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1953 Mercury
Fairmont, GA

Fred Bowling and his wife Brenda are from Fairmont Georgia where Fred was born and raised and still resides there.

The car is a 1953 Mercury Monterey two door hardtop. You don’t find many ’53 Mercurys on the street rodding scene. When Fred purchased this car in 2000 from a friend he had an idea of what he wanted to do to it. He has built several other cars, but not one like this. It took him nine months to complete the project and his first show was the Good Neighbors car show in Blairsville, GA in October.

The engine is a 351 c.i. Windsor out of a ’71 Ford LTD. Fred rebuilt the engine which included a high lift hydraulic cam, ported and polished heads and topping it off with an Edelbroch aluminum intake with an Edelbrock 350 cfm 4-barrell carburetor. He used Lincoln factory exhaust headers off of an ’89 Lincoln Mark 7 and exits through a custom made dual exhaust system. The 225 horsepower is put to the road through a Ford AOD 3-speed automatic transmission with overdrive. The rear end was replaced with one from an S-10 Chevy pickup with 3:08 gears. Fred used the S-10 rear end to give him more room to put larger P235X70R15 tires on the rear with heavy duty drum brakes. The front suspension was converted to the S-10 Chevy which allowed the use of disc brakes up front allowing for P235X70R15 tires and Cragar chrome wheels all the way around.

The dash was kept stock with all the gauges, knobs and levers. The relays and sensors were changed to work with the newer equipment. The steering column was changed to a Mustang tilt with a GT steering wheel. Fred had his friend, Spencer Padgett of Calhoun, GA stitch up the black leather upholstery, but Fred did the actual recovering of the ’64 Ford bucket seats in the front and the standard bench seat in the rear, along with the headliner. As a matter of fact, Fred, who is a machinist, did all the work on the car except the stitching of the seats. He also made a custom console where he installed a new sound system with a cd player and extra speakers.

Fred and his wife Brenda enjoy the cruise-ins and car shows they attend and won a trophy this past weekend at a show in Fairmont. Fred has built several cars in the past 13 years and is now in the process of another project car.