1967 Mercury M100

Chuck Most · February 26

When Bill Peters of Deerwood, Manitoba passed away in 2017, his material possessions scattered. For one, his trusty '68 Mercury wrecker ended up with his grandson Hugh Martin of Minnedosa. But there was another Peters family truck that got passed down.

Tucked away among the too-far-gone hulks on Bill's property there was a pretty decent 1967 Mercury M100 short bed pickup that Bill had bought in 1990. The truck had been sold new to a man named Bruce Collins in Watson Lake, Yukon. The Collins family had later relocated to Manitoba and Bill caught word of the green and white truck when it came up on an estate sale. He and his second (and last) wife Abby had owned a similar truck when they'd first gotten married. Bill had always planned to "put another one back in the road". Numerous things, including Bill's deteriorating health and Abby's passing in 1999, led to the '67 seeing only sporadic tinkering over the years. He did get it running and close to drivable.

But "putting another green and white '67 Mercury short box back on the road" was ultimately up to Bill's nephew, Trent Giles of Ironwood, Michigan.

Trent had a Boss 429 he'd gotten for a fire sale price in the late '80's, and it had been in three of Trent's vehicles up to the time he got the M100. Most recently in a '71 Mustang he'd augered into a guard rail at a drag race in Wisconsin.

Trent transplanted the heads and intake onto a modified 460 block, stroked and poked to 501 cubic inches. This much power obviously necessitated a few other changes, like a narrowed Ford 9" axle and a four link rear suspension. Rather than traditional tubs, Trent opted to simply widen the factory wheel wells, hiding the surgery with a little fauxtina to hide it. His aim was to keep the truck looking as close to stock as possible, so aside from the gigantic Mickeys out back, the hole in the hood, and the lower stance, he kept the truck pretty much as he got it.

Eventually it will get a cosmetic restoration in the factory colors, but for now, Trent is having too much fun with Uncle Bill's old project to give that much thought.

The model is mostly a Moebius'67 F100 Service Truck I got from a friend, minus the service box. The bed is from a stalled pro street project I started back when the Model King '69 Custom Cab came out. The engine is a hodge podge of various AMT parts. And it was Mercury-ified with a tailgate and decals from the Moebius '68 M100 that I had left over from Bill's wrecker. I managed to squeeze three Mercury trucks from that one '68 kit (The plastic chrome emblems emblems went on the Plowboy '63.). 🤣