Canadian cars and trucks are the mother-lode of badge engineering. Mercury trucks came about due to a quirk of the Canadian Ford dealership system due to the sparsely populated areas of Canada. Many smaller towns would have either a Ford-Monarch (Mercury in US) or a Lincoln-Mercury-Meteor (Ford) dealership but not both. So starting in 1946 Mercury received its own version of the Ford truck line. So why weren’t they called Meteors? To keep you Americans confused.
The earliest Mercury trucks did differ in the use of chrome. The post war Fords featured a lot painted trim due to a chrome shortage but the Mercury version was lavished with lots of chrome trim. As the years went they became more and more similar to their Ford siblings. For most of the years the difference was just minor trim and badges.
Mercury truck history follows Ford trucks almost identically and while Fords used the ‘F’ prefix the Mercury trucks used ‘M’. From 1948-1950 the Canadian model postfixes were different and represented the maximum gross vehicle weight with the zeroes dropped off. So a 4700 GVW rating would give a model name of F-47 or M-47.
For 1951 the Canadian trucks followed the US naming convention of F-1, F-2, etc and Mercury followed suit with M-1, M-2, etc.
Interestingly there were a few mechanicals differences in the Canadian market due to its smaller market size. It was only V8 engines in post war trucks until 1956 when a 223 cid inline six was offered. Canada kept the flat head V8 for an additional year in 1954 instead of the newly induced in the US OHV V8.
When the US and Canada signed the Automotive Trade Agreement in 1965 Canadian variants slowly started to disappear and the Mercury trucks turn came in 1968.
So how rare is a Mercury truck then? Well for the early trucks, the Fords are most common but by the 50s and mid 60s the Mercury trucks seem to make up just less than half of the remaining examples. The updated 1967 and 1968 examples seem quite scarce but are still around. They are quite easily to fake, though as there is no VIN difference as they were built randomly on the same line as the Fords.
The whole truck range was sold in the Mercury line up so there are Mercury Econolines, heavy duty models, cab over engine models and even school buses.
Note: a rerun of an older post.
NZ got its Ford CKD packs from Canada some of those Mercury pikups snuck in but by the early 50s Mercury as a regular brand was gone and Fords unless from the UK had V8 engines, it was the usual rebadging of the same bodyshell and it was 55 before the valves moved to the cylinder head.
I’m always fascinated by the Canadian variants.
The dashboard pic shows a car vs truck difference, which might have been Canadian or not. The ’51 truck has the anti-theft ignition which was on all Ford products from ’34 to 48. Cars stopped using it in ’49, but it appears that trucks continued for a while? I know it was gone by ’55. The ’55 flatbed I drove for work had the ignition on the dashboard, not the steering column.
There were several of these around in our circle of family and friends when I was a kid. Another badge seen in Canada but not the US was Fargo, which was a Dodge truck rebadged for sale at Plymouth-Chrysler dealers. It lasted into the early ’70s.
Mercury trucks are easy to “fake” with one exception, the tailgate with “Mercury” stamped into it is tough to locate. A buddy of mine searched for a long time when he restored his Dad’s ’67 M-250. He figures the tailgate went astray when his Dad purchased a camper with a long overhang that wasn’t removed from the truck for years afterwards. He did find one eventually, but it wasn’t cheap.
Mercury and Fargo trucks were just part of the landscape back the, but it’s always fun to see one now.
I went back to the original post and was reminded of an amazing phenomenon I’ve only seen at CC.
Most comments on automotive blogs have a shelf life of a few days, but not here at CC. Long after the usual comments die off, the comments section turns into a message board of sorts. Folks probably Google something rare and unusual (such as Mercury Trucks) which lead them to this site, and people start asking for advice and information, or seek parts, or offer entire vehicles for sale.
It’s really neat to see.
Thats interesting about the anti-theft ignition on the steering column. Does it lock the steering??
I always assumed all old domestic cars and trucks had the ignition on the dashboard. Until the late 60s/70s when it moved to the column(safety reasons maybe??)
I love the extra glitz the Mercury branded trucks got .
The locking steering column was designed to be left “unlocked” there was a toggle switch you’d flip to turn on the ignition .
Handy for fleet and farm rigs .
-Nate
That green ’46 looks nicer than the equivalent Ford.
The one that got away…. 1953 Mercury M100 panel truck. Candy apple red, black fenders, Big Block Chevy.
Sitting at a stop light in Calgary when got rather heavily rear-ended while enroute to a new job in Saskatoon. I never saw the truck again. I’ve often wished I still had it.
KS
Mercury pickup trucks received some attention when a 1954 Mercury M-100 was prominently featured in the first three Hallmark Channel series of “Christmas in Evergreen” TV movies.
Hallmark then produced a Christmas ornament of the truck as part of their “Great American Trucks” series in 1918 and a smaller version of the truck as part of their “Lil’ American Trucks” series in 2023.
I saw a Mercury truck today, for maybe the first time. It was a vendor’s truck at a PA German car show. He said it’s a real Mercury, and that he put an Avalanche drivetrain in it, with the front part of the Avalanche frame welded on to give independent suspension. What synchronicity to see this today
“So a 4700 GVW rating would give a model name of F-47 or M-47..”
This makes me wonder if the long time but AFAIK still in production F-53 motor home chassis is one the last holdovers from that naming scheme.
I’ll leave it for someone yo do the research.
Lots of holly green. I like it.