1949 Mercury ‘Rebel Rouser’ A Small But Mighty Classic: Video

Dwarf cars attract a small (no pun intended) and quirky subset of vehicle enthusiasts. They’re replicas of classic automobiles that are completely functional, fabricated completely from the ground up, but they’re not to scale. As their name suggests, dwarf cars are quite a bit smaller than the real deal, but if built right, they’re perfectly street legal. Ernie Adams, known for his dwarf replicas of famous vehicles, borrowed muse from the 1949 Mercury made famous in James Dean’s “Rebel Without A Cause,” turning the electric blue cruiser into something a bit smaller.

Featured on the YouTube channel Ridiculous Rides, the 1949 Mercury lives fulltime at Adams’ museum in Maricopa, Arizona, and it’s just one of quite a few mini cruisers he’s built. Adams started the unique build in 2004, testing the limits of his fabrication skills as he worked on shaping steel just so to create the perfect replica, which he calls the “Rebel Rouser,” a nod to the movie that made the blue coupe famous.

“Everything is homemade from scratch,” Adams explains. “It was all built from flat sheet metal – the bumpers, the headlight bezels, the complete park lights, the grille.”

Under that bespoke hood is an engine swiped from a 1982 Toyota Starlet. It’s 1290 CCs and runs off a tractor battery. Power is routed by way of a five-speed automatic transmission, and, as Adams puts it, “it’s got everything the real car had in it,” from the glove box and radio to heaters and defrosters. Adams handcrafted all the dashboard gauges and buttons by hand, so it’s no wonder it took five years for him to build.

Don’t let its small size fool you. The 1949 Mercury can reach a top speed of 100 mph and is completely street legal. Adams says he was offered $450,000 for the Rebel Rouser, but he refused, preferring to keep the quirky little machine under his care.

Although Adams’ vehicles aren’t for sale, sometimes, a loosely similar build will pop up in search of a new owner, like this heavily modified Ford Fiesta that’s not quite a dwarf car, but it’s definitely trying to be.