Lincoln Book Intro

L I N C O L N a n d

C O N T I N E N T A L

CLASSIC MOTORCARS

The Early Years

LINCOLN & CONTINENTAL

Marvin Arnold

First Edition: Printed in the United States of America

By Taylor Publishing Company

Dallas, Texas

Automobile - United States - History

Dewey Decimal Number 629.22

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number:

International Standard Book Number: ISBN 0-87833-691-5

This book is not dedicated to my children or your children,

although I hope that they might read and enjoy it for years

to come. This one is for my generation and the generation

past, those who will fill in the blanks as they visit here.

To:

SUZANNE RAE BURROWS ARNOLD, my wife.

LOLA EVELYN SWANSON ARNOLD, my mother.

EARL MASON ARNOLD, my father, an appreciator

of fine machinery and a heck of an engineer.

FORWORD

I have had a keen interest in the Lincoln and

Lincoln-Continental all my life and I must confess

that the rich detail in Marvin Arnold's book

includes many interesting facts that I did not

know. This is a valuable reference work for the

serious student of these cars.

Beyond that, this book contains a wealth of

information about the beginnings of automotive

design as a formalized discipline. My father,

Edsel Ford, was a leader in this movement and

surrounded himself with many of the most gifted

industrial designers in the nation during the years

between the wars. Mr. Arnold caught the spirit of

the enormously creative team my father assembled

and I thoroughly enjoyed reading about it.

(signed)

William Clay Ford

PREFACE

In 1986, the year in which I sat down to write this book, the Lincoln

motorcar was sixty-six years old. The automobile industry celebrated its

one-hundredth anniversary, and I was half its age. I grew up in Oklahoma,

along U.S. Highway 66, or as the song says, "Got my kicks on Route 66."

Route 66 was the twentieth century's answer to the Santa Fe Trail. It

carried many a Midwesterner to the golden shores of California and points

in between. I remember The War (WWII). Although I was only a youngster at

the time, I can still remember synthetic rubber, Plexiglas, and gasoline

A-ration windshield stickers.

My first encounter with a Lincoln was in 1946, a Lincoln Continental

coupe with push-button doors. It belonged to an Air Force captain, a

neighbor whom I befriended the year my little brother was born. On

reflection, I believe that the young officer or his wife must have been

from a wealthy family in order to afford such a car on a captain's pay, or

for that matter, get delivery on any new automobile in 1946.

The Ford industry was to play a major role in my informal education.

Like many kids, I learned to drive on my grandfather's Fordson (Ford and

Son) tractor. My cousins and I would argue over whose turn it was to

drive. Being the smallest, I was usually last. One summer in the early

fifties my family took a vacation to Sandusky, Ohio. I had always been

fascinated by airplanes, and my first ride aloft was out over Lake Erie in

a Ford Tri-Motor. It was on that same visit, I got to drive a Model T Ford

which belonged to my friend's grandfather. For the first time, I began to

understand how much the automobile industry had progressed in just a few

short decades.

My first Lincoln was a 1939 Zephyr three-window coupe. It was black

with a dark maroon dash, a velour (we called it mohair) interior, a

Southwind gasoline heater, and driving lamps. It had some minor damage to

the left runningboard cover which I never could afford to have repaired. I

purchased the Zephyr in 1953. That summer, I accidentally rolled my

father's brand new Ford Fordor. It was not a 1953 Cosmo, and I was not

Chuck Stevenson, as I quickly discovered. After school and on Saturdays, I

worked at Jaffe's Auto Supply to support the Zephyr, a 1940 Ford Tudor, a

1937 Ford Club Coupe, and a 1939 Packard sedan. None of which I had paid

over $125 for, except the Zephyr for which I paid a whopping $200. Like

most mid-America suburban kids of the fifties, my life centered around the

car culture.

Why I bought the Zephyr, I don't exactly know. I remember thinking

that it was about the neatest car I had ever seen. I particularly liked

the smooth center-console gearshift lever control, and the Columbia

two-speed vacuum shift rear axle which was controlled by a push-pull knob.

You could drive along beside someone at 50 MPH in high-second, then amaze

them by shifting again to low-third and then to high-third. I installed

hinges at the top of the small auxiliary rear seat's back which allowed at

least three friends to crawl into the long, wood-decked trunk. It was a

great way to sneak into the drive-in theater. Sam, a mechanic on the night

shift at Delco Products, helped me grind the valves on that old flathead

V-12. I experimented with a single-throat Studebaker carburetor to improve

the V-12s fuel economy, but the engine lost too much acceleration power.

The motor mounts for a V-8 power plant had been welded in place (a few

inches rearward of the HV-12 mounts) by the previous owner, who had an

eight in it prior to reinstalling the twelve. A friend gave us a 5-9AB

Mercury block engine, but my Dad and I never got around to installing it.

The old Zephyr V-12 engine ran fine at a constant 12 miles to the gallon,

so long as you did not operate the gasoline heater.

My folks owned a large turn-of-the-century house with a three-car

garage which had been converted from a stable. At times, my dad complained

about not being able to find a parking place in the driveway. He had

taught me mechanics, beginning with a Wizzer motorbike kit which we

assembled when I was in my early teens. My mother was always fond of

telling this story about me, "He always looked like a grease monkey until a

young girl in tight shorts walked past one day as he peered out from under

one of his old cars. You know, he came in the house, cleaned up, and I

don't think I ever saw him under one of those machines again." My dad came

home one day and announced that since he could still no longer get into his

own garage, some of the cars had to go. The Zephyr remained until we moved

back to Oklahoma in 1955, when it was sold for about what I had paid for

it. The last Ford product I owned before going off to college was a 1929

Model A coupe which I drove every day of my senior year.

While in the Navy, I owned a not-so-new, flamingo-pink, 1956 Lincoln

Premier. One of those cars you didn't park, you docked. In the

mid-sixties, after my wife and I made some money on a real estate

transaction, we purchased a one-year-old Lincoln sedan. That Thanksgiving

we drove it from Texas, where we now live, to Florida on vacation. That

did it. Once again I was hooked on Lincolns, now called Continentals. I

will never again feel so affluent as I felt cruising down the Sunshine

Parkway with the powerseat rocked back, puffing on a good twenty-cent

cigar. Thus began my affair with Lincolns and Continentals. I quit

smoking years ago, but never lost my appreciation for the Lincoln.

Since my first ride in that Ford Tri-Motor, I have logged over 6,000

hours as pilot-in-command of a hundred different aircraft, and work now as

a design engineer. We have owned a succession of Lincolns, Marks, and

Continentals, including several presently. My wife has accused me of going

out for a haircut and coming home with a different old car. Once I picked

up a friend from back East at the airport in our, then new, 1967 white

Continental Coupe with brown leather seats. He said something that has

always stayed with me, "This (the Lincoln) is what I call an automobile.

The rest are just cars."

As a young man, Lincolns were engineering and design marvels to be

disassembled, studied, and reassembled. In later years, they were fine

machines to be driven and enjoyed. Now my Lincolns are time machines that

allow me to travel back, not only to my youth, but into the lives and pasts

of millions of Americans. I have a hobby, an avocation called Lincoln

motorcars, and I would like to tell you about them.

Marvin Arnold

INTRODUCTION

The year 1986, celebrated the 100th anniversary of the

internal-combustion engine automobile. This centennial was based on the

1886 European patents of Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz. There were,

however, many significant automotive contributions both before and after

this date. The original Lincoln motorcar, designed in 1919, was one

product of these evolutionary developments. Thus our book on Lincolns

begins in the latter part of the nineteenth century.

The appropriate format for a marque automobile book is difficult to

determine. Should it trace the people and the company or be a chronology

of the car itself? Should it be a narrative or a string of technical

information? Complicating a by-the-model-year approach is the fact that

designs sometimes overlap time periods. For example, Model K Lincolns were

still being produced near the end of the 1930s while the Model H Zephyr

Lincolns were introduced in late 1935. We have, therefore, divided this

book into nine chapters based on significant model periods or eras. The

stories, anecdotes, and technical aspects are related chronologically

within those eras. Ten Appendices and a Glossary have been included to

help the reader understand the specifications and terms applicable to this

particular segment of the automotive industry.

Chapter One reviews the establishment of automobile making in America,

and the early manufacturing endeavors of Henry Ford and H.M. Leland.

Chapter Two explains how the Lincoln motorcar came into existence. Chapter

Three is devoted to the Model L Lincolns of the 1920s, a time of opulence.

Chapter Four discusses the golden era of coachbuilding as it related to the

Lincoln, and the early Automobile Salons. Chapter Five follows the

development and production of the Model K Lincolns during the changing

times of the 1930s. Chapter Six begins the development of a completely new

Lincoln, the Zephyr. It was a design influenced by the age of Art Deco,

streamlined passenger trains, and colossal World's Fairs. Chapter Seven

relates what is believed to be the most nearly correct story to date of the

original Lincoln Continental. Much research went into the separation of

myth and legend from fact in this chapter. Included is an interview with

designer Bob Gregorie. Chapter Eight covers the World War II years at Ford

and Lincoln, the changing of the guard, and the beginnings of a new Ford

Motor Company. Chapter Nine concludes the early years at Lincoln. It is

devoted to that rare and often forgotten era of bulbous Lincolns. They

were not the "old" Lincolns, but they were not yet the "modern" Lincolns.

The book's cover color was chosen because gray was Edsel Ford's

favorite color. The embossed silver represents nickel chrome accessories.

The book's size is similar to that of the older magazines in which period

Lincoln ads appeared. The typeset style was selected for its similarity to

those used in many older automotive publications. Hundreds of books and

periodicals were researched in order to supplement the author's experience

with the various Lincoln models. This book is richly illustrated with

advertising art from the respective periods. In addition to being

beautiful art work, these graphics should help the reader have a feeling

for the motif of the era being discussed.

Only a few comprehensive books have been published on the Lincoln

motorcar. Fifty Years of Lincoln - Mercury by G.H. Dammann was a pictorial

history. It was assembled years ago when photos from the Henry Ford Museum
archives were readily available for publication. AND ARE NO LONGER
ACCESSIBLE TO THE PUBLIC.

The author would like to thank the following people: Suzie Arnold for

many hours of typing, proofing, and letting the author win a few of the

arguments; Dr. June Welch, historian and author, for his encouragement;

Dave Cole, author and early Continental expert, for his advice; Bob

Gregorie, designer, and Bob Thomas, designer and author, for the

interviews; David Freeman, Lincoln history buff, for his input; Taylor

Publishing Company's George Southern and Neal Kimmel; Sarabeth Allen and

Jewel Parr, librarians; Professor David Lewis, Ford historian and author;

David Crippen of the Henry Ford Museum archives; Howard Pickard, retired

Eagle L-M and quintessential Lincoln salesman; George Blesse, antique car

dealer and auctioneer; the many Lincoln, Continental, and Zephyr hobbyists

who have graciously shared their wealth of knowledge; and a special thanks

to William Clay Ford, Vice-Chairman of the Ford Motor Company, for his

written remarks.

Charles Rolls, partner of Henry Royce, believed that motorcars were for

aristocrats alone. Rolls was killed in a flying accident in 1910 so he

never knew how badly Henry Ford trod upon this idea. Many view automotive

history as merely a specialized branch of industrial history, but to the

automobile buff it is much more. The Lincoln motorcar, by virtue of

limited production, lacks the popularity of some marques, but Lincoln is

exemplary as an American marque. Lincoln's history closely parallels that

of the American automotive industry and the nation itself. It is the story

of why a Cadillac was really a Ford, and the Lincoln a Cadillac. It is

about a 1934 Lincoln that looked like a Volkswagon Beetle, and was named

for a General Motors passenger train. It is about a lead-filled,

custom-bodied cabriolet which is the only recognized modern classic

automobile. It is about aluminum bodies, V-12 engines, and the iron-willed

men who created them. The rich and colorful history of the Lincoln

motorcar is the story of one of the finest series of automobiles ever

conceived and produced. These automobiles were sport and luxury, Roadster

and Town Sedan, Zephyr and Continental. The Lincolns.