Customizing by definition means taking something and making it different or unique and improved, and Terry Hegman's '51 Mercury is the recipient of all that and a whole lot more. Terry's ride is also a lesson in patience and proof that such greatness cannot happen overnight, or even over a couple years. Terry's own story goes back to the '50s when he was a kid and saw his first customized Mercury cruising down his block. It was an experience that forever hooked him on customs. He would sneak his pocketsize rod magazines into elementary school classes and dream of the day when he could have a custom of his own. As the tastes and styles of the early '60s changed, Terry stayed true to his custom car yearnings and was eventually cruising in his own mild custom '50 Merc. He also tried slicing a top on another Merc, but found the task to be too advanced for his skills at the time-a situation that would be much different later in his life.
As the 1960s drifted into the '70s, Terry became more involved with his work as a custom painter of psychedelic vans and wild street machines, among other things. At the same time, he honed his skills at massaging metal and eventually made a shift from life on the East Coast to the West Coast and hung up his paint gun to become one of the most talented metalmen in the country.
At the end of the 1990s, Terry faced the new millennium with a very strong desire to build a Mercury that would use a majority of his favorite custom tricks he had so long envisioned. Step one was locating a car. Being on the West Coast, it didn't take long before an absolutely rust-free, never-cut '51 Mercury was sitting in his driveway. Terry got the project started by changing the front fender lips and yanking all the springs and setting the suspension up with wood blocks to achieve the desired ride height. This gave him just enough inspiration to take the big leap of slicing the top, which happened late one night after working on customer projects. When Terry stepped in the shop the next morning, he instantly knew he had a problem-the top was not cut enough. That night he chopped it again "until it looked right," which translates to approximately 3 inches in the front and 4 inches in the rear.
For the next seven years, Terry was making constant progress on the '51, refining and customizing bits and pieces to achieve his vision. "I always had something on the bench," Terry says of the work on the Merc. That time was spent on details some may never even notice, like the N.O.S. side trim he made better than factory by removing the slightest imperfections and redoing the sloppy factory folded ends with new ends meticulously welded in place and then smoothed to perfection. On deciding what should and should not go on the car, Terry says, "It's just stuff I liked, and I've always believed less is more." A partial list of additional work that could only be spotted by the most knowledgeable includes reworked and modified bumper guards and massaged inner window frames that were chrome-plated once they passed Terry's inspection.
The time finally came when Terry had massaged every inch of the Merc and sent the pieces off to be painted or chrome-plated. Doug Jerger at Squeege's in Arizona handled the rich blue metallic paint while Christensen's Plating worked on the shiny stuff. As the pieces went back together, Terry's life-long dream was being realized. The whole thing came together when friend Tom Sewell in Cambria, California, stitched up the crme and blue interior in the classic style used in the early days by the Carson Top Shop.
You might think the story ends when Terry carefully cradles the car from show to show on a quest for trophies to applaud his fine workmanship, but actually nothing could be further from the truth. "I built this car to drive it," Terry says, and so far he has put over 3,000 miles on the clock. When asked how long it took to work the bugs out, Terry says he's still working on them. Hard to imagine this car ever had any bugs, but that's all part of being custom.