1951 Mercury 4-door Sport Sedan

"There is no car in its class that will give you such sheer pleasure to own . . . as the mighty, beautiful new 1951 Mercury!"

With their massive grace and elegant proportions, Mercurys of this generation were certainly some of the better cars of the early 50s, although they should become really famous only years later, when used Mercurys got in the hands of Americas youth: 1949 - 1951 Mercurys became their favorite cars for Hot-Rodding.

Since it's creation in 1938, the mission of Ford's Mercury brand was to bridge the price gap between the economic Ford and the expensive Lincoln. During the first years, Mercurys were simply better appointed Fords, running on longer wheelbases and with bigger engines. Initially, even the 1949 Mercury was supposed to become a 1949 Ford. But strategic reconsideration after the nomination of Henry Ford II as the new chairman changed the game: for him, the planned car was too big to compete with Chevrolet. He decided to start from scratch to develop a new model, that eventually would become the acclaimed 1949 Ford.

Ford's original design was eventually brought into production as Mercury, and Lincoln alike. Both brands shared the same body on different wheelbases, the difference starting ahead of the windscreen, because the Lincoln needed more room to fit the bigger engines. In its three-year lifecycle, the 1949 Mercury got a slightly altered front ornamentation and a bigger rear window in 1951, but the basic body remained unchanged until the new generation arrived in 1952.