Alan Jackson croons in his 1993 country-hit, "Mercury Blues" that he's "crazy 'bout a Mercury". The song makes reference to a "Mercury Forty-Nine" and we see a 1949 six-passenger "Mercury Eight " six-passenger coupe in the video for the song that's similar to the one James Dean's character, Jim Stark, drove in "Rebel Without a Cause". "Eight" referring to the car's two-hundred fifty-five cubic inch, "flathead" V-8 engine.
Although it goes by in the blink of an eye, about three-quarters of the way through the video we see the '49 with a "JAMES DEAN" license plate on its front end. Very cool.
We see several other Mercury's in the video but with the "b-roll" so dark and with the constant, frantic edits typical of music videos of any genre, not to mention the degraded video quality on youtube, it's all but impossible to pin-point exact model years of the cars.
There is this one good shot of the dashboard of a red, "suicide door" four-door Mercury in the video but it appears to be a customized or after market dash. Safe bet to say, though, it's a 1949-1951 Mercury. While I'm a GM girl first and foremost, with regards to 1949-1951 Merc's, I get what the song-writers and Mr. Jackson were gettin' at when they say, "I'm crazy 'bout a Mercury".
Just as well as today's automobile soliloquy is not about the Mercury's in the video per se but about this 1952 Mercury Custom. It's was for sale at a automobile consignment shop up in Grand Rapids with an ungodly asking price of some $15,000. The listing is gone now which tells me either the owner pulled it from the market or, remarkably, someone bought it.
I mention the song and the video because, well, I love the song and Alan Jackson rocks, but it's safe to say I'm, "not crazy about this Mercury". If I just made the "not crazy" comment without framing it properly beforehand it wouldn't have the obtuse impact I hope it would have.
I don't think that Alan Jackson or the song writers who penned "Mercury Blues" had this "Merc" in mind when they came up with the song. Especially in this color. Well, the writers couldn't have because they wrote the song in 1949 but I hope you get my point. Had the Ford Motor Company rolled this out in 1949 would a song have been written about it? Me thinks not.
Alan's also a "car-guy" and if us "car-guy's" have anything in common it's that most of the time we tend to have similar reactions to particular models. 1949 Mercury's are "James Dean cool" whereas most other Mercury's, save for 1968 and 1969 Cougars, like our '52 here, candidly, were most definitely not cool. Throw in 1969 and 1970 Cougar's as "cool" because I'm feeling generous today. Most post-war Ford's as well lacked the elan that many GM designs had and post-war Chrysler's were even worse. Well, up until 1955 but that's a blog for a different day.
After three very short model years in which Ford's self-baked middle child actually had an identity of its own, for 1952 they began badge-engineering Mercury's as re-bodied Lincoln's. From an operational efficiency stand-point, at least on paper, the move made sense. After all, Lincoln's were marketed as rivals of GM's luxury division, Cadillac, and what better way to amortize the cost of building the feature rich luxury-buyer targeted automobiles than to offer less expensive versions of them. Again, that works on paper.
It would have worked better if the '52's didn't look like warmed over versions of Lincoln models that didn't sell well. If Ford couldn't figure out what to do with Mercury, they really had no idea how to make Lincoln's appealing to Cadillac buyers. 1950's Lincoln's were gross attempts to out-Cadillac Cadillac and were fussy and clumsy looking. Had they instead made the 1949 Mercury's Lincoln's instead would things have been different? The world will never know. "Crazy 'bout a Lincoln" doesn't have the same ring to it either.
Above we see the familial similarity in early 1950's Ford designs and the only one, in my humble opinion, that should and actually does get any respect is the 1951 Mercury Eight. Some say James Dean drove a '51 in "Rebel" but I've deduced it was in fact a '49. And as dorky as the '52 Merc is, the 1950 Ford here makes it look positively beguiling. The Capri here is does look somewhat elegant but it has none of the presence of a 1952 Cadillac.
The axiom of "what's a Mercury" dogged the division from it's get-go as a competitor to GM's mid-priced models going back to 1939. Sometimes they were dressed down Lincoln's and other times they were dressed up Ford's. Again, save for the '49-'51's and, the Cougar;s Ford could never figure out what to do Mercury. That dogma plagued Mercury through its demise after the 2010 model year.
I ain't crazy about this Mercury.
"Mercury Blues" was written by blues musicians K.C. Douglas and Robert Geddins.
Alan Jackson was on the show ‘Home Improvement’ back in 1996 (it’s on youtube, just search “Alan Jackson Home Improvement”) with his black or deep purple 1950 Mercury and he sings that song.
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