History What was the FIRST chopped 1949-50 MERCURY

In the article itself it mentions the ages of George and Sam and if you do the math of when they were born according to the article its 1949.Just more info to consider.

 

Well we know that is not the case.

 

that's some facsinating historical reading, thanks a lot!

 

Talked to Jerry for a while this afternoon,I told him about these discussions about his merc and he got a good laugh out of it.I also told him about the Marcia Campbell story in the TRJ and how they featured all of those pictures of his Mercury getting chopped.He couldn't believe that all those pictures were getting looked at all these years later.I know he had a big smile cause he was laughing pretty good .So we were talking about the Popular Science article for a while and I was telling him how much I really loved the picture of the White Ghost next to the unchopped 50 merc and that picture has really influenced me.So then he ask's me "if I have seen the one of his car at the Saugus Dragstrip parked next to a stock 49 merc??" I told him I have never heard of that picture but I would love to see it.Jerry was dragracing motorcycles at the time at Saugus and he was there alot of weekends but only drove his Mercury one time.He said he didnt like all of the people around his car when he wasnt near by,so he didnt take it back anymore.He told me that it was a great picture and the owner of the stock 49 really liked Jerry's car.

Now I have been thinking about that picture ever since we hung up today.He said there is a chance his daughter might have it and he said he would check for me.

 

Its always so interesting to talk to these guy who where there at the time. I really hope one day there will be some photo evidence to proof who's 49 Merc sedan was chopped first... And until then I just love these discussions, and we just refer to them as one of the first.

I really hope Jerry will be able to locate that photo.. and if he does let you scan that photo...

 

So nobody thinks the Louis Bettancourt Mercury was the first chopped?

From the sounds of things, the Sam Barris Mercury was the most finished chopped Mercury but I think based on the style of the chop that the Quesnel Mercury was first as the chop seems to carry over styling elements from older builds.

 

Well to me it was Jerry's mercury chopped 1st. Sam's was the 1st one finished in shiny paint. How can you think Sam's was 1st when there is all these photos of Jerry's car getting chopped. Just cause George " the KING of BULLSHIT" Barris said it was 1st. George is a promoter and going to say he did it 1st just like he says they did everything 1st. If Sams car was the 1st one chopped then why didnt George document it. He was documenting everything they did at the shop. There isnt 1 build photo of Sam's car. Also since Jerry was a paying customer is car is gonna get worked on more then Sam's. So if Sam had to work on his at night after the shop was closed. He couldnt work on it the same amout of hours like they did on Jerry's. To me that makes a lot of sense.

I dont think Sam bought his 49 mercury right when it was available. If so he would of bought it at the very end of 1948 or the 1st of the year or 1949. So Sam drove his car for almost 2 years before he chopped it. I think he bought a 1 year old mercury. that way it was a bit cheaper then the new 1950 mercury.

 

Nice work Jeff. Hopefully you can get the photo. Hearing he only drove the Merc to Saugus once, wouldn't it be cool if it was dated?

I agree with your post #189. The rough work indicating a first shot beginning of a learning curve.

Perhaps the timeframe around January went something like;

1) Sam had cut the roof off his Merc and only had it mocked back in place (A posts tacked).

2) Jerry saw it and immediately hired Sam to chop his car.

3) Sam finished Jerry's chop (paying customer takes priority over his own car).

4) Sam schooled himself on Jerry's chop and did a cleaner job on his car.

To split hairs;

1) Sam's was the first to be cut (chopped).

2) Jerry's was the first Merc chop to be completed - though in primer.

3) Sam's was the first chopped and painted car.

Surprised old George doesn't have photos/date details on all of this.

Man, a photo of both Mercs being worked on side by side in the shop would be killer!

 

Thanks

 

I think at the time these cars where chopped George Barris was not taking to many photo's himself. The photos of Jerry's Merc where shot by Marcia Campbell, who taught George Barris how to photograph later on. But in the beginning George just did not have a camera, or if he did he did not use it to document things.
I'm not sure if Marcia Dated the photos or not. They are still around, last I saw them was at the Barris shop. So perhaps Piero can check out the backs... But at one point Cleatus scanned all the photos and made sure they where all put together in this unique photo album by Marcia Campbell. And if there would have been dates. He for sure would have seen them when he scanned the photos.

Jerry was also working at the Barris shop at the time his car was chopped... so its unsure if he was actually a paying customer when his car was chopped. Perhaps - and this happened a lot back then - work between Jerry and Sam was traded...

Nothing new here... just some "corrections" to the previous posts today.

 

As far as I know Sam did buy the car brand new from the dealer in late 1948. As far as I know this was Sam's one and only brand new car he would ever own.

 

Thanks Rik,I was just about to write that myself.Just to add to the corrections they were both done at the Barris shop so like Jerry said yesterday.......If Sam was still alive he would talk about those early days and we would all know the truth.He said Sam was still one of the nicest guys he ever met.

Bickford....... Jerry was working in the evenings at the Barris shop.

 

Bick I was saying that Sam's car was the first one out with paint as opposed to primer, I don't think there is any proof really of any other fact.

Sam's Mercury: First out painted, interior not done?
Jerry's Mercury: Was out in primer, painted purple later

Now I don't see how a person who talks to Jerry Q, George Barris, and 1-2 other folks can't get it all figured out.

Jeff, next time you talk to Jerry, could you ask him these questions:

-So per KustomRama his was first cut, is that right? Was that in November? When?
-When was Sam's cut?
-Did Jerry drive his first, and if so, did he have all the glass in it?
-Were both Mercs at the shop at the same time? What color was Sam's before he repainted it?
-The chops are different, were there different ideas there? I could see Jerry's being the first since that style of chop seems less common. Did Jerry, Sam or George think that Jerry's chop didn't "work" as well?

Seems to me that if you ask him some specific questions, it might job his memory. I find with my father in law who's in his 70's that if I ask 4-5 specific questions he eventually remembers a chronology etc.

Sam sold the car done I would assume, interior and all. Maybe Jerry got his out and drove it not completed, I could see some young guy on a modest income doing that.

Why did Sam sell his so fast, was he constantly flipping cars, got an offer he couldn't refuse, got bored of it, or had another project in mind?

 

John, the problem is it is looking like these two cars probably got chopped within weeks of each other if they were not getting done at exactly the same time. Pretty hard to expect anyone to remember time frames that are that close together 60 years latter.

Jeff that picture Jerry mentiond would be incredible to see. I hope he can locate it.

 

For me this is actually the biggest reason to think Sam's was done first. He had a complete car done by February 20th of 1951 with way more customizing done to it than Jerry's. Jerry's car couldn't have been started until January of 1951 given the picture of it with 1951 plates and no chop so at the very least Sam's had to have started working on his own car. Maybe he hadn't chopped it yet but it had to be in the shop and being worked on by the time Jerry brought his in.

 

This is one of my favorite threads!! Any thread that deals with the history of CUSTOM CARS gets me going!!

 

I don't think your conclusion answers the question of which car was chopped first, it answers which chopped Merc was painted first. A chop including the finish work would have taken a shop like that a week or less. These guys were known for volume work right, they had a number of full time guys as well as guys coming in at night and on weekends too.

We just need to ask Jerry who was driving theirs first. I bet he was. In primer. Maybe not all the glass done.

 

No it certainly doesn't and I am not suggesting it does but all I am saying is we pretty much know that the two cars had to have been chopped within a month if Jerry's has any chance of being the first so the arguement that Sam's took longer means it had to have been started first. All I am saying is it is a bad arguement for Jerry's car being chopped first.

I would be surprised if the chop took less than a week. The Matranga Merc took a year to build and these were a brand new chop so I would think there was a bit of figuring as they went. I also doubt Sam whipped his car together in less than a month start to finish working on it after hours. I believe he had a "regular" job as a police officer at this time as well so that would slow it down even more. So again it seems he would have at least started some of the customizing on his before Jerry's was chopped so it would have been in the shop when Jerry's was being done.

John you should know better than anyone these things take time.Yes they had a number of guys working but they were also working on a number of cars at a time. Any picture you see of the shop had multiple projects going on at once. It is not like they brough a car in and had 3 or 4 guys working on it exclusively to get it done right away.

If they were working on Jerry's after hours as well because he was a shop employee then I would think Sam would have been splitting his after work time between the two cars which would mean an even longer time period.

It boils down to we just don't know and without dated pictures we may never know.

 

No it certainly doesn't and I am not suggesting it does but all I am saying is we pretty much know that the two cars had to have been chopped within a month if Jerry's has any chance of being the first so the arguement that Sam's took longer means it had to have been started first. All I am saying is it is a bad arguement for Jerry's car being chopped first. (K13)


Dont forget to take in consideration Sams mercury having a full fadeaway's which im sure took a little bit of time to do on the new merc bodystyle,which hadn't been done yet.Also lets not forget that Sam's car debut with a complete custom grill,which im sure took a little time to think up and make.They must have started Sams car pretty early to get all that stuff done in a quick amount of time.Oh ya and paint it in that gorgeous green also.It still makes me wonder after doing some major custom work I wonder why none of them corners were rounded.

 

All the body mods could have been done to the car way before chopping it. Thats something that most of those custom cars did 1st. French this de-chrome that change this or that. Im sure all that stuff was done and all Sam had to do last was chop and paint.

Still why is there not any photos of Sam's car being built. That would have been a very big day for the shop to document that event and the result of it.

 

There Sure is plenty of great pictures like this of this certain merc with a antenna in a certain place and those smoothed out tailights.I dont see how anyone would ever get this confused with Sam's mercury but yet someone did and printed books passing this as the Sam Barris mercury,I am a little confused as why that happened. Thanks again for these pictures Marcia.......R.I.P.

 

It sounds very plausible that Sam first did all the other body mods on his Merc, before starting on the chop. It would also make sense why his Merc did not have the rounded corners. In 1949 and even 1950 it was not yet so common to round corners on the hoods, trunks and doors. That trick really started to get popular in later part of 1950-1951.
The Jack Stewart 1941 Ford with most of its body panels molded in did not have rounded trunk corners when it left the Ayala shop in 1950!

Lets not forget that when these's Merc where chopped there where not really magazines that where interested in how to articles, that needed the step by step photos that where so popular from late 1951 and up. It could very well be that Sam chopped his Merc late at night, after work with nobody in the shop to take photos. I don't think Sam had a camera back then. I have never heard Sam took photos, or Sam got credit for a photo that got published.
Nowadays we take photos of everything we do, but back then how these cars where created was not all that important. The end result was what counted.

 

Maybe that certain " person " is confused.He say these photos and said Yes this is the 1st mercury chopped. Im thinking that Sam and Jerry's mercury had the same stock color. So by this person knowing they took all these photos of the 1st mercury chopped. He just assumed it was Sam's. Forgetting that it really was Jerry's mercury. That could be the reason they are so many photo taken of this car. Yes it was the 1st mercury chopped , but someone just miss taken them for Sam's mercury. It was a long time ago and i cant see this certain " person" remembering everything they did to every car.

 

Rik a lot of that makes sense and you do have good points but...... I wasn't talkin about how to magazine pictures.I was talkin about the same person who shot all these great pictures of Jerry's car.I dont see her not shooting Sams car at all,even if it was mysteriously stored away so nobody would would touch it till the late night,I still dont get why she wouldn't take a picture of that car even as a mild custom IF it was ever drivin as a mild custom.

I agree with you about it being worked on at night and after hours and it being done in a MAJOR RUSH so it could debut at the Oakland show as a full finished painted custom.

 

Jeff, the fact we have not seen any photos of Sam's car as a mild custom does not mean they don't exist. Jerry recently told you about a photo of his car we have never seen before.
We do know that Marcia's Custom Car photo collection is long gone.
But if she took photos of Sam's car in its early stages, she more than likely gave those to Sam. And perhaps they are still around, only we have not seen them. But this is just all speculative of coarse.

I don't think Sam ever hid his car at all. More than likely his 1949 Mercury was his only form of transportation in those years. So he needed it to drive around at all time.

And as for George mistakenly calling the Photos of Jerry's Merc getting chopped Sam's.... it has been mentioned before, but I say it again. This happened a lot with George when he worked on his wonderful books. And I have no reason to believe this was done on purpose. Bill deCarr's 1941 Mercury was called Jesse Lopez 1941 Ford as well as Jack Stewart 1941 Ford in these books.. and that are only two samples.

 

Some good points Rik but I still dont really think so.I think if Sams family would of had any old pictures of the mercury getting chopped they would of probably surfaced by now like Jerry's did.As far as they know ,all them old pictures of Jerry's merc were Sam's as we were told in Sacramento until we all got a closer look.

I also wonder why Sam's merc didnt win when it debut in Oakland ? I mean.. being the first one chopped and finished with a full paint job,it just doesn't seem like it made a big impression at that show.

 

Well no disrespect, but Sam's Merc is till a rather conservative Custom compared to other chopped 1949-51 Mercs. I love its styling a lot. But I guess in 1951 when the car was entered in the Oakland Roadster show people and also show judges where not so much impressed with the fact that this was one of the first 1949 Merc being chopped. They where probably looking for an overall package. And Gil Ayala's 1940 Mercury just had a lot more body work done it it. It had parts combined for several different brands and models etc to "disguise" it from what it was. While Sam's Merc was still very well identified as a 1949 Mercury, only to look better.
Back then Sam's Merc was not the icon it is today.

 

I dont think it was on purpose. i think george didnt remember they they did Jerry's car 1st. He just maybe thought that yes Sam had bought a brand new mercury when it came out and and saw these photos and thought they were Sam's mercury. It make a lot of sense that they took these photos of them chopping the 1st mercury. They were all very excited that they were going to be doing it. Just Georges memory might have been a bit fuzzy about who's mercury they chopped 1st. He might of thought it was Sam's mercury cause of these 2 photos. Shit i would of thought the same thing too. To me that theory might be the cause.
K13 did say " Pretty hard to expect anyone to remember time frames that are that close together 60 years latter." in post number 224. So im sure this is the case with Georges memory.

 

Well I will add a few more quotes to this from the Barris Kustoms of the 1950's book.

Page 24 "He used it everyday and then one night he figured it out, he started cutting....It was chopped and THEN (I added the emphasis) revised with all the right touches, including frenched headlights, fade-away fender lines and no drip moldings."

Page 29 " Sam pondered how he would chop the Mercury, and it became a part-time project during the next four months."

Now these are two statements that George would have no reason to lie about or change things up to fit the pictures. It this was indeed the case Sam started his car in November of 1950 two months before the first pictures of Jerry's car could have been taken. That means it was either in the shop with work done to it when Jerry's was chopped or sold and gone. Maybe Marcia missed the work on Sam's car and had no choice but to take pictures of the work being done on Jerry's.

I also find it interesting that before the picture of Sam's car surfaced at the 1951 show this was Jeffs quote in another thread:

Do we have any proof that this show is the 1951 Oakland show? Maybe the 1950 show and the Matranga car was being shown for the first time?? Even if it is 1951,it was in febuary so I dont think Jerry's merc was done that early in the year.We know Jerry's car was on the road in white primer in early to mid 1951 but I dont think this early.(feb)

I guess George liked to use that set of trophies to really bring attention to the car he was really showcasing.Look real close at the trophies around Nicks car and then go to my Montebello thread and take a close look at the opening picture of Jerrys merc and look hard at the trophies............. yes you guessed it,almost all of the exact same trophies were around Jerrys car in the picture.Jerry and Jack Stewart told me that George would take those trophies to really grab attention.I think that Jerrys car was in the white primer about 4 to 6 months into the year 1951

 

OHHHHH!! You want to throw quotes from books!? Well in the Barris kustoms techniques of the 50s. page 66. There is a nice photo on it. WOW!!! The captions reads like this. "In this build-up photo, Johnny Zaro attacks the rear of Sam's Merc. You can see how we used anything handy, exhaust pipes,whatever,to hold the roof up while we made the hacksaw cuts.This phase of getting the Merc chopped took many months but the end result was a great looking custom and the knowledge of how to do it right." so thats a quote from the Barris book.

The funny thing is .. In that photo it Jerry's mercury. So i guess George REMEMBERS EVERYTHING.