Exploring the Hirohata Mercury, One of History's Most Famous Custom Cars
Masato “Bob” Hirohata was a kid in California in the Forties, one of more than 120,000 Japanese-Americans imprisoned in U.S. camps during World War II. He died in 1981. But his name lives on with one of the most influential custom cars in American hot-rod history: the Hirohata Mercury.
This story originally appeared in Volume 3 of Road & Track.
In 1952, after a stint in the U.S. Navy, Hirohata took a ’51 Mercury Club Coupe and a blank check to Barris Kustoms. The Barris brothers massaged and smoothed every panel, chopping the top 4 inches in front, 7 in the back, completely altering the car’s silhouette. They reshaped the body sides and elongated the fenders. The headlights were Ford, the taillights were Lincoln, the chrome trim was Buick. Chevrolet teeth sparkled in the fender vents.
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The Hirohata Merc shocked the world at Motorama in 1952. It made Mercury’s sensible family car into the custom canvas of choice. (Hence, James Dean’s ’49 in Rebel Without a Cause.) Shops have spent decades trying to recreate the Hirohata’s graceful roofline alone. Most never got close.
The limelight was short. The Merc was repainted, sold, crashed, neglected. A teenager bought it in 1959 for $500. That kid, Jim McNiel, kept the car his whole life. His painstaking restoration took seven years, recreating what the Barris brothers completed in less than 40 days.
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