It's car-guy day on the blog.The 1949-51 Mercury was perfect raw material for the first generation of California car customizers. The car was basically a pre-war design reshaped for the new, streamlined world everyone was waking up to by the late Forties. The Mercury designers sleeked and smoothed their original pre-war silhouette. Custom shops took the program several steps further. The classic modification on a Merc of this era was to lower the roof by chopping the columns. I believe the seams (channels) were filled with lead, and this was why these Mercs, chopped and channeled, became "lead sleds". This 1951 Mercury is owned by Mercury Charlie of Austin, Texas. http://www.mercurycharlie.com/index2.php#/home/
All photographs by William Geisler ©2011
http://www.williamgeisler.com/
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