Vehicle Description
1947 Mercury Club Convertible. Leather upholstery was standard in
this series 79M Mercury convertible. The car line was begun in 1939
so was relatively young when this model was produced as a middle of
the line between Ford and Lincoln. This was purchased for the
Hemken Collection in 1971 from a fellow collector in North Dakota
and is in good running condition. Interior and exterior are factory
original and the hydraulic top has been replaced. The power plant
is Ford's legendary 239ci flathead V-8, producing a dependable 100
horsepower. This great convertible is in good running condition.
The Mercury was Edsel Ford's penultimate automotive hurrah. Edsel,
only son of Henry Ford, had joined his father's company at age 21,
first as secretary, then president four years later. In fact, Henry
Ford never yielded control. The younger Ford was delegated projects
in which his father had no interest, like beautifying the prestige
marque Lincoln that Ford acquired in 1922 and shepherding the
radical Lincoln-Zephyr into production for 1936. Edsel hired Ford's
first stylist, E.T. "Bob" Gregorie in 1929 and the two men oversaw
all of the company's aesthetic triumphs of the 1930s, the Zephyr,
its lesser sibling the 1937 Ford and the Zephyr's derivative
Lincoln Continental. Among these was the Mercury. Conceived as a
gap-filler between Ford and the Lincoln-Zephyr, the Mercury was
initially considered as a prestige Ford model, not a marque in its
own right. But by the time of its introduction in October 1938, it
had become Mercury, Ford's big brother, bearing a family
resemblance but with gentle styling cues from Gregorie that set it
apart.
