Lucille: Reinventing A ’51 Mercury Custom

There are certain cars a custom builder approaches with a little more respect than others. A 1951 Mercury is one of them.

The long hood, heavy fenders and sweeping roofline have made the ’49–51 Mercury one of the foundations of American custom-car culture. Chop the top too much and the proportions disappear. Change too little and you haven’t really moved the needle. The trick is making dozens of modifications while leaving people wondering exactly what you changed.

That is where Lucille gets interesting.

Owned by Gary Stell Jr., this 1951 Mercury began with an inspiration that went all the way back to Hollywood. Gary had always remembered the sinister chopped 1950 Mercury driven by Sylvester Stallone in the 1986 movie Cobra. Years later, that memory became the starting point for his own interpretation of a full-custom Mercury, working with Ron Cambra and the crew at Cambra Speed Shop.

But this wasn’t a matter of simply copying a movie car. It was about building the Mercury Gary had imagined all those years ago.

Getting the Chop Right

Lucille already had history before arriving at Cambra Speed Shop. The roof had originally been chopped at legendary customizer Dick Dean’s shop, but the project eventually stalled and sat unfinished for years. When it came to Cambra, the crew didn’t simply pick up where someone else had stopped.

They re-chopped it.

That decision says a lot about the build. Getting a Mercury roofline right isn’t just about making it lower. The windshield, side glass, rear window, B-pillars, driprails and quarter windows all have to flow together. Cambra reshaped the chop, tilted the B-pillars and fabricated new driprails. Even more impressive, the rear quarter windows were engineered to remain functional and pivot open rather than becoming permanently fixed pieces of glass.

The windshield required another unconventional solution. A completely custom windshield frame was engineered by EVOD and 3-D printed by Cambra Speed Shop to make the new roofline work properly.

That’s the kind of customization Lucille is full of. Some modifications hit you immediately. Others don’t reveal themselves until you start studying the car.

Long, Low and Clean

Rick Kersh and the Cambra crew continued that thinking throughout the body.

The headlights were Frenched, the hood was smoothed, the door handles disappeared and the trunklid was modified. Rick also fabricated the rear wheeltubs and developed the custom bumper treatment, incorporating 1952 DeSoto grille teeth into a recessed, floating grille without the heavy surrounding trim normally associated with the arrangement.

Then came the color.

Lucille is finished in a custom three-stage PPG Lucille Gold, with the Cambra team and Hitoshi handling the body and paintwork. The finish consists of a basecoat, the custom gold color and clear, giving the large Mercury body a tremendous amount of depth without overpowering its shape.

One-off 18-inch EVOD billet wheels carry Mercury’s familiar godhead emblem in their centers and are wrapped in BFGoodrich wide-whitewall tires from Coker. They look traditional enough to belong on a classic Merc, but the size and construction hint that there is considerably more technology underneath.

And there is.

A Traditional Custom With Modern Bones

Under Lucille’s beautifully sculpted sheetmetal is a custom chassis modified at Cambra Speed Shop, providing the foundation for a thoroughly modern driving experience while maintaining the Mercury’s unmistakable classic profile.

Modern suspension components, power rack-and-pinion steering, AccuAir auto-leveling suspension, a Ford 9-inch rearend and Wilwood four-wheel disc brakes with 14-inch drilled-and-slotted rotors turn Lucille into something intended to do more than sit under show lights. Cambra also fabricated the pedal assembly and a 20-gallon stainless steel fuel tank, relocating the filler inside the trunk.

The flathead Mercury V-8 is long gone.

In its place is a Gen 3 Ford Coyote 5.0-liter V-8, rated at 460 horsepower and 420 lb-ft of torque. Cambra fabricated a custom intake manifold and valve covers, along with 1-7/8-inch stainless headers feeding a 2-inch stainless exhaust system and Borla mufflers. A Ford AOD automatic with a Hughes converter sends the power rearward.

It’s a fitting combination. Lucille may look like the kind of Mercury that should be cruising a boulevard in 1955, but underneath it has the power, braking, steering and suspension expected from a serious contemporary build.

Inside Lucille

That same philosophy carries into the cabin.

Cambra fabricated a custom dashboard and dash insert filled with Classic Instruments gauges, including a speedometer carrying Lucille’s name. An EVOD steering wheel with the Mercury emblem tops a LimeWorks column, while Vintage Air provides modern climate control. Cambra technician David Preciado handled the wiring that brings the electrical systems together.

Rather than starting with generic aftermarket seats, the interior uses power seating from a 1965 Ford Thunderbird—including front buckets and a rear bench—along with a modified Thunderbird center console fitted specifically to the Mercury.

Mark Lopez of Elegance Auto Interiors covered the cabin in Madrid Pearl White leather, contrasted by butterscotch wool carpeting and custom stainless interior trim.

Again, nothing feels like it was installed simply because it fit. It was made to belong.

When the Details Add Up

Lucille made its debut at the 2024 Grand National Roadster Show, where it earned Best Full Custom. It followed that with one of the most meaningful awards a chopped Mercury could receive: the Sam Barris Memorial Award at the 2024 Sacramento Autorama, selected by the Barris family and honoring excellence in metalwork, panel alignment and paint.

Since then, Lucille has earned coverage in Modern Rodding, Blacktop Magazine and Car Buff Network, putting Gary’s Mercury in front of custom-car enthusiasts well beyond Southern California.

And the recognition continues. Cambra Speed Shop has accepted an invitation to showcase Lucille in the Meguiar’s booth at the 2026 SEMA Show in Las Vegas, placing this remarkable Mercury on one of the automotive industry’s biggest stages.

But the photographs and trophies only tell part of the story.

Walk around Lucille slowly and the build starts revealing itself: the angle of the pillars, the quarter windows that actually open, the disappearing trim, the floating grille, the custom glass, the hand-built components and the thousands of decisions necessary to make everything look like it was supposed to be there.

That’s one of the hardest things to accomplish in a full custom.

Make an incredible amount of work look effortless.

Lucille does exactly that.