I read early on in this discussion that Clarence has found and now is in possession of his 56 Mercury again. He is a good guy to have been around watching as he built some of the best a coolest Cars and Bikes and over all a great person and friend with a vast amount of cool car knowledge. I remember that Mercury stock sitting in his driveway many years ago.
What Ever Happened To..........? number 274. 1951 Ford "High School Dream" Owner: Curt Schroeder St. Charles, Missouri This week's custom is one that popped up in the early 90s, and it seemed by the mid 90s it was gone. I remember the car caused quite a stir when it broke out. I remember having a conversation with my late friend Charlie about it as this was the time he was building a mild custom Ford shoebox. I've mentioned many times before that for the most part, to me, customs should have fender skirts. This is one car that proves my theory all wrong. Even with no skirts this car just plain works. The stance, the colors, the awesome engine and of course the '57 Caddy 'caps just do it for me! The first video sighting of the car was on the 1992 Leadsled Spectacular video from Holland, Michigan. The car definitely made a statement as "Video Bob" Huff spent a good amount of time filming it while it was resting in the fairgrounds. Our first shot tonight is just as Bob got started filming. The next shot is a close up of the awesome scallop layout and the great bright work on the front end. Love the '54 Pontiac grille! As the camera continues to zoom in, we see the great symmetry of the scallops, and some nice pinstripe detail. Moving around to the right rear, we see a nicely frenched radio antenna. As we walk around the back of the car, we see a nicely shaved trunk. Hard to see the detail as the car was shot in part sunshine and shade, making the video photo stills kinda grainy. Here's a close up shot of the frenched '59 Cadillac taillights. Notice the subtle pinstriping in between the two bullets. The colors of the pinstriping were a great choice. The style of striping looked great as well--almost like Von Dutch or Jeffries did it. To me, it looks like there is a little person in the lines. Fifties style all the way! On the inside, the dashboard was painted to match the outside of the car. More striping was added to that as well. For the seats, it was white vinyl with skinny tuck'n'roll pleats. They look like about one inch pleats or thereabouts. Sorry for the bad picture. That shade made for some real dark shots. The last shot from the '92 Spectacular is when Curt was headed for the gates ready to head home. The car definitely was a hit at the show as it won one of the "One Fine Nine" awards. At the Spectacular, it made enough of an impression to prompt Rod & Custom to do a feature on it. That is the magazine that Charlie and I were checking out after Charlie bought the magazine at the newsstand. The feature was in the December 1993 issue on pages 26-27. I scanned the whole article for all to see. Lots of great information on the build, including the mention of the Ford's first big showing being at the '92 Spectacular. Oh yeah, be sure to check out that engine. A great looking mill with tons of detail, and after seeing it, I'd guess it was a mover and a shaker! The dump tubes behind the front wheels are a cool touch as well! The last time I found the Ford on video was at the '94 Leadsled Spectacular in Huntsville, Alabama. This show has been the topic of discussion with us for a while as the show wasn't very well attended, and nearly did in the KKOA. It took a few years for it to rebound, but I'd say the '94 Spectacular was the very first time the KKOA suffered attendance issues that would come back to haunt them later and eventually force a "slight" change in format. But that is another story.......... Curt took his Ford to Alabama, and I did see it on the video. The shots were very similar to the '92 show, so I won't post any. The car did make it into the KKOA Trendsetter Volume 1 Number 6 on page 14. It was the club's coverage of the show. I believe it was printed in late '94. The KKOA's numbering system on the newsletters is very confusing. If you collect these magazines, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Anyway, here we get a rare glimpse of Mr. Schroeder doing some cleaning for the show 'n' shine. My last photo tonight was a scan out of Rod & Custom Magazine's December '94 issue covering the Spectacular. You just can't take a bad picture of this car (unless it's in old video photo stills lol). The car was also featured in a few other books I have as well. One is Hot Rods and Cool Customs by Pat Ganahl printed in 1995. It is featured on page 101. I didn't scan the picture because this is a little book that is about 4 inches square and about an inch thick. It was impossible to scan, and even harder to try to photograph. Curt's Ford was also featured in The American Custom Car by Pat Ganahl (2001) as well on page 118. In case you didn't notice, Mr. Ganahl is one of my favorite writers/photographers in the car hobby. This book is huge and it wouldn't fit in my scanner, and when I took pictures of the shoebox, they were either too dark without a flash, or would blind out with the flash on the glossy pages. Sorry about that. These are both books that any rod or custom guy should own. They are great! With that, the "High School Dream" seemed to disappear. I can't imagine this car went away completely. It seems like someone out there would have some information on its whereabouts. So how about it gang, what do you know about it? The week off was a big help to me doing this. Now if my electronic equipment would co-operate that would be an even bigger help. That being said, I hope y'all enjoy tonight's post. In two weeks I'm going to be doing another special feature, so the extra week will really help with that. Just a little something to look forward to. I hope you guys have all been well! See you in a few weeks! Take care! E
Here is a picture from one of the shows in KKOA`s show in Davenport Iowa. You car see M K john`s Riv next to Curt`s Ford. St Charles is a suburb of St Louis so maybe @Sum54ford knows him. [/USER] @D.Conrad
I found several "listings" for it. The problem with these online listings is that they are usually pulled from previous ebay auctions, no telling the dates they were actually on ebay. http://classicvehicleslist.com/ford...edan-corvette-power-traditional-show-rod.html http://davidsclassiccars.com/ford/494444-1951-ford-custom-tudor-sedan.html https://carscoms.com/1951-ford-coupe-227465.html http://smclassiccars.com/ford/650024-1951-ford-custom-tudor-sedan.html
This car made it to a Sled Scene East show in the 90s. I remember talking to the owner and thanking him for bringing it. It had just appeared in R&C.
Really a nice classic custom, that just happened to be built in the 90's. No '82 Cad taillights, no painted bumpers, no vinyl roof, no over-stuffed crushed velvet. Maybe there are a few more licks to the scallops than would have been used 30 years earlier, but that is easily overlooked. Thanks OG!
I definitely remember this car well around the St. Louis area in the 90s. Curt was a member of the same car club as my Dad at that time, The Gateway Ford Mercury Club. I have an excerpt from the February 1993 Club newsletter where it mentions Curt getting in to an accident with the Ford on the way home from the Indoor World of Wheels Car Show that year. I remember that show well because you had to bring the cars to the show on a Thursday to set up everything for the weekend, unfortunately it kept snowing everyday after that and by Sunday when they kicked all the show cars out there was nearly a foot of snow on the ground! Curt of course did fix the Ford up perfectly and the car was on eBay fairly recently but I don’t believe that Curt owned it for some time.
The 1st LeadEast 1983 at Flemington, NJ Speedway (on the track). (captured from 35mm Slides). 1956 Pontiac "Party Doll" - George Coffeen, RI
What Ever Happened To..........? number 275. George West New Concord, Kentucky Back in May right before Memorial Day, I did a write up about the late, great Harold Olsen. He was a very influential person in the early days of the KKOA, and like I mentioned in the article, Harold and the cars he built are still making an impression some thirty plus years after his passing. He was a real custom guy! Here's a link to the write up just in case you missed it. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/what-ever-happened-to.1016572/page-154#post-14075028 This week's write up is about another guy that was a big part of the early KKOA that many people may not know anything about. Since we are right on the doorstep of the last weekend of summer, or what I like to call the "unofficial end of summer", I thought this would be a perfect time to do a write up on George West, and familiarize everyone with his story that might not know who he was. Information on George wasn't real easy to come by, but almost everything I found about him mentioned what a great person he was, and how dedicated he was to the custom movement. Apparently he was around the KKOA from the beginning as he mentioned in an interview at the 1986 Leadsled Spectacular in Springfield, Missouri. He told the Rowdie gal doing the interview (Denise Titus) that he had been to every other Leadsled Spectacular, as well as many other KKOA events all over. I'll touch on more of that interview in a bit. The first information I found about George and his wild front wheel drive Mercury was in the KKOA newsletter, the Trendsetter in August of 1984 on page 6. He wrote in with some updated pictures of his project in the works, which was the Mercury he built that became affectionately known as the "Crown Princess". I have to agree with all the articles I've read about people saying what a nice guy George was. Even in this little letter he wrote in to the KKOA, you get the impression that he was a nice man. The next good appearance of the "Crown Princess" and George West was at the '86 Spectacular. George was on the video and at the Spectacular in '85, but I couldn't get any good shots of the car from that tape, but the '86 appearances and the interview made up for that. Incidentally, we covered George's '51 Mercury. It was W.E.H.T. #7 way back in May of 2016. Here's a link to that write up to maybe refresh your memory in case you need it. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/what-ever-happened-to.1016572/page-4#post-11550106 Most of that write up was based on the interview at the '86 Spectacular, but since then more information has come to light which has helped put this article together. Here is a shot of the Mercury taken during the "fairgrounds cruise". For quite sometime, I didn't realize the roof of George's car had some panel paint work done on the roof that broke up the tu-tone. You can see it pretty well in this frozen still however the quality of the picture is low. Here is a shot of the unusual bumper and taillight choice on the rear of the car. I've often read that George was one of those guys that used to utilize whatever was on hand to build his cars making them different from any other customs. Like it or not, his sled was unique! Here's a shot of George, Denise and George's granddaughter Monica during his interview. He had both the girls in stitches with his funny comments. George was definitely a character. In one part of the interview Denise asked him about a few of the modifications on the car, and when he replied with what the parts were Denise was kind of taken aback with what the parts were. George replied "I'm the dirtiest old man in this whole outfit", and both the girls really cracked up! That's when he said he liked to use whatever he could, including a diesel drivetrain. He said he used that because "I'm a cheapskate, I'd rather burn oil than gas". Denise then asked him how many "Leadsleds" he had been to and he asked "the big ones or the little ones?" She replied "the big ones", and George said "every big one", but I go to as many shows as I can. I go anywhere the KKOA goes." He sure was dedicated! Here's a close up of George from the interview. Here you can see the Crown Victoria style trim he made to stretch over the top. One last shot of the front of the Merc. Love the '60 Buick headlights George installed. Here's a close up shot of the front plate George always ran on the car. It read "Built by an American in Ky.". This plate made finding the '51 much easier in all my video searching. Incidentally, this was one of the custom sand cast plaques you could order out of the old J.C. Whitney catalogs. J.C. Whitney offered these up until not too long ago. I wonder if the foundry that did these plates is still in business. My last shot from '86 is of George walking around the fairgrounds checking things out. He was just passing Gary Minor's awesome '60 Pontiac convertible when Rowdie cruised by and captured George out strollin'. He is just reaching out to wave at the car as it rolled by. The next shots are the ones I used in the W.E.H.T. #7 article. The were taken at the Hangin' Dice show in Ft. Smith, Arkansas in 1988 by our own @drdave. Here we see that George was willing to go to far away shows and get togethers. He liked to travel and participate in custom shows. In the next shot we get a nice view of the panel paint on the roof. The two different blues work well together, and the gold pinstriping on the edges was the perfect color choice! By the way, the black Merc four door in the picture next to George's car is still in existence and still looks great. I've seen it at the Spectacular quite a few times in recent years, including last month at the 40th! For quite sometime I had no video from the 1989 Leadsled Spectacular in Davenport, Iowa, but thankfully @PasoJohn Tretten was kind enough to send me a copy of the tape he shot there. There wasn't much footage of George's car on the video from '89, but George was there. I did catch a glimpse of him walking around his car after he parked it. I circled his image way in the background shot of this strange little car driving through the fairgrounds. Sadly this was George's last Leadsled Spectacular. George passed away the following Spring on April 26, 1990. Many people of the KKOA and everywhere in the custom car scene thought the world of George. Letters of sympathy and condolences poured in from everywhere. From what I've read (and you will too), George lived alone in the middle of nowhere but seemed to like it. Maybe since he was alone so much it fueled his desire to travel to a lot of car shows. You'll see in these articles that it wasn't unusual for George to travel hours and hours just for an afternoon car show, birthday party or get together. I read once that he travelled over 10 hours to help out a fellow Lincoln Land Kustoms member and some other guys on a top chop that they were having trouble with. What a guy! The first condolences I found were from Jerry Titus. This was printed in the KKOA Trendsetter in May of 1990 on page 18. Jerry's write up in the Trendsetter wasn't the only tribute that the KKOA would do for George. The following month the Trendsetter (Volume 6 Number 1) from June 1990 was christened the "Crown Princess Edition" in George's honor. Since those early Trendsetters are too large for my scanner, I took a picture of the top of the front page to show what edition this newsletter was. The bottom of the June '90 Trendsetter showed that a tribute poem to "The Ol' Man of the Woods" was inside. Inside there were many tributes from KKOA members. Here is the tribute poem that was on page 4 written by Darlene K. Hunt. The next tribute was written in by John '55 Rebel" House from New York. On a side note, Ron was interviewed by one of Rowdie's gals on the 1983 Leadsled Spectacular video from Springfield, Ohio. This is something I just happened to remember from all my video watching, and I contributed this information on a thread about Ron. Back in 2019 a friend of Ron (@engine138) started a thread telling the HAMB that Ron had passed away. Ron was another of the original KKOA guys that was all about customs and helped usher in the "custom renaissance" with the KKOA. Here's a link to that thread in honor of Mr. House. Rest in peace.......... https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/passing-of-a-great-friend.1161996/#post-13213236 Here is the letter that Ron wrote that was printed in the June '90 Trendsetter, also on page 4. My last articles tonight were posted by @Sum54ford a while back on this very thread. They were from the Lincoln Land Kustoms newsletter, as well as the Gateway Ford and Mercury Club newsletter. Thanks again Sum54 for posting these. They truly are a treasure! This first article speaks of how much George travelled to events and how dedicated George was to customs and shows, even driving in bad WINTER weather in the "Crown Princess"! The next article was written by Jon Gullet. He was the vice-president of Lincoln Land Kustoms. He owned a tasty '50 Ford shoebox that was also featured here. It was W.E.H.T. #11. Here is the write up about Jon's car: https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/what-ever-happened-to.1016572/page-6#post-11589216 Sadly, Mr. Gullett is no longer with us as well. He was lost a number of years ago in a motorcycle accident. Again, rest in peace.......... Here is his Lincoln Land Kustoms article. Here is another article written by Lincoln Land Kustoms member Gene Elgan. In this article he gives a lot of cool information about George's car. The last article is the same one printed in the June '90 Trendsetter by Ron "55 Rebel" House, but I thought I'd include it anyway. As you can see George was a nice man that really appreciated customs, and people as well. We should all be like him. I'm sure he is still missed by many. Rest in peace Mr. West.......... Wow, like I've said before, these tribute write ups are a real marathon, but remembering some of our "little guy" heroes that have passed away is a real honor. I hope everyone enjoyed it. Those of you that are here on Tuesdays for every article may remember me saying that Labor Day and the "unofficial end of summer" would be here before we know it. Well doggone it, here we are. Where the heck did the summer go? It sure went fast, huh? I hope you can all get out and enjoy the tail end of summer before the fall and the winter roll in. I sure dread that! But let's not think about that yet. For now, let's enjoy what nice summer and fall weather we have left. Let me be among the first to wish everyone a Happy Labor Day. Be safe and have fun! See you in a few weeks. Stay cool! E
aI remember that car well, Always thought it odd that he had a diesel engine and front wheel drive in a merc.... cool car though, and one thing is for sure, George was really into it!!!
RE: WEHT #229. Lead East 1990s Parsippany, NJ Hilton, Bob Ferenczi's '51 convertible & Bob Beverly's '51 convertible
Thanks for the kinds words guys. Greatly appreciated! E Love the posts of the great East Coast customs demmel. I enjoy seeing the pictures and reading the comments very much. Keep 'em coming! E
Great write up Ed! I loved George's Merc the minute I saw it in Ft Smith. I still rank it as one of my all time faves and would totally rock it today just the way it was and wouldn't change a thing.
I think originally George West lived in the Southern Illinois area which is near St. Louis where I live because a lot of the guys around here knew George. I don’t think that the Mercury was his first custom I’ve kind of pieced together some different photographs and stories I’ve heard through the years. This picture is from the early 70s from a Southern Illinois Street Rod Association Run and this spare tire of the 40 Ford truck says George West on it. And check out the headlight treatment!!! I also came across the ISCA awards from 69-70 and 70-71 that have the name George West on them. I do know that the Ed Lepold aka Mr Merc was really good friends with George so next time I see him I will have to ask him as he was also an early member of the Southern Illinois Street Rod Association. Here is a picture of their Club Banner. They are still doing shows, this was at their annual Fathers Day car show this year. I was scrolling through Instagram just the other day checking out any Mercury’s I could find and what to I find, The Crown Princess!! This is a very recent picture and from what I can gather the car is in Canada. With as crazy as a custom as George’s car was it is good to see it virtually unchanged except for paint!
Wow! More neat stuff on George. I am glad to see the car still appears in good shape....and is back blue (we talked originally that the car might have been painted burgundy/red back when Ed featured the Merc). And yup, seeing it again in a more recent pic confirms I would still drive the goof out of it! LOL
I agree Doc. I'd drive George's Merc everywhere! E Thanks for the added information @Sum54ford! I knew there had to be more history about Mr. West out there somewhere. Most guys don't build a crazy custom right out of the gates for the first time. Nice to see the '51 is still alive and well. So many customs end up missing or in the junkyard. I hope you run into Mr. Leopold soon as I'd love to hear what he has to say about George. E
What Ever Happened To..........? number 276. 1955 Ford Owner: John Willis ? ? ? ? ?, Iowa Tonight's custom is one that I've been crazy about for what seems like a lifetime. Ever since the first time I saw it in a magazine for the first time, the wild '54 Chevy grille had me hooked. Although the car was around for quite sometime, finding information on it proved to be difficult, and the information I did find may not be totally correct. I hope posting it here will clear it all up with everyone's help. Back when I was in junior high and early high school, a trip to the grocery store always meant hitting the newsstand and checking out the latest magazines, and if one stood out more than the rest, a purchase was in order. One of my all time favorite magazine series was the Hot Rod Magazine Custom Cars collection. They printed one of this series every-now-and-then, and they were always well worth the purchase price. I can't say for sure how many are in the series and even if I have all of them, but the ones I have are among my favorites in my magazine collection. Our custom tonight was featured in a little picture in the Custom Cars by Hot Rod's coverage of the 1982 Leadsled Spectacular in Des Moines. The magazine was Volume 1 Number 5 printed in 1983. Here's a shot of the cover of the issue. I'm sure many of you crazy custom folks out there already have this issue, but if you don't, get on Ebay and get one. The cars and information in it are top shelf! John Willis' wild '55 was featured on page 68 of the issue, and even though it was a small picture, the 35 tooth, yes, you read that right, the 35 tooth '54 Chevy grille blew me away! For quite sometime I had no idea what the rest of the car looked like at all. I imagined it in white with super blue pearl, cruiser skirts and some wild Von Dutch style striping made out to look like some 50s creature on the trunk. Turns out I was way off when I finally saw more of the car, but as a kid, I had a picture in my mind of what the car may have looked like, which fit my idea of what cool was. Many years rolled by, and many times at work when I was doing some terrible duty, my mind would drift back to that '55 Ford with the many toothed '54 Chevy grille. Finally I acquired a few video tapes that this Ford happened to be on. As many of you know, I bought a collection of videos off of Ebay years ago, and it had videos from 1985-1987. Mr. Willis' Ford was not on any of them. Another number of years passed and I got the DVDs from Doug "Rowdie Productions" Reed (@49toad) of the '83 and '84 Leadsled Spectaculars, and again the Ford wasn't on them. It wasn't until just a few years ago when John Tretten (@PasoJohn) kindly sent me a copy of each of the videos he recorded of the Spectacular in 1988 (Holland, Michigan) and in 1989 (Davenport, Iowa) when the Ford finally made an appearance. This first batch of pictures is from the '88 Spectacular in Holland. Much to my surprise the car had no cruiser skirts or crazy pinstripe monster on the trunk lid. It also was not pearl white, but the car still passed the cool factor with me. Instead of pearl white it was a nice shade of baby blue with kick stand lakes, factory style skirts and a Connie kit to boot. All of the things that help an east coast custom make. It was worth the wait of over thirty years to finally get a look at the car in living color. I couldn't post any pictures of the '55 without including a "money shot" of that gorgeous grille. I've always thought it looked like the spine of a fish with all those tiny bones coming out of each side of it. You fishermen (and women) out there will know exactly what I mean. The grille on this Ford is absolutely perfect! Here's another shot of the rear showing the Connie kit pinstripe detail a little better, as well as the Lee lenses. Moving to the inside we get a rare look at the interior. It was done in a combination of white and blue vinyl in a tuck'n'roll and button tuck pattern. I'm sure this interior was a mountain of work for the upholsterer. The footage from the '89 Leadsled in Davenport looked pretty much the same as '88, so I'm just including one picture from that show. Who gets tired of looking at the front of this car? Not me! I have one more picture of the car to share tonight, but I wanted to touch on a little mystery of the car. In the 1983 Custom Cars by Hot Rod it mentioned that the owner of this fine Ford was John Willis. My last picture mentions the owner was a Mr. Richard Tingley. After researching this car, my theory is that sometime between the '83 article and the '88 Leadsled Spectacular Mr. Willis sold the car to Mr. Tingley. The reason I think this is because in the first picture I posted tonight the car had no front license plate. Every shot after the car had Iowa personalized plates that read "FLAMZ". My theory could be wrong, and maybe the real story will come to light from tonight's post. The last information I found on the car was in a picture that was printed in the January 1995 issue of Custom Rodder. It was in their coverage of the '94 Goodguys Show in Des Moines. The car looks pretty much the same as it did through all the years and in all the pictures. The one difference was the mention of the owner being Mr. Tingley. This pair of Fords should stop any custom fan dead in their tracks. Such a cool shot! After the '94 show sighting the car seemed to slide away from the show scene. Where is this fine Ford today? Has it changed hands once again? Is it still hiding in a garage or shop in Iowa? Let's see what we can find! Before I sign off tonight, I wanted to give a shout out to Mick (@straykatkustoms ) and company for pulling off another great Lead Ain't Dead custom show. I've seen the pictures and it looked like a super good time with a nice gathering of customs. I had planned to get down there this year, but many things came up making it impossible for me to attend. Hopefully next year I can get down there to check it out. I know I sound like a broken record, but sometimes life is like that. Again, great job Mick! And with that I'll close. I hope everyone out there is well and you're still having some custom car fun. Man, it's really cool in the mornings these days. Summer is running off fast and fall is knocking at the door. I'm not ready for that! I'll see you in two Tuesdays. Take care y'all! E
I totally remember that car from the early Kkoa days. But as usual I am no help as far as where it is today....
Pretty sure it is for sale at a dealer in Missouri. I'll do some searching and see what I come up with. Edit ... Found it at Drivin' Dreams in Seymour MO. Usually has an ad in Autabuy magazine. The car has been in the ad for quite some time. Listed around 22 or 23K if I recall. I remember the car from 1984 KKOA in Des Moines. Really liked it.
From the Autabuy website. From '84 KKOA, my '55 Club Sedan parked in front of John Willis. A group photo that I organized for Sunday morning at KKOA Des Moines, 1984
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