Custom 1950 Mercury M47 Is a Pure Rebuild of a Rare Pickup Truck

And we're not talking only about those in the U.S., but people living on the entire North American continent. And at the top of the food chain in this segment is Ford and its F-Series.

The family of pickups has been in production since 1948, and has grown into a beast not easy to match by the competition. But to get here, several recipes have been tried in the early years, some successful and some less so. And somewhere in the middle is the Mercury M series.

Mercury was a Ford brand that has been taken off the market way back in 2011, a victim of the financial crisis of that time and the reconfiguration of the carmaker's priorities towards the Ford and Lincoln brands.

Mercury was founded in 1938, and just eight years later it was thrown into the fight on the pickup segment with the M Series, a line of trucks that was in fact a rebadged version of the F Series and was primarily meant for the Canadian market. The M series didn't stay in production for long, as it was discontinued in 1968, and that's probably why we don't get to see as many of them surviving to this day. But from time to time we do stumble upon one.

One M Series, an M47 half-ton pickup, surfaced on the list of cars that will go under the hammer in October, during the postponed Barrett-Jackson auction in Palm Beach.

Featuring the brand's specific grille, the custom truck officially comes with contrasting paint on the body, and matching two-tone interior. As seen in the gallery above, it stays as close as possible to the original design, as there are no unnecessary adornments and fittings. Under the hood, we're told the truck hides a V8 engine of unspecified power, linked to a 3-speed manual transmission.