Paul has already extensively covered the full story of the Continental Mark II, and we all know the broad strokes: In the early 1950s, Lincoln was looking for a follow-up for its 1939-1948 flagship Continental model (and looking to leapfrog Cadillac at the same time). FoMoCo eventually created an entirely new division (Continental) to sell its bespoke $10,000 ($96K in 2020) model. Despite selling for as much as a small house, Ford still managed to lose money on each car and shut down the Continental division in 1956 after selling just 3,005 examples.
1939 Lincoln Continental Prototype
But back to the beginning. By the early 1950s, the original Lincoln Continental had a small but dedicated cadre of owners and fans. The Continental was probably one of the first automotive viral marketing success stories, with patient zero being a hand-built custom model that Edsel Ford showed off to his friends in Florida in 1939. Demand for the vehicle then largely spread by word of mouth among the well-heeled set. The Continental was already considered a classic by the early 1950s (cars didn’t last very long back then), with the Lincoln Continental Owners Club being formed in 1953. Naturally, this would be a key group that Ford would be looking to purchase a new second-generation Continental.
So how do you follow up on an icon? The Continental, while widely (and deservedly) praised for its styling, still had numerous design flaws. For starters, the convertible had no rear quarter windows, giving it a top-heavy appearance and severely impeding outward visibility (not helped by the tiny rear window), at least with the top raised.
1946 Lincoln Continental
The 1942 refresh didn’t help matters, replacing the earlier model’s flowing waterfall grille with a bulkier, heavier front-end (which got even bulkier and heavier in 1946). While that may have been in keeping with the styling trends of the day, it lacked the grace and elegance of the original.
From any side other than the front, the styling of the original Continental was somewhat spare, especially in comparison to what would come in subsequent decades. The doors are broad and flat, bereft of any trim, stripes, or creases, and with just a tiny push-button release to break up the emptiness. With their square door cutlines and exposed hinges, the side view is almost homely, and certainly not in keeping with design trends of the 1950s.
So the design brief for the Mark II was already conflicted: They needed to retain just enough of the styling cues of the first Continental in order to appeal to fans of the original, even though many were unfashionable by the early 1950s. Simultaneously they needed to appeal to the sensibilities of contemporary luxury car buyers (Cadillac and Rolls Royce were the bogeys) with a thoroughly modern design. William Clay Ford (Edsel Ford’s son, in charge of the Mark II program and only 28 at the time) called what he was looking for “Modern Formal.”
In 1952, WCF convened a small team to start designing the Mark II, where they grappled with the issues outlined above. They worked out of Ford’s Special Project Operations (SPO) center, which was really just an old gymnasium (period films show the basketball hoops still hanging on the walls).
The early results were uninspiring. When Henry Ford II saw it, he was supposed to have commented “I would give you a nickel for that ****!” Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, I was unable to find any pictures of the early design that raise the Deuce’s hackles. Perhaps WCF ordered all images destroyed.
Continental Mark II design competition judging
William Clay Ford was crushed by this dressing down from his elder brother, but he soon bounced back. To get fresh ideas, WCF hatched the idea of a design competition between the Ford studio and four outside designers. The hardpoints of the car were already set from the now-abandoned earlier designs, so all the designs had to conform to a specific width, height, wheelbase, and length. All the renderings had to be provided in the same color (Prussian Blue, supposedly Bill’s favorite) and rendered from the same perspectives, so as to eliminate any potential bias. They also had to be the same size, matted identically, and unsigned (only numbered). Judging took place on May 5, 1953.
The five contest entrants were a veritable who’s who of automotive designers in the 1950s, as we shall see when we get into the individual submissions. Each external entrant was compensated $10,000 for their work, whether theirs was the chosen winner or not. Obviously, Ford’s own SPO team was eager to take another crack after their earlier humiliation.
On the following pages is what I believe to be the most complete collection of images of the entrants ever presented online, so let’s dive in and see what the Continental Mark II could have been like, presented in the order in which they were originally numbered for the competition. Before I dig into the thirteen concepts (each entrant was allowed to submit more than one proposal), I want you to transport your mental self back to 1953, and imagine that you were judging the entrants. Which would you have chosen to be the face of the Mark II?
Number 1 would be my choice. It’s timeless; almost 70 years later it’s still a very handsome design. I could easily picture it as a current Audi 8 series or a Bentley. Other than the taillights (which summon a later model Tornado and Seville) that would’ve worked better as a vertical counterpoint to the vestigial fenders, its damn near perfect.
For me, it straddles the ground between grand tourer and sports car.
#7’s face looks like a flattened Karmann-Ghia. As beautiful as the VWKG is, this would look really grotesque on a bigger car.
Are you familiar with the Chrysler D’Elegance?
I feel FoMoCo picked the right design for their top the line luxury car. But man, that second design by Walter Ford! That is gorgeous. As Tom said, it looks more like a GT than proper luxury, but it would have made for a great companion model, perhaps based of a Thunderbird?
Here’s a 1977 oral history interview with Walter Buhl Ford II:
https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-walter-buhl-ford-13268
#1 is great, it reminds me of a Facel Vega, which is never a bad thing.
#2 is just about perfect, really. The chosen design is far ahead of any others, but both 1 and 2 are contenders for beating the production model IMO. Do you suppose that the Ford name was a blessing and a curse for Walter’s prospects as a designer?
Thanks for a great essay. I have always admired the Continental Mark II for sheer elegance. Some of these alternate designs are worth merit as well. The Mark II looks like money without any hideous design. Former Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York drove his for twenty years at the family vacation home in Maine. It is now in the carriage house (you should see this stable and carriage house!) at the estate in Sleepy Hollow, NY. The estate is called Kykuit. Of note, Nelson did not order A/C.
Boy, don’t those trio at the bottom of page 5 look tickled to be scrutinising the clay model of № 10! Middle guy with paper looks like he’s about to reverse the charges on whatever he had for lunch, guy on the right looks as though he’s just realised he stepped in dog poo, and guy on the left looks like he’s thinking about stubbing out his smoke on the hood.
Wow, Walter Buhl Ford’s “Design 1” really does resemble a ’63 Riviera from the rear (or the other way around, really), enough so that I wonder if Ned Nickles ever got a peek at it, or if it was a genuine coincidence.
Beautiful drawings, but as mentioned already, Ford knew what they were doing when they chose the eventual design for the Mark II. It still looks great.
The design #7 rear besides predicting the 1967 Cadillac Eldorado, reminds me also from the sideview of the 1969 Pontiac Grand Prix the way the C-pillar was drawed.
It would be fun to photoshop it by removing these 2 tailfins and that “wheel seat” on the trunk to see how it would look without them.
Articles like these are what I come to CC for! I was so impressed I was finally motivated to subscribe. My favorite is design #1. It has a clean athletic look similar to a Facel Vega. I love the open green house. Number six is not too clean from any angle but it is the broughammy-est (?) of the bunch. It actually reminds me of a custom bodied Packard Darrin cabriolet coupe from the 1940s. Finally #10. The front end is typical 1950’s Chrysler and is not memorable, but I like the flatter treatment of the fake spare tire.
Aren’t there some horrors? But then you expect that in this era of design.
If I’d been there, I would have made a different suggestion, and gone off in a different direction again.
To me, the appeal of the original Continental was in its proportions. It was like a regular late-thirties coupe with about a six inch strip sliced out of the body, a longer dash-to-axle distance, and what they used to call a close-coupled coupe body, with no extraneous decoration. That’s what made the first Thunderbird so appealing, it had ‘Continental’ proportioning. (I’m ignoring the external spare tyre; to me that was anachronistic.)
Apply those changes to a regular Ford/Mercury/Lincoln mid-fifties design, and you wind up with something rather like the first Thunderbird. So how about if the Continental Mark II had come out as a larger, four seat version of that first Thunderbird design, with the Thunderbird spun off from it later?
And the original Continental got some imitations. Derham did a coachbuilt 1946 Chrysler New Yorker in the style of the Lincoln Continental.
https://www.hemmings.com/stories/2020/10/23/yes-this-derham-bodied-1946-chrysler-new-yorker-continental-does-have-a-continental-spare-tire-mount
Design 1 for sure. Only thing missing are rear wheel well covers.
Design 9 was the competition favorite, but it didn’t include the iconic trunk hump. The design team was forced to add it by upper management.
All of the pictures in this article are Ford property and came from a 300 photo cache that I made public from the Elmer Rohn Collection.
What many historians fail to mention is that from the beginning is the the car’s innovative chassis was built for a Retractable hardtop body. When the Mark II program was cancelled in late ’56 the technology for the hardtop went to Ford to build nearly 50,000 Skyliners.
The gymnasium was actually part of the Ford Trade School, closed in 1952 in anticipation of building Ford World Headquarters on the site. It was the Special Products Division that took over the complex and built the first Mark II and the ’58 Continental Mark III 4-door prototype there. The Retractable prototype was built at Lincoln in Detroit.
The article is one of the more accurate about the history of the Mark II. My article on the subject.
https://www.hagerty.com/media/automotive-history/why-the-continental-mark-2-should-never-be-called-a-lincoln/
Finding the Continental retractable hardtop is the Holy Grail of Lincoln Continental enthusiasts.
Designs 6 and 7 stand out (in a bad way) as Exneresque fever dreams. Some of the worst and the best American 50s coupé designs thrown together for the Mark II, yet they picked one of the better ones.
More information on the Continental Mark III, not the Lincoln model.
https://www.hagerty.com/media/automotive-history/1958-continental-mark-iii-is-actually-a-lincoln/
What became of that “Continental Division” building I’ve seen in many pics of the Mark II? That sign sure didn’t have a long life…
Anyway, drawing 2 for the win. Front end looks a bit like the “bullet” Thunderbirds, only more modern, while the rear view looks a bit ’63 Riviera. I’m not sure it would have gone over well in 1956 though, probably too out-there for the intended clientele.
Although Design 1 would have made a great grand touring in the vein of the Facel-Vega which is resembles, it wouldn’t fly as a Continental. There are attractive design elements in most every proposal, some more than others, but none as completely as the one ultimately selected.
The difference in the design process of the original “special convertible for Edsel Ford” versus what would become the Continental Mark II is the former was the inspiration of two highly talented and discerning individuals with innate design sense and good taste . Conversely, the Mark II the result of an assignment to reinterpret that original inspiration in an updated idiom. As such, it could hardly be but derivative, lacking that ‘indefinable something’ that made the original so extra special.
Worthy of mention is one of the designers on the in-house team was John Reinhart, lead designer on 1951 Packards. Engineering overrode a good many of the elements he wanted to incorporate in that car, including a lower belt-line.
Well put. It was an exercise in “retro” rather than something truly new or original. As such it was bound to be compromised. Which it was, especially the spare tire hump. Very unfortunate. And the roof line was also too heavily influenced by the original coupe’s.
“An exercise in ‘retro'” that’s the perfect succinct description! I’ll remember to use that when the Mark II subject arises again, thank you!
Regarding the spare tire hump: The exposed rear-mounted spare was considered one of the defining features of the ’39-’48 Continentals, on the Mark II, the stamped metal form does actually have a function: the spare tire sets in a well at an angle forward of it, if I recall correctly from LCOC meets. It makes trunk access miserable, but so did the trunk hatch design of the original. Such is style over function.
Very interesting to see all the Mark II proposals all at once the way the judges saw them. I have always been iffy on the Mark II. I see it as an attempt to “force” inspiration, and inspiration can never be forced–it just comes. And when something can be called “inspired”, it is obvious.
I also don’t think the Mark II was $5365 better than a ’56 Lincoln Premiere coupe, despite the Continental’s somewhat higher (some might say superficial) refinements.
Having said that, it is a car that is distinctive and makes a statement (a rather conservative one). Its styling also pointed the way to trends of the ’60s and ’70s. No. 9 is definitely the winning entry, though I would be happier about it if it didn’t have the tire bulge on the trunk–I don’t like anything overtly fake on a car.
If a buyer wanted to break from Cadillac while maintaining prestige and far-out luxury, other tempting choices would be a ’56 Packard Caribbean coupe or a ’56 Imperial coupe, each of which could be had for ~$4800 less.
This was a very interesting and informative article. I was surprised to see the Cunningham and Packard influences in the styling proposals. Most of the proposals appear to be “sportier” and more curvaceous than the car that was finally put into production. Like Poindexter says, the final car was always a bit “iffy” styling-wise as it attempted to reinterpret the classic original Continental as a more modern vehicle and the spare tire hump in the trunk was unfortunate.
Celebrity owners of Mark IIs included Elizabeth Taylor, John F. Kennedy, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Dwight Eisenhower, and Nelson Rockefeller.
Just a quick follow-up comment: In the 1980s, There was a white Mark II that was regularly or Sunday driven around Morris Plains, NJ. I would see it in the Shop-Rite parking lot after church. It had a NJ vanity license plate, “MARK II”. The car was in very good condition, and what struck me about it at the time was that it didn’t look particularly “old”, the way a 1956-57 Buick or Mercury would. In fact, it blended in quite well with the ’70s-’80s Lincolns which were common at the time, especially from the rear. And then, eventually, I didn’t see it anymore.
The 1980s were the last time you could still find a few cars from the ’50s being driven as regular (not show cars) by non-hobby-type people–usually older drivers who were in their 70s and 80s. And I wonder what happened to some of these cars after their owners were no longer around to drive and maintain them.
The car looked like this:
IMHO, Ford got almost right, spoilt only by the Continental spare (YMMV), but nailed it in 1961.
These are really interesting!
What I find most intrieguing is the “retro” nature of most of these design proposals.
1953 was at the heart of an era when everything in the US car industry was going increasingly jazzy, chrome-clad and tail-finned and charging decisively forward, towards the bright, new future. And suddenly there’s this one project that tries to evoke the memories of something from the past. How come?
I guess some people were starting to get a sense that something had gone missing, and the “retro” appeal is there as an attempt to recapture what had been lost.
It was the grandeur and true exclusivity of the senior luxury cars of the thirties, I suppose. The V12-Continentals of late 40s might have been seen as the last connection with that prewar era? The mass-market “people’s Cadillacs” of the 50s didn’t have that air of exclusivity about them anymore.
This sense of luxury cars becoming increasingly devalued must have just deepened in the US as the 60s progressed, with mainstream brands’ push upmarket. And as a reaction, retro really kicked in, trying to emulate the luxury cars of the 30s. I’m guessing there might have also been the reaction to the social upsets of the hippie era that further fueled these conservative themes? Anyway, soon there were Greek temple grilles and vinyl tops on everything. Not to mention the emergence of Stutzes, Excaliburs and such.
Going more and more extreme and kitschy with retro cues must have been seen as a sign of exclusivity and of spiritual connection with the luxury cars of the past. Which will also explain all those increasingly horrendous “neo-classic” conversion jobs on late-70s Eldorados, Sevilles etc.