Take a close look at the car above – what’s missing? There’s no center pillar. All non-convertible 1961-69 Lincoln Continentals have a B-pillar between the front and rear side windows; Lincoln never sold a 4-door hardtop version of this car. But as this picture shows, a hardtop was clearly in the plans and several were built. But at the last minute it was killed, for perhaps a surprising reason.
The 1961-69 Lincoln Continental has attained near mythical status, and deservedly so: It single-handedly both saved the Lincoln brand from extinction, and boldly set an entirely new direction of automotive design in the 1960’s. The fourth generation Continental has been covered many times here and elsewhere, and Paul’s exhaustive history of this car is one of the best I’ve read anywhere. Here’s the Reader’s Digest version:
Early 1961 Thunderbird clay model. Note Thunderbird script on fender and logo on grille, and Thunderbird style hubcaps.
After losing $60 Million on the unpopular 1958-60 Lincoln models, Ford President and “Whiz Kid” Robert McNamara was seriously considering shuttering the Lincoln brand, in addition to Edsel. Realizing that a complete transformation would be necessary for Lincoln to survive, he became smitten with a proposed design for the 1961 Thunderbird by Elwood Engle (the picture above is supposedly of the exact clay model that swayed him). While the design was rejected for the T-Bird as being too formal, McNamara thought it would form a good basis for a redesigned Lincoln.
Some (but certainly not most) automotive reference guides allude to three styles of 1961 Lincoln Continental: four-door convertible (74A), four-door sedan (53A), and four-door hardtop (57C). The number associated with the hardtop production is almost always four, like the screenshot from one automotive pricing guide above suggests. So what is the deal with this hardtop, and how come I’ve never seen one?
At least one of the prototypes of the 1961 Continental was in fact a hardtop, like the one pictured above and in various other photos that I have sprinkled throughout this article. The hardtop differed from the pillared sedan in that it was essentially a fixed-roof convertible: It was to have the same rear doors, wiring, and glass as the convertible. It also had the same servo mechanisms in the doors that convertible did, which lowered the side glass several inches when the doors were opened, a feature that the pillared sedan did not have.
From the November 1960 issue of Popular Mechanics. While the hardtop is not mentioned in the text, the car in the photo clearly is one.
The decision to kill the hardtop apparently happened early in the production run. According to production records obtained by the Lincoln Continental Owners Club (LCOC), Lincoln produced nine hardtop (body style 57C) models in December, 1960, and one more in January, 1961. The production records from March, 1961 further reads:
March 6 units model 57C converted to 53A in accordance with L-M program timing. From this point 4 units will be carried on the production records until change-over.
This still leaves four hardtops unaccounted for, which is the generally accepted number of 1961 hardtops sedans actually produced (at least by those who acknowledge their existence in the first place). While I was unable to independently verify these numbers, I have no reason to doubt this august organization.
1961 Continental seating buck featuring hardtop roof. I believe this photo may have been used internally to evaluate the ease of ingress and egress with the rear hinged doors.
What is less clear is whether any of these hardtops were actually sold to the public. Keep in mind that ’61 Continental, which went on sale on November 17, 1960, had already been in showrooms for several months at this point.
Why did the hardtop get killed so late in the game? There were structural issues, primarily with the roof. In the wind tunnel at higher speeds the roof panel would slightly deform, allowing infiltration around the door window seals. Using thicker sheet metal for the roof panel could solve the problem. But why offer both a 4-Door Sedan and a 4-Door Hardtop? Cost analysis showed that the 4-Door Hardtop with the thicker roof panel would cost more to assemble than the 4-Door Sedan with the standard thickness roof panel, the B-pillar extensions attached the roof panel, and the different door window weatherstripping.
Given that the investment in the all-new ’61 Lincoln program were very high and its prospects on the market were rightfully considered modest given what a fairly radical change this car was, the decision was obvious.
Also, the more expensive side window mechanism that allowed the side rear windows to slip up against the front windows as used on the convertible would have to be used on the hardtop, another additional expense.
All in all, it was simply an expedient decision to kill the hardtop and minimize further expense and risk on an inherently risky program.
Scan from 1960-1964 Lincoln Master Parts Catalog
As to what happened to the four hardtops that were built and not converted, this unfortunately is where the trail gets cold. It is possible that these four hardtops were used by Ford for internal purposes (training, photography, crash testing, etc.). Perhaps they were driven by Ford executives or members of the Ford family, who have been known order custom production runs from time to time. There is just enough evidence to plausibly make the case that they might have been sold to the public. For instance, there are references to the hardtop model in the 1960-1964 Lincoln-Mercury Master Parts Catalog (excerpted above), as well as in a 1961 electrical equipment installation manual (which is how we know about the hardtop’s door servos).
Obviously none of these hardtops were actually sold to the public, and that the few random Ford service manual references just reflect the 11th-hour indecision of L-M as to whether to produce the hardtop or not. This opinion is shared by several Lincoln experts I consulted when researching this article, none of whom have ever seen a hardtop in their collective decades of buying, selling, servicing and restoring these cars.
From 1961 Lincoln Brochure. Note the lack of a pillar on the passenger side.
So while these four hardtops likely never got sold to the public, they clearly did exist. Tantalizing clues are scattered everywhere, if you look hard enough. One even made it into the 1961 brochure, where a quick and dirty airbrush job added a pillar to only one side of the car.
From the 1962 Lincoln Brochure
The final (and unlikeliest) appearance of the 1961 hardtop model was in the 1962 brochure, which clearly made use of some leftover 1961 photos (the lack of exposed screw heads on the door handles indicates the left picture is of an early 1961 model). Observe that no pillar is visible over the shoulder of the model on the shot on the left, which uses almost the exact same angle and pose (and model) as the photo on the right, which clearly shows a pillar.
(note: this is a substantially revised version of an older post)
Related Reading
Curbside Classic: 1965 Lincoln Continental – The Last Great American Luxury Car
Car Show Classic: 1966-67 Lincoln Continental Convertible – End Of An Era
Curbside Classsic: 1969 Lincoln Continental – Missed It By THAT Much
Too bad they never made these in two doors .
I saw a custom made 1965 Lincoln two door once, it was glorious .
-Nate
I saw one photoshopped picture of a 1961 Lincoln into a coupe.
https://artandcolourcars.blogspot.com/2012/01/1961-lincoln-continental-coupes.html
1967 Lincoln Continental two-door hardtop.
As an adult model car builder, I located & built an original `61 Lincoln Continental model kit. My photos for reference as the build went were many of these same pics of the blue sedan with no B-pillar. So I removed the “B” on my model making it a true hardtop! When I displayed the finished model in a contest, I included a couple photos of this prototype knowing it never was mass produced but did exist.
This is an interesting article that goes into far more depth in explaining why the HT got cancelled in the 11th hour. The `61s IMHO are much nicer as a hardtop!
Robert McNamara. Is there ANYTHING that guy can’t screw up?
Was his “stock in trade”.
Just because your the “smartest guy in the room” doesn’t mean you are always right. And he continued on as Secretary of Defense and World Banker.
I have always believed this generation of Lincoln one of the most beautiful cars ever made. European minimalist styling on four wheels meets American size and power. It’s the best of both worlds!
Boy, you learn something new every day. I’ve never been in one of these before and for 60 years assumed these were all pillarless, as the convertibles all were. Did all hardtops require extra stiffening and strengthening?
The Lincoln sedan had frameless window glass edged in chrome trim. With the windows down the open door was similar to a hardtop and quite attractive. The Acura Vigor was a newer sedan with a similar design.
The Vigor was marked in Japan as a pillared hardtop, which was a very common idiom in the Japanese domestic market at the time.
Take any claim of structural issues with a huge grain of salt. I’d have to see official internal Ford documentation before I’d believe that. The unibody Lincoln and Continental of 58 both had hardtop varients, with an 8-inch longer wheelbase. The idea that these much smaller cars would have a structural issue due to removal of a bolted-in-place pillar is just not plausible.
The much more likely reason for not choosing to produce a hardtop version of the 61 Continental would be the complexity of the necessary rear window drop feature. This system use knife switches, door ajar-type switches, additional relays and wiring. The regulators and window motors are unchanged. Unique convertible door glass is used. Nothing about the rear window drop feature is prohibitively expensive from a production standpoint.
It all worked well enough to use on a few thousand convertibles, but to put this finicky system on tens of thousands of hardtop sedans would risk excessive warranty claims and general dissatisfaction on a make-or-break new model.
I own 5 of these Continentals: 2 61 convertibles, a 62 convertible, a 62 sedan and a 63 sedan.
There’s two things you’re not taking into consideration. The 1958-1960 Lincoln roof was a much deeper pressing, with significant vertical elements just above the tops of the windows. That would have strengthened the roof precisely in the location where the ’61 roof apparently fluttered. Compare the two in the image below; the difference is quite substantial. The ’61 roof is very flat in comparison.
Also, it’s quite possible that the ’58-’61 roof was made from thicker steel. Using thicker steel would have solved the ’61 roof flutter issue, but it was decided that was not worth the effort.
The other thing is that the issue with using the convertible’s rear windows was a fully known element. That was hardly a last minute surprise or a logical rationale for cancelling the hardtop after it had been catalogued (57C) and a few had already been built. This clearly supports the window sealing issue at the roof, as that would not have been fully revealed until production cars were tested at higher speeds.
I was thinking along the same lines. If “in the wind tunnel at higher speeds the roof panel would slightly deform, allowing infiltration around the door window seals”, wouldn’t the same be true with the convertible top? Maybe even more so?
Not necessarily. It all depends on the strength of the top’s structure. The sedan’s roof was a quite flat thin-steel pressing; the convertible roof had considerably greater vertical depth over the tops of the windows than the sedan (see image below). A flat steel panel is inherently prone to flutter. The convertible had many reinforcing bars.
Also, the standards of air sealing around windows was probably less for the convertible than for the sedan.
The 61-63 roof structures are absolutely not lightweight flimsy steel. Nothing on these cars is. Again, I will not believe car club tall tales over Ford internal documentation, of which there seems to be none. I know these overbuilt cars very well, and the “roof flutter” deformation theory doesn’t make any sense. Unfortunately, dubious theories presented as irrefutable fact often become accepted as fact because they are presented by trusted sources.
Your theory make vastly less sense. They were obviously quite aware of the cost and complexity of the convertible rear window system. Why would they then wait until they had already built several hardtops to cancel it, on that basis. Sorry, but overwhelming logic trumps any owner’s pride.
I didn’t say the roof was “flimsy”, just of such a shape that allowed flutter. But yes, you know better on the basis of your ownership.
McNamara was incredibly cheap and they had just had a 60 million dollars loss on Lincoln and he agreed to keep Lincoln but they had to keep it simple, 2 model 4dr sedan and convertible which saved the company money
If you notice the 2 beautiful woman in the 62 photo advertisement, Lincoln advertised that this new shortened Lincoln Continental was easier to parallel part and in 61 had a woman doing so in a ad
Very interesting. It always seemed strange to me that the four door closed style was a sedan with frameless glass, rather than the ‘more prestigious’ hardtop sedan. Like it also seemed weird they’d produce a four door convertible, yet no two-door styles, either hardtop or convertible.
Further support for the last minute abandonment of this style is that the original AMT 1961 Lincoln model kit had this pillarless hardtop body. Back in those days AMT weren’t in the habit of doing cars that didn’t exist, as the tooling was also used for the dealer promotional cars. When the kit was revised into a ’62, the pillar was added – or possibly during the production run, from what Will says above. I built this about fifteen years ago, purchased from an extremely reputable dealer in the US.
Another beauty Peter . The AMT ‘annuals’ were always labeled as ‘hardtops’ or ‘convertible’ on the boxes of that era. So this is a ‘phantom’ that DID exist but only in very low numbers. Speaking of ‘phantoms’, a friend in my car model club built the AMT `61 T Bird as a 4 door hardtop. He shortened the front door on the passenger side and cut the front of the roof back a little and scribed in a back door. He left the driver`s side as a coupe. He painted it pearly white and painted the interior a semi gloss red to simulate leather and flat red for he carpeting. A very unique, one of kind custom that was inspired buy a Studebaker Avanti full size mock up from the book ‘Cars That Never Were’.
That would be fascinating. It’s always dangerous to give in inspiration… 🙂
That proposed `61 T Bird could have been made into a new Mark type coupe with some styling changes It could have been made into a new premium luxury coupe, probably at a not too high development cost as a companion to the Continental sedans an convertibles.
The model in the final photo has the same extremely wide-set eyes as then First Lady Jackie Kennedy. I doubt that’s an accident.
Given that the base sedan was priced well above a base Sedan de Ville, indeed halfway between it and the Fleetwood 60 Special, there was probably an eagle eye on how much a 4 door hardtop would cost. The convertible was well into Fleetwood Eldorado territory so the added complexity of the window seal was priced into that, on top of any lower standards of sealing and quietness convertible buyers had vs sedans.
It’s hard to argue with success, and the pricing gambit worked. Sales were actually a bit less than 1960, but the relative rarity was seen by the wider public as exclusivity and with a higher margin and fewer variables these turned a handsome profit, hitting a sweet spot of people for whom the Cadillac was too gaudy and not special enough but who weren’t yet ready to look to imports.
The sales performance of Lincoln for 1961 is more impressive than it appears at first glance. Not only was there a minor recession in 1961, but Lincoln had culled its lower price models and eliminated the two-door hardtop. During that era, the two-door hardtop body style was very popular at Cadillac.
Sadly the age of the four door hardtops are long gone but they were wonderful while they lasted. My father always bought them and we loved their open unobstructed views.
The “suicide door, T birds” had that thin pillar too didn’t they?
In retrospect, it seems odd that manufacturers thought they needed to offer both hardtops and sedan/coupes, especially where the latter had frameless glass and both body styles shared a roof and C-pillar styling. As noted in the first four words of this post, “take a close look”. If even car enthusiasts need to look closely to tell the difference, it isn’t worth the trouble and expense offering both a sedan and a hardtop. Given the added complexity of the hardtop (auto-opening/closing side glass when the doors were opened and closed), I think Lincoln made the right decision to cancel the hardtop.