(Updated 1/5/2026) Austin, Texas is famous for many things, including its murals, and “Greetings From Austin” on South 1st Street has to be the most well known, selfied, and Instagrammed mural of them all. This landmark street art has since 1998 graced the outside of Roadhouse Relics, a studio and gallery devoted to vintage-style neon signs that evoke mid-century Americana. My visit to this Austin landmark was surprisingly devoid of smartphone-wielding millennials and surprisingly featured a mid-century American curbside classic: a hot-rodded 1951 Mercury Eight.
The 1949-51 Mercury Eight, the third generation of the sole model of Ford’s middle division since 1939, began as part of Ford’s all-new 1949 lineup of postwar designs. All had modern pontoon fender styling, and Lincoln and Mercury shared bodies that featured sedans with suicide doors. The Eight derived its name and power from Ford’s flathead V8, its displacement increased from 239 to 255 cubic inches by a longer stroke for the upscale Mercury. The 1949-51 Mercury has not been featured yet here on Curbside Classic 70 years later, but in its time it received plenty of attention. The 1949-51 Mercury soon became hot rod royalty, then Hollywood royalty.
Mercury Eight coupes of this generation served as the basis for many of the original custom “lead sleds” that shaped hot rodding in the 1950s. They included the Hirohata Merc that Sam and George Barris created in 1953 from a 1951 Mercury coupe. Shown here with Sam Barris, the Hirohata Merc had a lowered top, stretched front and rear fenders with frenched lights, and many other custom details including a dashboard pinstriped by Von Dutch. The Hirohata Merc is the most famous custom car of all time according to numerous magazine articles, and I have no reason to say that they are wrong.
The 1949-51 Mercury Eight then attained cinematic immortality in 1955 as James Dean’s car in Rebel Without a Cause. The film, released shortly after Dean’s death in an auto accident in his Porsche 550 Spyder, made him a worldwide icon of teenage angst and his character’s 1949 Mercury coupe one of the legendary movie cars of the 1950s. As long as James Dean and 1950s Hollywood films are remembered, the 1949-51 Mercury Eight will live on, even after the last one has ceased to exist.
Image from Amazon
Rebel Without a Cause actually showed James Dean driving multiple Mercurys of different years, as Paul pointed out to me during the drafting to this article. The producers had a 1949 Mercury as the featured car but also showed James Dean driving a 1946-48 Mercury, in a typical period Hollywood continuity error. “James Dean and his Mercury ’49” would nevertheless go down in history, as Bruce Springsteen sang in “Cadillac Ranch” a generation later.
A combination of car and setting this good usually happens for a reason, and some internet sleuthing several days later found that the reason was that this custom 1951 Mercury Eight sedan belongs to the owner of Roadhouse Relics, neon artist Todd Sanders. The creator of 1950s-style neon and a famous symbol of Austin driving a relative of some of the most renowned hot rods of the 1950s seems highly appropriate to me. Being in a hurry with limited time in Austin, I did not walk into Roadhouse Relics to ask about the car, and I wish that I had so that I could have learned more about it. A sedan rather than a coupe as the basis for a custom hot rod departs from the norms of the 1950s, but the 1949-51 Mercury sedan’s suicide doors make it an inspired choice, and it would be interesting to learn more about how the owner selected it.
Who built this car is a question that does not need to be asked, because the same internet sleuthing found that its builder was Mercury Charlie, an Austin-based car customizer who clearly has a special affinity for Mercury and for the 1949-51 Mercury Eight in particular. His biography proudly describes his own 1951 Mercury, a 1951 built for TV star motorcycle and car customizer Jesse James, a 1950 built for guitarist Charlie Sexton, and the 1951 profiled here. This car’s immaculate stock-looking interior with a custom Mercury head floor shifter sends me a subtle but strong message that this car presents a tempting combination of originality, old school hot rodding, and perhaps some new performance additions.
Originality prevails on the car’s exterior, with clean but slightly rough black paint all around and some impressive patina on the rear. This Mercury’s appearance suggests a well-used but well-maintained old car, parked for many years in a south-facing carport with the Texas sun beating down on the trunk.
What lives beneath the hood and behind that magnificent “MERCURY 8” fender spear/badge is anyone’s guess but is likely to be quite healthy. I would like to think that this Mercury’s original flathead V8 hot-rodded with multiple carburetors provides the horsepower, transmitted through a classic 4-speed or modern 5-speed hooked to that Mercury head floor shifter. The suspension may use airbags or hydraulics to lift it when necessary, since the car’s low stance looks great but may risk undercarriage damage on hilly streets, of which Austin has many, being in the Texas Hill Country. Whatever is in there, I expect that it would provide a driving experience comparable to that of Paul’s Ultimate Curbside Classic 1950 Cadillac Series 61 coupe.
Like a well-aged vintage wine from a distinctive terroir, this 1949-51 Mercury Eight represents 1950s hot rodding and the city of Austin well, and I hope that many others recognize its qualities when they see it while sending their own Greetings From Austin.
While I’m not really a fan of low riders, lead sleads or SLABs, this one speaks to me. I really like the way this car has been done.
Now I need to go find my copy of the Steve Miller Band’s “Mercury Blues” (my favorite version of the song).
The 49-51 Mercury (and its Lincoln sibling) may be the most successful job from the “upside down bathtub” school of auto design that predominated right after the war. They managed to make a car that looked substantial but not as ponderous as the “full bathtub” designs from Packard, Hudson and Nash.
These have become really rare as stock cars. I got a ride around the block in high school from a friend of a friend whose father owned one that had gotten the hot rod treatment years earlier. And one night I rode along as my mother dropped a friend off at her house, and listened to her apologize for the 51 Mercury that her son had bought and dragged home to work on (in probably the early 70s). It was a black 4 door that was kind of rough, but there was something really appealing about it. The 51 with those tombstone taillights in the stretched rear quarters looks the best of the series to me.
Agreed. The key to that “bathtub” look was to break it up just enough to not have a genuine bathtub look. An unbroken slab pontoon side without any visual breaks or interest gets boring very quickly, as Kaiser-Frazer, Packard, Nash and the ’49-’51 Ford quickly found out. The Mercury was an excellent semi-bathtub-mobile.
My favorite uncle, my father’s younger brother, had a 1951 Mercury way back when. I was only five or six years old then but was already a certified “car guy”; I don’t actually remember that much about the Merc other than it seemed faster (and cooler) than the six cylinder Plymouth that was our family car. I learned years later that this particular Mercury was a huge pain in the nether regions and it was traded in on a 1955 Olds Super 88 as soon as my uncle could arrange it. Apparently the Merc was prone to overheating (imagine that, a Ford flathead running hot) and the brakes could charitably be described as “lacking”. It sure looked good though, these Mercurys have one of the iconic body shapes of the fifties.
Also live in Austin….though I’ve not seen this car I’ve seen a Maroon colored one on FM620 in NW Austin….Didn’t know about Mercury Charlie, but could be one he did.
I moved into my house in 1986, and used to ride my bicycle on north Lamar (shudder about doing that nowdays) and used to pass the Skyliner club…didn’t really know what it was until later…turns out it was the last place Hank Williams played before his death in the early 50’s…his widow married Johnny Horton, and similarly Horton died in a traffic accident in Milam county (NE of Austin) in 1960. Like a lot of “old” Austin the club was torn down a long time ago and now the site is around where a CVS Pharmacy and Oracle Server Farm are located…guess this is part of the price to accommodate the large influx of people moving here. I’ve had to get updates from an ex-co-worker on how to get into the parking lot of the place I used to go to work every day, as the access seems to change regularly in the month or two between when I go there to pick him up when we go out to lunch…the old main entrance to the building is now inaccessible (there’s another multi-story building the built where the road used to be…and construction of other buildings nearby makes it a continuous construction zone).
Its incredible that you actually state that the Sam Barris/Mercury pic is of the famous 1951 Hirohata Merc. Its not even close to the Hirohata in style and mods. Its not even a 1951 model. The car pictured was Sam Barris` personal 1949 Mercury custom/daily driver and one of the very first 49-51 Mercury ever chopped. Heck. Even the picture name says “Sam Barris 1949 Mercury” 🙂
Correct although Barris did build the Hirohata Merc that is Sam’s personal car. Sam Barris was the first to “fade” the front fenders into the front door.
Those are Cadillac hubcaps with bullet centers. You either did that or Cadillac sombrero’s which Sam has.
First time as a kid when I saw a suicide door early Merc like that I thought it was home made. My 7 year old car crazy brain thought the Kennedy Lincolns were the first postwar car with suicide doors.
About all I know about this generation of Mercury is what I saw in Rebel Without a Cause, and what I learned from building an AMT plastic model in 1963, when I was 6 years old. But I think this old comment is correct. A quick Google search shows the Hirohato5 Mercury looking quite different. Though of course it could have evolved over the years.
Nice to see folks still supporting these old lead sleds .
Not my cuppa tea but American icons none the less .
-Nate
The Hirohata Merc is best known for the “hardtop” conversion of the upper window frames. Custom made channels replaced the original top portion of the door. It was equipped with an OHV Cadillac engine and the tail lamps were from an early ’50’s Lincoln. It became famous from the article. “Cross country in a Kustom” that detailed the owner’s trip to the Indianapolis 500 race after the car was completed.
The car was in left in storage for many years by the next owner who bought it off a used car lot and drove it to high school. It sat in his garage for twenty years or so afterwards. Rod and Custom magazine tracked down the car in the ’90’s, and together with the owner, it was restored to it’s original appearance. From what I’ve seen on the web, it has passed through a couple of new owners.
Looks like a ’51 Mercury with a ’49 or ’50 grille and bumpers. My first car at age 15 was a ’51 Merc that I use as a lot car. Black 4 door with 3 speed-looked like this one (except for the changed grille)
That mural, “Hi, How Are You?”, and “I Love You So Much” are 3 of the most famous, though I’m not sure Hi… is still standing. I lived in Austin from 2006-19, and saw lots of older american iron while i rolled around in my 78 Triumph Spitfire. Now I’m in Colorado Springs and there are a shockingly high number of older cars just parked on the streets, especially in Old Colorado City.
I remember the Rod & Custom series on the resto of the Hirohata Merc, the original ‘engineering’ on the bits you couldn’t see was somewhat agricultural.