VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1933-1936 Eagle becomes Master + Mercury

Does anyone have any hard GM DOCUMENTATION for a change-over date as to when the Eagle became the Master for 1933? Also for an offical introduction date for the Mercury, and in turn when it became the Standard? We are trying to verify some things so they are accurate in the G&D.

The documents I have for the Standard is the "Standard Chevrolet 1933 Engineering Information" that was sent to me by Chevrolet years back. It is dated February 1, 1933. I know of no information released by Chevrolet to indicate the Standard was to be the Mercury. I've had 2 of the earliest Standards. I had the 13th car built in Kansas which was built in February & I still have the 16th car built in Oakland which it too was built in February. Both of these cars have serial number plates that say "Standard". One is 1057 & the other is 1132. Another interestion note is the 1057 car's engine was cast in January while the 1132 car engine was cast in February & both cars had radiators from January. This would indicate that the Chevrolet Standard Six parts were already in production by at least January. March was to be the release date.

It has been discussed the "New Master Six" was introduced at close to the same time. On the introduction page for the the Standard it say "to be known as the 1933 Standard Chevrolet, to distinquish it from the present model,which will hereafter be known as the 1933 Master Chevrolet". Serial number plates are marked as either "Master" or "Eagle" depending on when it was manufactured. They were never both..Joe

Great, thanks Joe. This is the kind of solid info we need. I always understood it was February, but not a specific date.

I always also "heard" the Mercury was the name of the new smaller car when it was introduced, and that it was fairly quickly changed to Standard.

Anybody have anything else?

If you ever find anything to say for sure it was going to be the "Mercury" I would love to see it other wise I would say it was something that got changed by hot rodders or used car salesmen. To have 1933 Standard number 57 from one plant that says Standard (serial numbers starting at 1001} would indicate no Mercury. Even the earliest magazine sales ad says The New Standard...Joe

I have never see any literature, etc. from Chevrolet that refered to a Mercury series. However the used car price guides, various aftermarket parts catalogs, etc, refer to a Mercury series or Mercury/Standard series.
I had a question/answer on the subject in the G&D a few years back when I was doing th Q&A column.

Folks, we're going to take this to the next level, and do a small article in the G&D that talks about the (apparently mythical) Mercury series.

Does anybody have ANYTHING from Chevrolet or GM that says "Mercury?" Many of the reference books talk about it, but they are frequently wrong - and once something gets out there in print, it tends to eventually get repeated as gospel.

If they really never built a car and called it a Mercury, we need to document that.

Sounds like when they changed the Eagle over to Master pretty much coincided with the introduction of the Standard.

Don,
I wish you luck.

It is virtually impossible to prove that something didn't or can't happen.

A second point is that very often auto companies have a "code" name for projects that have nothing to do with the production name. So it might be that "Mercury" was used as the code name for the project to produce the first "Standard" models. Once nearing production then the actual name could be put on the project and sales literature, etc.

Don
It's like the first names given to Camaro. They tried Panther & Hugger before Chevrolet intoduced them as Camaros.

Chevrolet was trying to build an economy car. That's it. Parts books, original materials sent to the dealer, sales brochures, sales ads & finally serial number plates say it's a Standard. Everything in writing says it's the "New Chevrolet Standard Six" If you're going to write something, the word "Mercury" should only be used to say something like "this is a car that for years was considered to be the Mercury series but no documents have ever been found to support this name". Educate people on the car....the "New Chevrolet Standard Six" Stop calling it a Mercury until you can document that...not the other way around.

My 2 cents after spending the last 15 years studying this mystery car & after owning 6 of them & watching lots of them converted into street rod just so they could say "I have one of the rare Mercury Chevrolet"...Joe

I always thought this was a carry over from previous years, 1929 the International series, 1930 Universal series. 1931 Independence series, 1932 Confederate series and then in 1933 the Eagle series with a new standard called the Mercury. Then they just dropped the names and went by Master and Standard to keep it simple...

I tend to agree with a new product "code name". The company I worked for did this each time they were working on a new product. Note also that the name was not copyrighted or registered and in fact Ford used that name on their Mercury later on.

I can recall this term used back in the sixties when I first became interested in Chevies and antique cars. Maybe some of the other folks can remember when they first heard the term?
Having said this, I still refer to them as Mercury's. Chris

I always thought it was called the MERCURY SERIES , because in the gasket application books i had, thats what it was called and how i have always refered to the std as.

I had gasket application books issued & dated 1934 from victor, 1940 Mc Cord and 1936 fitzgerald. Somehow back then they started using that mercury name.

Maybe there is some advertising somewhere used that name . Its a good one representing speed.

mike

Maybe this will help provide some facts for this thread directly from Chevrolet advertising. I have an extensive literature and advertising collection for 1933. Materials from and for the USA, Belgium, German, and Canadian markets. Below is one dealer poster/advertising, and one Canadian ad. BOTH describe the car lines for Chevrolet in 1933 as "THE NEW CHEVROLET SIX" in both "MASTER AND STANDARD". Hope these photos help.

Jeff

Wish someone could post something that was published by Chevrolet that refers to a Mercury.

Here is another one from the front page of the operation and care manual.

To follow up on Gene's request, does anyone have this manual for a Mercury?

Very Interesting indeed.....Look at the Cover of my Owners manual......and the original Shop Manual....neither are reprints.....


Jeff

ChevGene
I hope somebody actually finds something. But it has to be by Chevrolet. The earliest ad I found was March 20th 1933. Anybody have anything earlier. It too calls it the new Standard Six.


I don't have any problems eating crow. I would love to solve this mystery.....Joe

It would be nice to see a February manual

Agreed. I am going to guess here that the Eagle name changed to Master in March when they introduced the Standard model. The March Service News is dedicated to "Introducing The Standard Six" So it seems that Eagle became Master and that the Standard Six was never called Mercury by Chevrolet. Does anyone have ANY Chevrolet document that says Mercury???

How about any document that says "Mercury" on it? I'm thinking that it's probably aftermarket stuff as Chevgene and mike lynch have said. Somehow this Mercury nomenclature got introduced and it's looking like Chevrolet wasn't behind it.

Thanks!

Regards,
Dan

Well I haven't found anything on Mercury yet, still looking. I did find this price list dated February 15, 1933 showing a page calling the Master, Eagle. So maybe March is the time of the change to calling it the Master? I will post the cover and the page here with a couple of links to the previous pages showing 1929, 1930, 1931 & 1932 with series names.





the previous pages

Page VI and VII

Page VIII

This is probably the first parts catalog for the 1933 Standard. It's the supplement to the feb 1933 master parts catalog...Joe


Well...I did something wrong on the picture. It's dated April 1933

Just a reminder to all of you. Because of the time it takes to collect, write, edit, type set, print, bind, distribute literature (particularly 80 years ago) the information contained is at least 1 month old when someone gets it. Also the common practice is to set an "official" publish (or introduction or action) date to be printed on the literature. That date is typically is set in the future when printing begins. So be careful in assuming that the publish date is actually the date when some specific action took place or the information was up to date and accurate.

A letter or memo is different than literature and the dates are either accurate or very close to the actual date the information was written.

So a catalog dated April may not get to the dealer until May? That's different than I thought. I thought the date may've been a release date & the information would've been collected maybe months back. Interesting.

The letter on the back of the feature book had a date of Feb 1933. That would've been a more acurate date in which it was distributed...Yes?...Joe

I too like Joe own a '33 CC STANDARD :) I have boo coo literature from Chevrolet.......... No where does it use the word Mercury. The only time I saw it was in a 1935 "blue book" that's acually red that calls it a Mercury. I have a copy of a Los Angeles Times newspaper ad dated 3/11/1933 the states @ bottom of the ad, Chevrolet Standard Sic. I also have an original Plymouth salesmans "cheat" sheet dated 3/15/1933 for the salesman to know the items Plymoth was "better" than the '33 Standard. I have an original Richfield oil Corporation lubrication chart that was printed in 1937 the design with the 1933 master series CA and the standard series CC, so even 1937 people in the business referred to this as the standard. Case closed???

Does anyone have any original literature that mentions 1933 Chevrolet Mercury? We're looking for good scans showing where the name Mercury appears to use in the March G&D. It sounds like this might be found in aftermarket literature as you guys indicate. Things like parts books or used car literature like the Blue Book that Steve 1933 mentions. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Dan O'Day
G&D Chairman