There is something alluring, and even romantic, about old trucks with a well-worn appearance. If only this Mercury could tell stories of its duties, and adventures, over its 68 year life span. Although, the seller tells a story of this truck traveling from Saskatchewan Canada to New York City twice! Quite the long hall for this old timer. Fairly solid, with a charming patina, this Mercury does run, but needs some brake work to be a driver. This rare Mercury can be yours for the price of $11,995. Find it here on craigslist out of Norco, California.
Charming yet inviting, the interior has its fair share of patina as well. The flooring has some surface rust, but it looks to be solid, with no rot. The bench has been reupholstered but has a nice contrast, and a period appearance. The steering wheel has a few cracks, but is still ready for the heavily callused hands of a hard worker. Still bright with color, the gauge cluster looks very nice, though the temperature gauges appears to be non-functional. A new windshield and seal have been installed, but I wonder if this Mercury spent some time without a windshield? The bleached out look of the interior is interesting, and almost looks like a paint thinner was used to gain this appearance. Interesting, fascinating, and still charming. The flat head V8 recently received fresh fluids, an oil filter, and new 6 volt battery, for its awakening ceremony. Now in running condition, the seller claims they are going to perform a full tune up on the engine to improve its health even further. The seller also mentions that may take on the brake system work before selling this truck as well. Hard to say what will be done, and if it will make the price fluctuate.
Covered in surface rust, there are a few areas that have some rot issues. The rot on this truck is mirrored to the same locations on both sides. The front fenders has a dollar bill sized rot area. There is also rot present in the sides of the truck bed, and the lower front portion of the rear fenders. Dents, and dings are present, but there is nothing severe misshaping any of the body work. Although sharing looks with its Ford cousin, the Mercury specific trim appears to all be accounted for. There is still a wooden plank truck bed, and it appears to be relatively solid. The charming looks of this Mercury are wonderful, and it is not all that often you see a Mercury truck to begin with. Would you bring home this charming Mercury?
Apparently, same person as the ’47 Ford One Tonner. ( being from Canada, allegedly, should’t that truck be a Mercury as well?) You can see it in the back ground. Probably got these cheap at auction and dragged them home. I’d love to do that. Guess Canada is the “last frontier” for this stuff. Rare indeed. The only way to go with this, ( and the Ford, for that matter) is the update route. I couldn’t justify sinking 20g’s into this, and not use it. Some beautiful resto-mod pickups like this.
Yep….This is well known on The FTE Forum….
Not sure if you were serious, but Ford trucks were sold as both Mercury and Ford in Canada until ’68.
A mild restomod. Patch up all jokes and rot, reprint to driver standard, 12 volt electrics, rebuild the engine to run on unleaded, disc brakes, vintage air, etc. keep overall appearance as stock as possible.
I would love to have one of these Mercury trucks just because they are unusual to see. Were Mercury trucks only sold in Canada ???
the way this worked was ford dealers sold ford trucks ford cars and monarchs, lincon – mercury dealers sold mercurys[same as monarchs] meterors[ rebadged fords] and mercury trucks included were 1/2 tons right up to tandem trucks which they called them big jobs! as far as rare what a joke! grain farmers in western canada had lots of these trucks heres a cute thing pickup trucks out there had to have wood floors in the box to be farm trucks so the farmer could write them off in there taxes steel floor trucks they couldn’t!
I believe Ford trucks, yes were called Mercury in Canada, and Ford cars were called Monarch, trim was shuffled to differentiate them from the US cars.
To be clear both were available. Usually limited to badge engineering.
Canada had both. Ford trucks at Ford dealers and Mercury trucks at Mercury dealers
I believe that pre ’49 Ford and Mercury both existed in the US and Canada; in ’49 the US Mercury had a name, but no design, change in Canada to “Monarch”. Although somewhere around ’56 the Merc name resurfaced
My twin and I terrorized Vancouver Heights with one of each; my ’49 was repowered with a ’56 292 from a Tbird; just for impact I added tripower with mechanical progressive linkage. His ’40 Merc was a Chopped Carson topped with a 290 ci +- flat head (stroked plus 145 thou overbored). Then I got religion and switched to Sunbeam Alpine and Tigers!
A good book to read is titled: ‘METEOR/MONARCH,’ by R. Perry Zavitz. Mr. Zavitz tells a good story of what went on north of the 49th as far as Ford was concerned. Ford of Canada sold Mercury trucks through Mercury dealers to help balance out the sales between both Ford and Mercury dealers, and Ford trucks through Ford dealers. Mercury didn’t offer an entry-level car so Ford of Canada brought out a Ford car with Mercury grill and badging calling it the ‘114’ from ’46 to ’48 and the Meteor from ’49 onward. On the same token Ford didn’t have a model to step up to so Ford of Canada took the Mercury 118, badged it as a Monarch and sold it through Ford dealers. It continued with the Monarch name pretty much through the 50’s. Being a border brat I saw cars and trucks from both sides. There were a lot of cross-border marriages and farming/ranching operations; and farm equipment and trucks, especially, migrated through. I remember as a kid, standing on the sidewalk in Shelby, MT and looking at (3) ’48-’50 Ford products parked beside each other on the street: One was an F-47 (CDN Ford pickup), one was an M-47 (CDN Mercury pickup) and the other was an F-1 (American Ford pickup). All (3) trucks looked similar, and all (3) had Montana plates. I was actually quite surprised when I found out that Mercury trucks and Meteor cars were NOT built in the States because there used to be a lot of them in northern Montana. Correction: Actually the M-7, M-8 Super Duty Mercury trucks, through the later versions, were built in the States on the same assembly line as the Ford Super Duty trucks.
You call yourself a border brat? That’s a little odd.
Hi Bingo. Border brat is a little unusual to most of the population, unless you were born and raised on the border; then it’s just the way it is. Border brats either came from families who worked for the Customs/Brokers or in the farming/ranching business. My grandfather came up from the Four Corners in 1910 to ranch in the Chinook Belt. There are still a lot of farming and ranching operations that straddle the American/Canadian border from the Rockies to the Dakotas although things like 9-11 have made it a little tougher to operate on both sides….
I would put the body right and drop a modern drive train in it and driver her every day.
I learned to drive in an old Ford tonner. I learned to drive up alongside the combine and ‘load-on-the-go’ at the same time. Hard to believe; that was back in ’61 when I was turning 8. That old Warner T-9 crash box took some getting used to. Interesting how that transmission howled like a banshee behind a flathead V8 but made very little noise behind a six.
12 K, and the price goes up if they fix the brakes? LOL!!!!!!
Uh. He didn’t say that. He said they may get to it before the sale. He mentioned not one thing about raising the price.
I think this is definitely a drive-it-and-fix as you go. I like the age on it, and wouldn’t change a thing. There are plenty enough resto-mods already, leave this one original.
Thanks for the correction cyclemikey. I misread this in the write-up. The seller also mentions that may take on the brake system work before selling this truck as well. Hard to say what will be done, and if it will make the price fluctuate. My mistake. Nice rig and I agree on keeping her original. Maybe after the Super Bowl I will do some pricing research. Thanks again, Mike.
This is a great truck,but I think Howard has it right with the restomod.I would fix rust and go with dark green and black fenders kind of looks like it was that once.This could be a fun truck hope the new owners have a blast.
one other thing here can you fathom driving a 3/4 ton truck from western canada to new york city at about 50 miles per hour if you could get that out of it going down hill with a tail wind! my father had a 51 fargo pickup that would run circles around this thing all day long! he was a sub dealer for mercury trucks for 25 years in ontario canada!