Genevieve – Our 1951 Mercury Sport Coupe

By Ken Bounds

On March 17, 1951, my family in Northeast Missouri was celebrating my sister’s 4^th birthday.  Four days earlier at the St. Louis assembly plant in Hazelwood, Missouri, a Kerry Blue 1951 Mercury Sport Coupe rolled off the assembly line.  It was purchased by a lady in St. Louis; she sold it at an unknown date to a man named Floyd Griebel, Jr.

By the early winter of 2012, Earl & Gene Heintz had owned that same Mercury for over 35 years since purchasing it from second-owner Floyd in 1977.  They enjoyed driving it to many meets and club events and often drove it to the Lake Geneva Classic Car Rally.  Earl wrote a nice article about the Mercury which appeared in the January 2008 Road Chatter – be sure to take a look at the article, which is available on our website, www.nirgv8.org. 

Having admired the Mercury for many years, I was surprised and thrilled when Earl called and asked me if I was interested in buying it.  When I told him that I was very interested and ready to come and see it, Earl said that I would have to wait until spring.  He said he would not sell the car to me until I was able to test drive it and be happy with it.  The weather had turned bad and the car was not leaving the garage!

Eventually, spring arrived.  On April 13, 2013, exactly 62 years and one month after the car was built, Carolyn and I each took a short test drive in the Mercury and fell in love with it; we bought the car on the spot and drove it home.  Earl and Gene always called the Mercury their “anniversary car” because they were married in 1951.  We named her “Genevieve,” a tribute to Gene.

After putting a few hundred miles on the Mercury locally, it was time for its first road trip.  Carolyn drove Genevieve about 1,000 miles round trip to the Spring Fling in Lees Summit, Missouri, on Memorial Day weekend.  The car performed flawlessly and Carolyn had a great time driving it.  Since that first trip, the Mercury has been one of our favorite road cars.  We have driven it to dozens of regional group events, three more Spring Flings, a National Driving Tour, and seven National Meets.

Soon after we bought the car, I went to work making minor corrections and improvements to get it ready for Concourse judging.  We had already committed to driving the 1950 Convertible to the 2013 Grand National Meet in Lake Tahoe, so the next available meet was the 2014 Eastern National Meet in Gettysburg.  After a warmup trip to the Spring Fling in Council Bluffs, Iowa, we prepared Genevieve for the meet.  The Mercury made the 680-mile trip to Gettysburg with ease.  When Concourse day arrived on June 25, there were still those butterflies in your stomach as the judges descend on your car.  Judging seemed to go very well and we were both relieved and thrilled when National President Steve Lemmons presented us a Dearborn Award for Genevieve.

The next opportunity for judging was at our own Central National Meet in Springfield that August.  Genevieve again breezed through the judging and was awarded a Dearborn Medallion.  We also received a special delivery for the Mercury at the meet.  Our friend Dick Fell delivered an overdrive transmission he hauled from Colorado that we purchased from Bernie Sawin.  More on that later.  Genevieve even did service as a “loaner car” for National President Steve Lemmons at the meet.

Thirteen months after receiving the Dearborn award in Gettysburg, we were off on a 1,000-mile quest to pursue our second Dearborn Medallion at the 2015 Central National Meet.  Little did we know that this would be the “meet that never was” in Brainerd, Minnesota.  During the welcome party on the very first day of the meet, a terrible storm wreaked havoc on the meet hotel property and surrounding area.  Thousands of downed trees took the power lines with them.  A number of Early V-8’s were severely damaged; some were destroyed.  Genevieve received damage both from branches and power lines.  The next day most of our members spent hours assisting in freeing trapped cars and clearing the roads before heading home.

We finally did receive the second Dearborn Medallion the following year at the 2016 Central National Meet in Tulsa.  With that award, Genevieve graduated into the Emeritus Division.   She has since received Dearborn Emeritus Medallions at the 2017 Eastern National Meet in Chantilly, Virginia, the 2018 Grand National Meet in Dearborn, and the 2019 Central National Meet in Auburn.  Her plaque is full!  We have now driven Genevieve over 6,600 miles just to national meets.

I mentioned earlier that Genevieve is one of our favorite road cars.  We own two 1950 Fords and enjoy their drivability.  But the Mercury is something else!  The 1951 Mercury drives almost like a modern car.  It is longer, wider, heavier, and more powerful than the Fords with improved steering and braking to match.   And what a great upgrade that overdrive has been!  The 1949-1951 Mercurys had a standard rear axle ratio of 3.90:1 and an optional ratio of 4:27:1 for overdrive-equipped cars.  Interestingly, there was a “plains” option of the standard axle in overdrive cars.  The Borg Warner overdrive has several nice features, but the most obvious is the approximately 30% reduction in engine speed when engaged.

We installed the overdrive in June 2015, keeping the 3.90:1 axle, and the improvement was immediately obvious. The reduction in RPM’s on the road makes for a smoother, quieter ride.  But the big improvement is M.P.G.  We have consistently seen an increase of 4-5 miles per gallon.  We can now easily drive over 300 miles on a tank of gas.

With the COVID-19 pandemic, Genevieve spent over a year in storage.  But with an end to virus in sight, we are anxious to resume driving this great car to many more events and road trips.