pic`s are from few short years before it was repainted.
What Ever Happened To..........? number 135. 1951 Mercury Owner: Angelo Pupillo Binghamton, New York This week's custom is one that I'm sure was from the east coast, as it never seemed to venture very far west. Angelo and his beautiful green two tone Merc were regulars at Sled Scene East in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania throughout the early 90s. I found the car on all the videos from 1991-1994. After 1994 the only other Sled Scene East video I have is from 2005, but the Mercury wasn't on that DVD. I watched a lot of video from the Leadsled Spectaculars and I never saw it on any of them. As far as pictures go, I had no luck searching the internet. It seems like there really isn't much in the way of photographs from east coast car shows on the internet at all from before the late 90s. Sled Scene East and Lead East are the first shows to come to mind, but the pix must be tucked away in photo albums as they just don't seem to be out in cyberspace. I looked through a lot of magazines and that didn't turn up anything either. I even looked through my old KKOA Trendsetters and Leadsled'ers and came up empty, as well as searching through my collection of KOA Stylelines. I'm learning that it seems the east coast cars and shows didn't get much magazine coverage after the 60s up until recently. Thankfully Kustoms Illustrated does a super job covering the great customs out east and the movement is alive and well. Maybe a lot of the east coasters just aren't on the internet much posting what's out in their neck of the woods, or photos of cars from shows "back in the day". Who knows? After weeks of searching for information about Mr. Pupillo's Mercury, I finally stumbled upon some information. This fine green sled was in the second KKOA book on page 47. I wish there was more than just the one picture, but I was glad to find it! The one "tell' on this car that is unique to the many Mercs I've seen over the years is the two piece Buick side trim. The trim has been shortened with another shortened piece of trim flipped and butted up against the top piece. Very cool. Also, the two tone paint job with the inset flames is definitely a throwback to the "good ol' days"! It reminds me of something Watson might have done. Unfortunately all my research was only able to find that Angelo Pupillo was (is) the owner of this car, but I was unable to find out where he was from. Once again I'm hoping that you custom faithful (especially those of you out east) will be able to offer up more on this great piece of custom work. Can you guys believe its October already?!?!? Thanksgiving and the Christmas holidays will be here before we know it. I hope that 2018 has been good to everyone so far. Oh yeah, just an early reminder, only 84 shopping days 'til Christmas! Sorry everyone, couldn't resist! Until next week, stay cool! E
here it is in post # 237 https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/best-mercury-ever-built.398334/page-8#post-4355753 looks like it is called poison ivy and from NY
Nice find, Mark. Thanks for posting! I see that it has New York plates on it. I'll update the post. E
Looks like his daughter was on here in 2011... https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/members/poisonivydaughter.148626/
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