Mm mmm Mercury! This is one beefy truck. This 1950 Mercury M-68 Pickup is on eBay in Gladstone, Manitoba, Canada, about an hour and forty-five minutes west of Winnipeg. That’s farm country if there ever was farm country and this is a great farm truck. The seller’s eBay user name is “flax-dude” so you know you’re dealing with the real thing here. There is one bid of $2,800, which was the seller’s reserve price, and there are almost five days of the auction left; just in case any of you were looking for a truck like this.
Mercury’s M-Series pickups were made mainly for our friends in Canada, those lucky bums! Every once in a long while I’ll see a Mercury pickup at a car show (or is that a truck show?) and it’s always a treat. These rugged beauties were made from 1946 to 1968 and they were part of Ford of Canada’s marketing strategy after WWII. Smaller towns typically didn’t have both a Lincoln-Mercury and a Ford dealership and Ford wanted folks in Canada to have access to pickups even if their town didn’t have a Ford dealership.
There is very little rust on this truck, or at least rust-through; the body is as solid as Sears Canada.. was, back when Sears was still solid anywhere. The model designation “M-68” stands for a Mercury pickup with a gross vehicle weight rating of 6,800 pounds; they just left off the zeroes. This truck is equipped with hydraulics and a twin-cylinder box dump hoist so it’s a real work truck.
The interior looks great in this truck, this would be a fun truck to restore, there is no question about it. Or, just get things working perfectly and drive it looking like a truck that’s been stored indoors for much of its 66-year life. This is a 1-1/2 ton truck and you can see that it was/is blue. There are no engine photos, unfortunately. And, even more unfortunate is the fact that the engine doesn’t turn over, as in, it’s seized. Hopefully you can break it loose, but it’ll probably have to be taken out and rebuilt. Also, the tailgate is missing and the bed planks are rotted out, but you’d change those anyway so it’s probably easier this way. It would be fun to get this Merc restored to perfection, but I could also see just getting things working great and driving it without working on the body. How would you fix up this Mercury truck?
Same as the Ford F1’s from this generation. Good luck finding a nice Mercury logo stamped tailgate, but everything else should be easy to find from Ford parts.
Found m68 1950 in a barn in Ontario,runs fantastic and is all original,complete and has a working dump box. Owner moved it from Saskatchewan when he moved here.bought it for 8000$ not sure if it was worth it but I love the truck.
If I was in sales at a Mercury dealer, this would be a must have.
Would look good on the sales floor.
If you were in sales at a Mercury dealer you would have lost your job 5+ years ago when the brand went defunct.
Sheesh, nothing like a little “optimism” to brighten everyone’s day….
They didn’t loose their jobs, they went to the Lincoln branded side.
Really neat truck, alright. The bed cross memebers, which are also wood, are rotted out as well as the floor, but no biggie for restoration. Actually this isn’t the same as a Ford F-1, it’s the same as an F-3 1 ton. The F-1 is a half ton.
Actually it would be a F-3&1/2,it is stated that it is a 1 and 1/2 Ton I guess. Why wouldn’t it have duel rear wheels?
I bought a seized Mustang once. Put diesel down each spark plug and waited a week. Worked well for me and the motor seemed to run OK once freed.
AMX Brian — if the buyer acts quickly, they can grab this 1950 Merc tailgate for $475 including shipping. Not bad… just paint it black and splash some mud on it!
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1946-1947-1948-1949-1950-Mercury-pickup-tailgate-NEW-/141882731434?hash=item2108deabaa:g:kioAAOxy69JTF3FC&vxp=mtr
another old truck that i would want to make safe, either fix or swap out the engine, and then put back to work. great find.
Get it running, make it safe, stop the rust as best I can and use it, use it, use it. That dump capability would come in handy around my property. Love it.
Nice truck for sure! Something that could be restored without breaking the bank. Being a border brat I saw a fair mixture of Canadian and American trucks (cars too) when I was a kid. I might add that the closest dealer(s) to anything automotive or agricultural was 10 miles into Canada; Shelby and Cutbank, MT, were further. The Mercury trucks had somewhat of an edge over their Ford counterparts. They always came with deluxe cabs whereas it was an option on Fords. An F-3/F-68 could be ordered with the 255 engine but the 239 was standard; the Mercury had the 255 as standard. Incidentally, the 68 in the Canadian-built trucks stands for the truck’s factory-rated GVW; F-47/M-47 was 4700 GVW, and so on.
You know it’s from Canada, hey, because it has snow tires all the way ’round. Always liked this style Ford, with the smaller cab. I’m not sure the Mercury thing is all that special. I wonder if regular Ford’s are special in Canada. Anyway, very cool truck. Flathead V-8 and geared right, I bet this would be a nice truck. And the hoist sweetens the deal. Can’t go wrong here.
I didn’t know snows on all 4 corners was a Canadian thing, but I do that and I’m Canadian. You should have them all around, because they are designed to stay soft in below freezing temps.
Hi Glen, I’m just kidding. Being from Wisconsin, in my travels, I’ve had people, mostly younger types from down south say, “Wisconsin,,,where is that?” I say, “you know, that dead zone between Chicago and Minneapolis”. Their response is, ” OH, where it’s cold all the time”. I say, “yup, just a stones throw from the north pole”.
Hi Howard. There was very little difference. I’ve seen a lot of both and the only difference was the model number and that was universal by ’51. My ’47 pickup is American but my parts truck is Canadian. Only difference is the VIN layout. It’s interesting that you find very few six cyl. trucks in Canada. Mercury, absolutely not, until about ’56. According to my sources the six cyl. motors were all built stateside.
Your right , geo, Didn’t even know about 6 cylinders when I got my 52 Ford 1/2 ton in 1977 in southern Sask. They are all flathead 8s up here. It is my daily driver till winter gets too cold. Not that it wouldn’t start. It has duel block heaters. The weak spot is the seam where the two front fender parts join. See pick of 50 F1 below.
advertiseing is good but no price seems to me it would be over the top best of luck
Great Truck, It wasn’t mentioned about the engine. I owned a M-1 50 Merc.
It came with a 255 flat head. Someone pinched it many years ago. I’m searching
western Canada for a good one.
Daniel, they stole your truck !?
I have a 1952 Ford F1 for sale in SE Sask.
It is rough but a good driver.
Was my daily workhorse until last fall.
Reply to this if interested.
May have to arrange a time to take a look. Presently working on Baffin a month at a time. Approximately what area? South East of Regina? F- 1 had the 3 teeth grill?
It is just outside of Weyburn.
Yes, the 3 tooth grill. Only the ’51 & ’52 had this grill.