Dennis is proud of his ’39 Merc mild custom, and why shouldn’t he be? It’s one of many that are neatly tucked away in his shop full of cars of varying years, makes, and models, which includes his ’29 Ford highboy roadster that won the coveted America’s Most Beautiful Roadster trophy in 1992.

But let’s touch on the storied life this Merc has lived. Dennis acquired the car in the traditional hot rodder fashion: “I’ll trade you a few of these and a few of those and you give me the car.” And so, Dennis ended up with a ’39 Mercury.

Edsel Ford designed the Mercury back in 1938. In 1939 Ford came out with the Mercury that resided between the everyman’s Ford and the upscale Lincoln. Hot rodders are used to seeing the coupe but Dennis wanted something different, so he went with the two-door sedan to see if he could make it into desirable rodding material.

From here the Merc went through the usual transformation from tired and a bit worn into a beautiful example of what a hot rodder can do with something not on the normal hot rodder’s menu.

Dennis has owned the Merc for some time (20-plus years) but early under its new ownership he had an idea to drive the car to the North Pole. Yes, that North Pole! The drive did occur but it was before the body and paint mods were accomplished. However, the chassis and powertrain were modified before his North Pole expedition. Since you can’t make this stuff up, the next portion of the story is best told in Dennis’ own words:

“I wanted to drive to the North Pole. I needed to ship the car to Amsterdam and then put it on a ferry and go to Germany and drive to Amsterdam, and then put it on another ferry to Oslo, Norway. From here we drove to Bergen, Norway. It was from here that one travels on a singular road that will take you to the North Cape. Once here you can’t go any further by car.

“Off we go on our drive (my wife, Kathy, and another couple with their Alpha), zooming down the road, when all of a sudden I hear this noise and I think to myself, ‘Something must have broken, the fan or something.’ I then run into my new best friend, as it would turn out, at a gas station. We are in the middle of Norway and my new friend dressed in a blue suit begins to talk to us. In the meantime, we leave the ladies sitting by the side of the road having a picnic lunch as we begin to figure things out.

“He asks, ‘You guys from California?’ ‘Yeah.’ He says, ‘I have a Cadillac.’ And I went, ‘Oh, yeah?’ Turns out he’s a school bus driver and he says, ‘We go to California to buy custom cars.’

“A sigh of relief. So, my traveling partner and I tell him we have a problem. I proceed to explain that my Merc has a broken lifter and valve. As it turns out he has a friend, on speed dial no less, who has a shop about 60 miles away. I wired up the valve so it wouldn’t fall down inside and I drove to his friend’s shop. The town he’s located in is where we wanted to leave the cars at anyway because we’re going to get on a plane and fly to a little island on Svalbard archipelago to visit the Global Seed Vault. So I left the car with him.

“I told my buddy that he knew what was broken and he had the parts, so let him have at it. In the three days that we were gone he took off the intake manifold, one cylinder head, and made the repairs and had the car running. And it’s still running to this day and I have not changed a thing.”

We should give a little mechanical history on the ’39 Merc. It is based on a stock frame that Roy Brizio of Roy Brizio Street Rods assembled many years ago. It features a Fatman IFS with 2-inch drop spindles and a Ford 9-inch in back with 3.70 gears. In between the rear and the small-block Chevy is an S-10 five-speed that allows the Merc to cruise on down the highway (no matter what country) at a respectable rpm while floating along. As with any custom worth its low and handsome look, the wide whites come from Coker and the hubcaps are Caddy with Winfield center cones.

Speaking of the small-block, it is a 350 Chevy that Dennis had longtime friend Cub Barnett build. Clearly the eye candy on this SBC is the six-carb intake rescued from a swap meet many years back. It’s now dressed with six Stromberg 97 carbs and snuggled between a pair of vintage Corvette seven-fin valve covers. It should be noted that only the middle two carbs function and the outers are for dress. Look closely and you will see a genuine old-timey hot rod speed part in the Vertex magneto. Dennis obtained the Scintilla S.A. (Switzerland) Vertex from a former Bay Area Club member who has since died. According to Dennis, “It has worked perfectly since the day we put it in until today.”

The body does have some mods that we’ve come to expect with any mild custom, such as a roof chop, shaved trunk handle, some reworking around the door edges, louvered hood (punched by Bob Munroe of Moal Coachbuilders), fender skirts, and reproduction Studebaker taillights that are now mounted horizontally as opposed to the vertical as they would have appeared when stock. On the subject of the rounded door corners, note that they are rounded to follow the flow of the rear quarter windows. This was done when the top went through an extensive chop with 2-1/2 inches cut out of the front and 4-1/2 inches from the rear. Dennis wanted this extreme effort so that the factory “hump” on the roof would disappear, leaving a profile and roofline that is much more appealing. The fender skirts were made from scratch and finish off the styling and clearly give the ’39 Merc a distinctive appearance. To the sheetmetal is a ’60s-era Ford station wagon maroon that underwent a custom mix treatment from the local PPG supplier. The body- and paintwork (basecoat/clearcoat) was aptly handled by Henry Rossi, another local rodder and longtime friend of Dennis’. A nice touch is the ’39 California plate that pays homage to the World’s Fair held that year in New York.

Inside the custom sedan you will see stock front and rear seating but this time covered in a maroon leather by Kirby Kindle Interior; another longtime friend and fellow hot rodder. The steering column and wheel are both ’39 Merc with the wheel undergoing a refurbishing as did the stock instrumentation. Even the starter button is “pressed” to be in service as there are no keys required to operate the Merc. Jump in and switch the mag on and push the button to start. (And, if you don’t follow the starting procedure correctly you can blow out your mufflers, but that’s a story for another time.) Notice the vacuum gauge that’s centered mounted on the dash. It was a $5 swap meet item Dennis purchased at the L.A. Roadsters Swap Meet many years back. He thought it looked cool then and it makes a great accent item now—and it works. You will also notice the liberal use of woodgraining throughout the interior. This too was handled by Rossi and makes for a vivid and stylish interior detail.

There can be no doubt that Dennis gets the most out of driving his hot rods, whether it be across country to a local rod run, a morning doughnut cruise, or even the North Pole. In his mind hot rods were meant to be driven, and we couldn’t agree more.