The 1951 Mercury Eight Convertible is a testament post-WWII automobile design in the United States, it was the first new car from Mercury after the war and it was a huge sales success right across the country.
The 1949-1951 model year Mercury Eights became famous amongst car customisers of the day, usually the roofs were chopped, suspension lowered, engines tweaked and bodies modified. The body-filler used at the time was lead and so as a result of this these post-WWII customs became known as “lead sleds”, in fact the first ever lead sled was built by Sam Barris and was based on a 1949 Mercury Eight.
The 255 cubic inch (4.2 L) Flathead V8 fitted to the Mercury Eight went on to become an exceedingly popular powerplant, it’s widely regarded as one of the most iconic American engines ever made and interestingly, it was the last engine that saw Henry Ford working directly with the engineering team on the unit’s design.
This Mercury is the 2-door convertible model, it underwent a $70,000 restoration in 2007 and has been driven very little since then. The estimated sale price is between $60,000 and $80,000 USD and she’ll be rolling onto the auction block on the 23rd of February 2013 at the Boca Raton Concours d’Elegance with Bonhams.
Click here to view the official auction listing.
Photographs courtesy of Bonhams
Articles that Ben has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
