This image is a leftover from my Weekend Car Washing post from a couple of weeks ago. Technically, the Mercury is fording this creek; but is it also getting a bit of a wash?
Wordless Vintage Snapshot: 1956 Mercury – Fording A Creek?
– Posted on October 1, 2023
Nice ;
I rememer using a spillway just like this to do washes when I lived in the middle of nowhere .
-Nate
This was a chapter in time. A game warden would skin you alive for this today.
The old Pratt National Park in Oklahoma had these crossings.
They’re everywhere in rural areas than have seasonal streams .
-Nate
Spillways and fords were fun.
Lake Ponca formerly had a spillway next to its little dam, which was a real roller-coaster ride. The road around the lake went on top of the dam, then dropped abruptly with a 45 degree concrete slab to the spillway, then across the spillway dodging water-control bollards, then 45 degrees up to the rest of the road. The road was designed for 1930s cars with high clearance and no overhang. Modern American cars would get stuck on the angles, but my VW was fine.
The Mercury Medalist price leader. No lightning bolt trim. Fake intake duct and straight chrome strip on rear quarter.
I noticed this – this was one strippo Mercury, with not one millimeter of chrome on that front door.
They’re not fording a creek. That’s a low-water crossing and they’re washing their car. Yes, I’ve seen that done by folks who live or have property in the country back in the ‘60’s and early ‘70’s.
I remember as a kid visiting my grandparents cabin on lake Wabaunsee in Kansas. Often times we would drive over the partially flooded road that doubled as a spillway. If the water level was too high we had to turn around and take the loop road the other way and triple our time. Pretty sure Grandpa was driving a 73 Ford LTD at the time.
A Mercury can ford, but a Ford can’t mercury.