A11

Bill Sherk

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Paul Horch of Winnipeg, Manitoba, was born in 1947 and was told that by the age of two, he could tell the make of every car on the road.

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Paul Horch's 1940 Mercury 4-door sedan.

"That's more than I can do with today's cars," he says. He is now the proud owner of a beautifully restored 1940 Mercury 4-door sedan:

"I purchased my 1940 Mercury on November 11, 1968. An easy date to remember! I paid $50 for the car and it was in bad shape. Generations of mice had made their home in it, and the car had sat neglected in the middle of a field.

"I brought it to my sister's place (now my house) and covered it with an old tarp. Over the winter I had the distributor rebuilt. In spring, with the car refusing to start, I removed the engine and decided it needed to be rebuilt. It needed replacing. The block was cracked!

"I found an uncracked engine at Princess Auto Wreckers in Winnipeg. I had it rebuilt, and by the fall of 1969 the car was running. It still looked pretty rough and I can't believe I had the nerve to drive it around the neighbourhood like that. No license or registration or insurance.

"The serial number of my car is 1D2. I contacted the late Herman Smith at Ford of Canada in Oakville and he confirmed that my car was the second Mercury off the Canadian assembly line for 1940.

"It was probably assembled in late 1939 as the remaining original glass is marked October 1939. This probably makes it the oldest running 1940 Canadian Mercury in captivity, unless someone happened to save 1D1.

"By the spring of 1970, my car was licensed and insured and I was driving it around. By then the bumpers had been rechromed for about $16 each. Times sure have changed, haven't they?

"A friend at an auto body shop did the body work and paint. The car had almost no rust, just two little holes on the front edge of the rear fenders. Paint and body work cost $300.

"About four years later, I installed a new set of Denman wide whitewalls. They sure made the car look great. By 1979, I installed a spotlight on the driver's side but I never connected it because back then, you needed a permit to use a spotlight.

"I also had a dual exhaust system installed. That flathead V-8 sure sounds nice.

"Today, my 1940 Mercury cruises easily at legal highway speeds and handles very well. This car has been a part of my life now for 40 years."

* Bill Sherk is an automobile historian who has had a passion for the topic since his days pumping gas as a teenager. We want to say thank you to our readers who send in their stories. We are giving a copy of Bill Sherk's book, 60 Years Behind the Wheel: The Cars We Drove in Canada 1900-1960 to each reader whose story is published in this column. To share your stories or photos e-mail billtsherk@sympatico.ca or write Bill Sherk, 33 Oak St. E., P.O. Box 10012, Leamington, ON N8H 2C3.