Just Cool Cars: '49 Mercury wagon hasn't aged a day

COSTA MESA, Calif. -- These days, some vintage car owners add a few modern touches. But not Scott Couchman.

His 1949 Mercury is almost all stock. No modern brakes, suspension, engine or anything. 

As Couchman, of Irvine, Calif., sees it, the whole point of acquiring the "woodie" station wagon -- one of those beautiful wood-sided models -- is to own a reminder of the past. Trying to bring it into the modern age would defeat the purpose.

"I love the way the car sounds and love the way it drives," Couchman told us at a weekly car gathering here. Though it's old, the car "drives pretty nice with the overdrive transmission."

Couchman says he just hums along at 60 miles per hour, the cruising speed that the car just  seems to prefer.

And it's pristine. This '49 Merc with a flathead engine looks like it's ready to go right back into a new-car showroom for the first time since the Truman administration.