06/18/2021
Sully Virtual Car Show: This is a Mercury 4-door convertible sedan, one of 970 built in 1940, the only year of Mercury's four-door convertible sedan. This car has showed at Sully three times. Here is her story:
In spring 1956, fraternity brother Jack Judson and I were walking to downtown Hoboken, NJ, for Sunday dinner. We passed a forlorn pile of tired metal and rags topped with a painter’s canvas, dirty, musty smelling, with four bald tires. Jack suggested buying it for a fraternity staff car. Twenty-five dollars borrowed from somewhere and I made the first major purchase of my life. I named her 40MERC. We pushed her back to the Delta Shelter, a great location, standing in the way of progress. Daddy later towed her home to Woodbury, New Jersey, and my best friend and I worked on the Merc every day for 3 weeks that June. We learned about getting the clutch in wrong, installing a ‘49 Merc engine, anti-chatter rods, and sore hands. Daddy passed that August, and I leaned hard on the 40Merc to vent. Soon after, Mother said the Mercury had to go so she could rent the space for $10 a month.
Next came college and a 23-year U.S. Air Force career that included tours and long military flights in Alaska that spawned talks about stateside girls and old cars. After service, I returned to New Jersey determined to find the Mercury. No one knew where it had gone. As a last resort, I wrote her a letter in the antique car magazine Hemming’s Motor News.
She answered me.
Bob, her owner, and his family had fully restored the Mercury into better-than-new glory, and she had won many awards. On Aug. 22, 2017, exactly 61 years after my father’s passing, that 40Merc returned to me. It now sleeps in our garage, and I tingle with the thrill of it all, thankful to all involved.
--Clem Clement https://bit.ly/2YPKL2R
#fairfaxparks #fairfaxcounty #ffxstrong #sullycarshow #antiquecars #antiquecar #carshows #classiccar #classiccars #vintagecar #oldcar #oldcars
Sully Virtual Car Show: This is a Mercury 4-door convertible sedan, one of 970 built in 1940, the only year of Mercury's four-door convertible sedan. This car has showed at Sully three times. Here is her story:
In spring 1956, fraternity brother Jack Judson and I were walking to downtown Hoboken, NJ, for Sunday dinner. We passed a forlorn pile of tired metal and rags topped with a painter’s canvas, dirty, musty smelling, with four bald tires. Jack suggested buying it for a fraternity staff car. Twenty-five dollars borrowed from somewhere and I made the first major purchase of my life. I named her 40MERC. We pushed her back to the Delta Shelter, a great location, standing in the way of progress. Daddy later towed her home to Woodbury, New Jersey, and my best friend and I worked on the Merc every day for 3 weeks that June. We learned about getting the clutch in wrong, installing a ‘49 Merc engine, anti-chatter rods, and sore hands. Daddy passed that August, and I leaned hard on the 40Merc to vent. Soon after, Mother said the Mercury had to go so she could rent the space for $10 a month.
Next came college and a 23-year U.S. Air Force career that included tours and long military flights in Alaska that spawned talks about stateside girls and old cars. After service, I returned to New Jersey determined to find the Mercury. No one knew where it had gone. As a last resort, I wrote her a letter in the antique car magazine Hemming’s Motor News.
She answered me.
Bob, her owner, and his family had fully restored the Mercury into better-than-new glory, and she had won many awards. On Aug. 22, 2017, exactly 61 years after my father’s passing, that 40Merc returned to me. It now sleeps in our garage, and I tingle with the thrill of it all, thankful to all involved.
--Clem Clement https://bit.ly/2YPKL2R
#fairfaxparks #fairfaxcounty #ffxstrong #sullycarshow #antiquecars #antiquecar #carshows #classiccar #classiccars #vintagecar #oldcar #oldcars
