New to forum and hot rods

As I said above I'm new to this. I have a couple of basic ?

I would like to have a 1950's era hot rod something like these with a little less chop. I would want mine to be a real daily driver.
[IMG]http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k2...rodmercury.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k2...om/hotrod2.jpg[/IMG]


The ? is can something like this be bought for less than $50k and if so where can a guy find one of these. This sounds simple but where I live at I don't ever see these on the roads and don't know of any custom shops to go talk to. Any help.

Thanks

Welcome to CHR, Mark. The answer to your first question is a definite Yes! You can find a lot of really nice old Mercs for $30k and up. A friend from Florida had one that was real nice, painted in HOK Passion paint with some very nice pinstriping laid down in all of the right places. He was asking $35 for it, but ended up trading for a 37 Ford. Check with the ads on this site and other sites on the net, also check the ads in NSRA's Street Scene, Goodguy's gazette, Hemmings Motor News, etc. There are a lot of car sales sites on the net, and a lot of Mercs for sale as well.

Get in touch with your local car club. You certainly can buy a nice unchopped Merc for less than $30,000, and your local car club guys are going to know where to find them.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1950-...em280192687738

here is an example, its still got 5 days left but i bet it can be had for way less then 50k. maybe even half that. of coarse you could build one from the ground up like most people here, but then again i will say for a 3rd time. i will never do that again and stick to my word, ya right!! welcome aboard and come back to visit any time.

Brian I live in a town of 10,000 people and we are the largest town within 120 miles. If we have a car club I haven't heard of it. Is there a national association that might list local clubs around the country?

I did some searches on mopar34 sources and already found a couple. They are both a couple of thousand miles away from me though.

Here are some pics of what I found.

[IMG]http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k2...om/hotrod3.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k2...om/hotrod4.jpg[/IMG]

The one on ebay doesn't look bad. At that price I could afford a good paint job and still have $ to spare.

Keep the tips rolling in I'm following up on every one.

Welcome,
Dave ,you have another customer.

Welcome, nice to have you here. Have some good fun!

Welcome. The other members have pointed you in the right direction to get started and it does look finding one in your price range is definitely doable.

I kind of keyed in on this statement of yours "...I would want mine to be a real daily driver..." which slants my perspective somewhat.

Before you jump in with both feet I'll throw out a few thoughts for you.

Even with an updated suspension and brakes these cars often will not handle, ride, or stop as well as many of the new cars. Don’t get me wrong done properly they will do well but may not be what you are expecting. You might want to get a good test drive in the one you finally choose to buy prior to finalizing the sale and determine if it is really what you want.

The quality of the build should be should be the primary concern when you are looking at the car. This is a lot more involved than determining that the paint is shiny and the upholstery is nice. The mechanical aspects will determine if the car is fun or a nightmare money pit. There are a lot of nice looking cars out there that at best a cobbled together and in some cases downright dangerous. I’ve seen far too many recently purchased cars go thru my shop and others that were far more project cars than drivers when they came in. For the amount of money you are planning on spending, pay someone who is knowledgeable on modified cars to give it a complete inspection.

The amount and type of driving you will be doing should be a big factor when looking at the car. A big high compression engine with low gears and non-overdrive transmission is a lot of fun if you only take it out on Saturday night but you may not want to fill it up with premium fuel every 3 days if you’re driving it everyday.

Finally you may want to do a little bit of looking into insurance especially if you do use it as a daily driver. Many regular insurance companies will not provide full coverage on a vehicle that old. Stated value insurance policies are generally reasonable in price but often place restrictions on the total annual mileage, storage, and limit the use for things like taking it to work.

Wow that is alot of good info.

I should explain what I would use the car a little better than my orginal post. I would not be relying on it as my daily driver, but would want it to be built so I would be comfortable driving it to work a couple days per week. I like to go pretty hard when I'm having fun, a good example is my wife and I have taken our Harleys to Sturgis 3 times straight thru in one day and that is 1045 miles (best time is 14 hrs 45 min.). So this car would be like a Harley trip I could take my 5 and 12 yr old kids on.
(I think it is a law somewhere if you mention kid or grandkids it must be accompanied by pictures.)

[IMG]http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k2...ope2007647.jpg[/IMG]

PS It looks like i already struck out on one of the cars in my second post. It sold this weekend to Tony Stewart at the Barrett Jackson auction.(knew I did like him for some reason). According to the B-J web site it went out of my price range anyways.


Thanks for the welcomes, looking forward to the day I can post pic of my ride.

Mark Odom

HHHHHHHmmmmmm, from the top pictures it looks like you've been to Lead East :D .


Bill S.

Welcome. I love Mercury's too. I may get one someday. Here is another site to keep an eye on also.

http://www.hotrodsforsale.com/ford/m...cury_index.htm

And another site. Nice lookin kids by the way

http://www.cars-on-line.com/mercury.html

Mark- set back and watch Ebay for a while just to get an idea of what is out there, what prices and conditions are and such.

West Plains sounds like a smaller town so a chopped top won't probably interfere with visibility in traffic cause you got little of that I'd guess. It's up to each person about how and where they drive a hobby car. If you don't have far to work it might do as a daily driver. On the other hand a lot of folks never drive their special car in the rain.

As an example in Ebay there are 9 1950 Mercs. from stock to custom with prices all over the board. http://motors.shop.ebay.com/Cars-Tru...1950Q20mercury