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

On a side note, I still haven't found any owner information or the whereabouts of this Mercury, but in my research in the last few days I saw it on the video of the '85 Leadsled Spectacular in Springfield, Ohio. In that video it looked just like it did in the picture above. E

 

Have to agree about the side pipes. Definitely a head scratcher. E

 

Here is a larger scan of the car.

 

Here is the article That Allyn requested.

 

Interesting article from The Pittsburgh Press newspaper March 1, 1991:
"Customizing cars his vehicle for therapy By Jean Bryant
Everyone has easy access to Bill Nicholson his 854 students, their parents, his staff. As principal at Knoxville Middle School, he wants it that way. ' But that much accessibility can be stressful at times. So for the 44-year-old administrator, customizing and rebuilding old cars can be a welcome pressure valve. When the going gets tough, he'll take a long ride in one of his five customized cars along what he calls a "therapeutic route" from his Monroeville home through Wilkins-burg, the Hill District, Oakland, Shadyside and Homewood, stopping to talk withpeople along the way. By the end of the ride, he's unwound, having laughed and talked and driven the stress away. But Nicholson also has found another benefit to his interest in cars. It gives him an avenue to reach young people on a level other than as an authority figure. "Once I stopped at Original's in Oakland for a hotdog. That drew droves of kids. . . . They crowded around and we had good talks. "Weekends, when I'm working on my cars at home, people gather to admire, inquire or even reminisce about cars they've had. When kids come around, I'll ask them, 'How are you doing?' I'll give them a little counseling." Nicholson points to framed pictures of antique cars hanging on the walls of his office. A prominent one is of a 1950 Mercury coupe he dubbed "Purple Reign." In 1987, the car light lavender with a deep purple flame painted on the hood won first place in the Winston Calvalcade of Wheels at the Convention Center. Several months later, it was runner-up best of show at a Station Square car show. That picture and the others serve as icebreakers when students end up in his office for various reasons. "I've had kids come in here with a confrontational attitude. While they're waiting to see me, they look at the pictures of my cars and ask about the design, the work. They'll tell me they are interested in cars too. "They are surprised that a principal could do that. And it puts our relationship on a ' different plane." It made an impression on Kevin Lane, a 15-year-old eighth-grader. "I was in Dr. Nicholson's office and he asked me what high school I wanted to go to when I graduate," he said. "I told him I wanted to study auto mechanics. He told me that he fixes cars too. Then, I thought he was pretty neat. I didn't think a principal does those things. It made me see he's not so different from me. We have something in common and I think of him in a different way now." , Nicholson said he's been customizing cars since 1983 after going for a drive in a friend's 1935 Ford. Two weeks later, he bought a 1953 Buick Special for about $1,250 and began redesigning it. A few months later, he bought "Purple Reign" for $550 and spent about $15,000 customizing it. He came up with the name after neighborhood kids crowded around it, singing "Purple Rain," a song popularized by rock star Prince. Nicholson said he's had a total of 53 antique cars, all of which he's worked on to some degree, sandblasting, putting in brake, and front and rear suspension systems. After he decides on what other modifications to make, that work is done by customizer Mike Pierro in Pierre's Etna garage. He presently owns a 72 Buick Riviera, a '49 and a '50 Mercury, all modified, a 1975 customized V-8 Pinto Station Wagon, and a 1950 Ford coupe. Nicholson also is a member of the Phar-oahs, a group of 40 collectors who gather for Saturday night "cruises" in a parking lot in Jeannette, Westmoreland County, where they talk and listen to oldies music. Occasionally, his wife, Camille, and their children, Thema, 12, and William Jr., 19, accompany him. Nicholson said the earliest model he's worked on is a 1935 Oldsmobile but his all-time favorite is "Purple Reign." He said the car gave him his greatest joy and also was a comfort to him during a dark period in his career. Nicholson had been principal at Westing-house High School - the school from which he graduated in 1964 - for five years when he was demoted to a supervisory instructional specialist for city schools in 1984, partly because standardized test scores were low at the school. He appealed the decision but lost. "There were days I'd just crawl under that car and just stare at the bottom of it. Other nights, when I couldn't sleep, I'd take 'Purple Reign for a drive along the "therapeutic route." In 1988, he was promoted to principal at Knoxville Middle School. Louise Brennen, deputy superintendent for elementary and middle schools, gives Nicholson high marks for the way he's handled the job at Knoxville. ; "He's a highly competent school principal," she said. "You know, in these times, the demands on building principals are tremendous and require a lot of giving. Bill spends a lot of his time and energy going above and beyond the expected assignment of a building principal. "He's very caring and sets very high expectations for his students, faculty and parents." Nicholson graduated from West Virginia State College with a bachelor's degree in education. He earned a master's degree and a doctorate in educational administration and clinical supervision from the University of Pittsburgh in 1971 and 1974, respectively. A caring environment, Nicholson said, is essential when dealing with adolescent children whose emotions run the gamut happy one moment, sad the next. "Sometimes I become so concerned when a child is troubled, I have to regroup because I can feel his or her pain, I can feel the hurt." Nicholson said his personal emotions were put to the test when he sold "Purple Reign" two years ago for $18,500 and bought the 1949 Mercury. So far he's spent about $30,000 customizing it. The Mercury won't replace "Purple Reign," he said, but it will be as important as the others as a stress buster."

 

Great find, Sancho! Bill sounds like he's quite a guy. Thanks so much for posting this! E

 

This is great!! Thank You. It will be part of a tribute board for a fellow who I never knew but now wish I could have been able to. I feel like he is still a little part of Sugar Daddy when I sit in it. RIP Mr. Losen, hope we meet someday in a pl;ace where God provides the lead sleds. AL

 

This car is on page 91 0f the KKOA 1908-1992 black book. It was owned by Gerald Davis of Pensacola, FL. I have a copy of it, a copy of the "Street Roddin' USA 1989" published by Rodder's Digest magazine and a copy of "Showcase of Street Rods" published by Photo Archive of Cars and Collectors. I'll keep an eye out for the cars listed.

 

Thanks for the post @JK. This information makes me think this is a third Mercury with the Mopar grille, and not Bill Nicholson's or Ray Hetrick's. E

 

What Ever Happened To..........? number 52.

1955 Oldsmobile "Breathless"
Owners: Doc and K. Rock
Danville, Illinois

I've always been drawn to the east coast style cars with cruiser skirts and continental kits, but I must admit that finding clean examples that aren't too much over the top can be hard. This car just does it for me.
It was featured in the first KKOA book published in 1992 on page 34. It was in that book's write up where it mentioned that the cruiser skirts were made from old locker doors! I guess that's what gives them their unique look. I really like the Continental kit on this car, as well as the '57 Caddy caps and a great two tone paint scheme. Overall it is a very well done car.
I've been crazy about '55 and '56 Oldsmobiles for a long time now. I guess it's because a local guy around here named Paul Galaxy had one a long time ago. This was just as I was trying to buy my first old car to build into a custom. I was working in Englewood at the time and I was outside most of the time. He would always drive past my job cruising Broadway. He always had some oldies blasting out of the car, and when he'd see me watching him roll by he'd give me a rev and hit the flamethrowers. It was great! Those images are burned into my memory forever. Maybe someday I'll be able to build one, but as time passes they are getting scarce, and prices are getting up there.
Getting back to this week's W.E.H.T., Doc's Olds seemed to come on to the custom car scene in the late 80's. This created a lot of holes in my research since I don't have any Leadsled Spectacular videos from '88-'90. I did find it on the '87 Leadsled Spectacular video from Springfield, Illinois, and I saw it on the Sled Scene East video from 1991. Those were the only videos I saw it on. I looked through a lot of my magazines, but couldn't find any features on it.
Luckily, Scott Pavey took some super pictures of it that were posted on Rikster's great site. It looks to me like they were taken at the '87 Spectacular, but I could be wrong. That's about the only other information I found on it with the exception of a video I found on Youtube. It's from a KKOA event called the Maybe Baby in Tennessee. The video never mentions the year, so I don't know how long ago it was. The Olds I'm talking about is pink and white is the featured picture on the Youtube "catalog". It is in the video at the 2:37 mark as well. It looks a lot like Doc's car, but if it is his car, there were a lot of changes made to it. If there was a rear shot of the car, I think it would be easier to decide if it is the same car as Doc's "Breathless", as he had a lot of unique styling tricks to the back. I'll post a link to the video as well as posting Scott's photos and you can check it all out and decide if it is the same car or not.
Either way, Doc built one fine Olds that was a treat for the eyes.
Until next Tuesday, cruise on..........E

 

Wow! Pretty car!

 

Eeeew! Are those 70's bumpers on a 50's car? Vinyl bumper strips and all? Cool car in all other aspects, especially the maroon/white one. But, DANG, its like looking at a zit on the Mona Lisa.

Sorry to be critical of some ones kusom work, but when you get it soooo close, then drop the ball. Yow! I notice that the pink car has a 70's bumper that goes straight across, and the maroon one had a drop down center. Hard to imagine that 2 kustom car people thought that was a good idea .. but ... anyway, I sincerely hope a HAMBer can update us on the where abouts. The perfect ending is that some one put some good looking 50's chrome or molded grille shell and its cruising the wheels off somewhere.

 

The pink and white one is a '54. Or at least has a '54 front clip. I don't think it's the same car although they are VERY similar.

I don't care for late model bumpers on them either but there were some in the 80's done that way. Go back and look at W.E.H.T. #7.

 

Look close at the roof on Doc's '55. Does this have a raised panel? Or at least a round rod "outline"?


It appears thick at the rear edge, like it's not just paint.
In this shot, it also appears to be ribbed or at least striped in the center section.


This would differentiate it from the pink/white car which appears to be just paint on the roof. The rear edge of the white panel is a lot closer to the top of the rear window than it is on the pink car.

Also of note is the grill in Doc's '55. I think those are "push-through" mag wheel centers.

 

I lightened up the first photo Ed posted so we could see more detail.

I don't know what those hubcaps are. Looks like maybe a trim ring, a poverty cap, and crossbars. Whatever they are, definitely not '57 Caddy.

 

I agree all the way on the "late" model bumpers (if we can call the 70's late any more lol). I agree with Sancho that the pink and white one is a 54. It look to me that the roof on the maroon one is raised or something. Basically I have nothing to add except "what Sancho said." LOL

 

I agree about the strange bumpers, but I thought the car was still cool. Maybe there was some reason why they were used--like maybe originals couldn't be found or the budget didn't allow replating or something. The way that a lot of things were done on this car leads me to believe that this build was on a low target budget or the builder just wanted to use whatever was available. I mean using stuff like locker doors for custom skirts instead of using cruiser skirts from a place like Night Prowlers, and using push in wheel center bullets instead of aftermarket bullets.

Never noticed the work on the roof Sancho. You really go over pictures and pick out all the details a lot of us miss! Way to go!

I guess I forgot to mention that in the KKOA book the picture of this Olds had the '57 Caddy hubcaps. The hubcaps were a lot different in the Scott Pavey photos. Sorry about that. E

 

I keep looking through these old KKOA meet pics from the 90s expecting to see me with my finger in my nose or something

 

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find anything on Doc or his Oldsmobile.

 

Here is another pic of Doc`s 55 Olds taken in Springfield Illinois. Sitting next to it is one of his travel companions in a chopped Buick. Also from Illinois. He took his car to Des Moines Iowa and had Charlie Smart alter the convertible top frame and install a convertible top. Later on, Charlie would be my teacher which he taught Auto Upholstery at a local community collage in nearby Ankeny. Gary Pullen, also from Des Moines ended up buying Doc`s Olds. Possibly from Doc himself. After awhile Gary ended up selling it. Gary also had a chopped 64 Chevy Impala Orange-ish red with flames and had Mercury Cougar tail lights. Later on he bought a chopped Merc from someone out of the South Dakota. He eventually had it repainted the same colors with 53 Buick chrome airbrushed on. He had it in Indy for the Custom Car Revival in 2015. My pic`s of the current version are still on my camera. He belongs to the Concrete Cruisers out of Des Moines, which I am finally gonna try to attend there show this year in May.

 

Now the Pink and white car. The first pic is from the KKOA publication in 1994. The second is from the cover of a later date all taken at the Maybe Baby show. . And the last is from early 95. The article states that the car belongs to the Cageles from Athens Tennessee. And that there car is a 54 Oldsmobile. Its interesting the two cars are so similar. Then again, in an earlier car that Ed featured(55 What). Another car was built almost exactly except for the colors of the car.

 

You all have to remember, this was the 80`s. Crazy things were happening like the mini truck craze and all the Easter egg painted street rods with graphics galore. So the bumpers were a new idea to the hobby. Doc`s car looked like a high dollar build for back then. A very well built car. The idea of using a door off of a gym locker to make the skirts seems kool. If it was from the school where he went, that would be even cooler.

 

This must be it. I found these in Dan's 2015 coverage:

 

Is the beltline trim airbrushed as well?
I noticed that in those two photos, the highlights on the beltline trim are in the same places. One is about even with the dip in the door and one is a little bit forward of the rear end of the drip rail.

 

Amazing memory Jim! I got pics of the chopped '64. Hangin' Dice 1988:

 

Did Gary own the '64 in 1988? I see in the photo it's sporting a Kansas plate.
I believe that is Steve Albers' green '40 sitting to the right of it.

 

In that second photo Dr. Dave posted of the '64 there are 2 more Wichita cars, Ken White's Buick and Doug Shoemaker's Fleetline.