I saw one of these on the local craigslist, and I am wondering if anyone has ever chopped on, or maybe done merc sheetmetal on the front. It might be super cool. It seems to me these cars are pretty rare.
It's a '49 Mod. 73 town sedan, not a wagon. There were plans to do a Mercury with the same top treatment on the drawing boards but it never happened. This is one that is near me.
Got my hopes up and I clicked but fail post: fastback =/= wagon. Cool car none-the-less. Almost makes up for mislabeling.
Might be optical illusion but bumper in first post appears not to be as deep as the one in second post.
They were supposed to be hidden lights but that got cancelled late in the design process. That's why they're tunneled; I believe they would have had little slide-up doors ala '42 DeSoto. Might look slick if you wanted to build it now... That front fender spear would be better if it were molded into the body and extended into the doors; the folks at Mercedes must have seen it when they were designing the 300 SL Gullwing.
Merc. front will not fit on the baby Lincoln. The fenders are longer to accomodate the Lincoln's longer wheel base from the cowl forword.
This is as close as Mercury came to having the same top treatment. This is the French Ford Vedette (1952) Had a flathead V860 for power.
I thought those were called Town Sedans, not Town cars? That's something to throw in the best looking 4 doors thread... rare car too, 49 Lincolns in General ain't too easy to find, and those weren't too popular when new. FWIW, I love em.
Yes, longer nose, but possible because body shapes are the same. I said that because a couple of people said put a Merc front on the big Lincoln, which would be completely unrelated shape-wise.
I believe the frame is about 8 inches too long on the lincoln. So adapting the merc nose would be a bit of work.
I have a customer who is taking his 49 Mercury wagon and replacing the front clip, dash and many of the interior parts with ones from a 49 Lincoln (the small one not the Cosmopolitain). He will have a lincoln Woodie. Fritz
Hey, The Ford Vedette, the Cosmo & the Mercury all came from the same 40s era design studio headed up by Bob Gregorie. The Vedette was originally to be sold in the states after WWII, but Ford Motor Company desided to send the design overseas, and go with the '49 Schewbaux . It's a small wonder the '49 Merc design came out as clean and un ****ed up given whata mess Ford management was after Edsel croked. " Life ain't no Disney movie "
I'm guessing the Vedette was a large, comfortable car by Euro standards of the time? Not as nice or as expensive as a Mercedes, but on a par with bigger Citroen and Peugeot, Vauxhall, Morris. Does this sound close to right? And it reminds me too of the 444/544 roundback Volvo. The '46-'48 Plymouth roof as well.
Hey Tom, That's an interesting project. Do you have any pictures? I have been tempted to do one as well. There is a 49 Merc wagon nearby missing the front group and a baby Lincoln front group for a decent price down in Bakersfield. If my wagon was finished, I'd be going after that 49 Merc wagon.
Pretty much. Would have been comparable in the euro market to a "medium priced" car over here, like a Mercury or an Olds. I have a couple of Vauxhall PAs and those competed with stuff like Ford Zephyr/Zodiacs, which were the cars that effectively replaced the Vedette and Pilot. Of course the same kinda guy in America who was buying a Ford or a Chevy would have bought an Austin A30 or Ford Anglia over in Europe at the time.
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