[caption id="attachment_881" align="alignleft" width="295" caption="Bill Papke with a hard to find Mercury Hood Ornament"][/caption] NO MERCURY BLUES WITH PAPKE If you’ve been feelin’ the Mercury…{"id":880,"date":"2012-02-16T14:31:51","date_gmt":"2012-02-16T22:31:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.pomonaswapmeet.com\/?p=880"},"modified":"2012-03-29T11:00:58","modified_gmt":"2012-03-29T18:00:58","slug":"bill-pake-and-papke-enterprises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/2012\/02\/16\/bill-pake-and-papke-enterprises\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Papke and Papke Enterprises"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Bill Papke with a hard to find Mercury Hood Ornament<\/p><\/div>\n

NO MERCURY BLUES WITH PAPKE<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve been feelin\u2019 the Mercury Blues, perhaps you might want to pay a visit to the next Pomona Swap Meet and visit Road 22, Spaces 25, 27, 29, 31, 33 & 35 where you\u2019ll find Bill Papke. There you\u2019ll find a man who was enthralled with the \u201949 Mercury since he saw it new in the show room and he has established himself as one of the preeminent sources of parts for \u201949-\u201951 Ford and Mercury automobiles in the country.<\/p>\n

You might have heard of Bill Papke, owner of Papke Enterprises and a rep for West Coast Customs, or maybe happened by his Swap Space in Pomona during this past quarter of a century. But sure thing, if you\u2019re restoring a Merc or a Ford from the era he covers, you\u2019ve probably got parts on your car that came from his shop.<\/p>\n

Papke Enterprises specializes in helping people who want to restore these iconic automobiles or turn them into their own creation. \u201cI\u2019m one of the biggest parts carries in Southern California,\u201d noted Papke of his inventory, \u201cEvery car show we go to somebody knows me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The people who know him are both the ones whom you run into at your neighborhood car show as well as those you might watch on your neighborhood movie screen. Papke\u2019s helped people like Johnny Agostino, Clint Eastwood and Sylvester Stallone with their cars. As mentioned, Bill Papke has had an eye for these vehicles since he saw them new in the showroom. \u201cI grew up with these cars and knew they\u2019d be hot even into the future.\u201d He was right!<\/p>\n

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Bill's table of Ford & Mercury Parts<\/p><\/div>\n

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With his expertise in Ford & Mercury, Bill get's many questions throught the day.<\/p><\/div>\n

But it was the movie American Graffiti that really lit a fire under collectors for these cars. “Before American Graffiti, I was going through 15-20 Mercurys a year. I\u2019d buy \u2018em and fix \u2018em up and sell \u2018em.\u201d However, after the movie, he saw people come from Europe and Japan and literally buy container loads of cars and ship them back to their home countries. Now it\u2019s more difficult to find parts or donor vehicles.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t had a parts car in 3-4 years,\u201d says Papke. But that doesn\u2019t mean he can\u2019t still find what people are looking for. Or, sometimes, he has the parts made. \u201cI had parts re-manufactured in New Zealand like the center piece of a hubcap.\u201d He also had a lot of other parts that he designed and had manufactured of his own design. \u201cI\u2019m always looking to have someone make stuff for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

As with all auto aficionados, the road that brought Papke to today is certainly an interesting journey. After serving time in the Marine Corps, Bill Papke returned to the States where he took his experience and used it to be a field engineer representing pre-cast concrete products. But, life taught him not to put all his eggs in one basket, so he also ran a filling station at night. \u201cMy wife would bring me dinner at the gas station that I\u2019d manage at night,\u201d he recalls of those days.<\/p>\n

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Lights, Chrome, Intake and much much more!<\/p><\/div>\n

Today things are much different. Papke has seen a lot of interesting cars come and go. Among the cars to his credit are a 1950 Mercury limousine and Papke\u2019s wall is covered in trophies. That particular 1950 Merc\u2019 was stretched by four feet and took about nine months to complete, but it certainly got attention.<\/p>\n

Recently, he came upon a car that he knew was from the movie Grease. Papke knows his Mercurys, so\u00a0when he saw the car, he knew what it was despite having the wrong paint on it. In those days, the cars would be used over and over by the studios and the Grease Mercury was taken to the studio after the movie and shot with primer. It then appeared in another movie. After some time with acetone, Papke\u2019s hunch was absolutely correct, as usual, and there he found the paint job that was so recognizable from Grease.<\/p>\n

Whether you want an entire car that you\u2019ve seen on the big screen or just some parts for one that you\u2019re hoping to finish, Bill Papke is a resource you won\u2019t want to forget. And if you need something specific, you can call him ahead of time and come see him at the next Pomona Swap Meet. He\u2019ll have the part and a warm greeting for you there at the show.<\/p>\n

This article was written by Tony Barthel from the Curbside Auto Column and Car Show Calendar. For auto articles, news and an on-line calendar of automotive events, please visit www.curbside.tv<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Map of Vendor Spaces (PDF<\/strong><\/span>)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

– Curbside Publisher
\nwww.curbside.tv<\/a><\/p>\n

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