We’ve paid tribute to the ’58 – ’60 Lincoln (and Continental) before, but I just couldn’t get past this ’58 posted at the Cohort by Dean Edwards without stopping…in horror. Ok, enough hyperbole. But this was such a mess, most of all the front end. It’s like every cliche was thrown in a blender: stacked and angled headlights, bladed bumpers, concave front wheel/fender whatchamacallits, Dagmars, etc.. Well, they weren’t actually cliches yet in 1958, just styling affectations. But how many can fit on one car?
Here’s a better look at the Leviathan. They manage to make a ’59 Cadillac look pretty clean and almost compact.
Here’s a CC on a ’58, written by Carmine, no less
“But how many can fit on one car?”
Well, there is an awful lot of room to fill. 🙂
Although I have come to admire the basic shape as predictive of the future, the entire front clip of the 58 is just too much. The forward-thrust headlight pods and deeply inset grille, the messy bumper and the exaggerated front fender scallops that have no relationship to the rear of the car – I will choose a 59 or 60 version of this car every time.
The 2 door version captured here was extremely uncommon.
Think of the cartoon “The Jetsons”, and particularly the maid, the hats, etc, and you’ll recall where the …ehhhhh…”inspiration” for these cues came from. People were intoxicated with design notions best left on ugly wall paper.
Still, as an artifact of Americana, I do kind of have a soft spot for these.
Still, as an artifact of Americana, I do kind of have a soft spot for these.
I love it for that reason as well.
What other country would have built this?
Indeed.
The blades on the bumper, spindle grille, overwrought detailing on the sides of the car remind of a modern Lexus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexus_RX#/media/File:Lexus_RX_450h_F_Sport_(IV)_–_Frontansicht,_14._Februar_2016,_Düsseldorf.jpg
Good call, but the car in that link is more like horrifying while the Lincoln is awesome.
John Najjar, Chief Designer, was quoted as saying the direction he was given by George Walker was to “out-do” Cadillac in every way…
Hard to believe these were just two model years after the beautiful ’56’s – and three years before the classic ’61’s.
Instead of which they outdid style.
And that’s dead right, it doesn’t even appear related to the real elegance on either side of the model.
What were they thinking?
The complex GM trucks from the other day showed thinking, lots of it and lots of it good. Much of it was employed later industry-wide. However, in its time, it was certainly economically misguided thinking, and possibly hubristic.
Yet this pile of charmless awfulness shows not merely misguided thinking, but sheer incompetence.
It’s as if a fairly stiff-collared Ford styling team was shown every likely near-future trend – all of them gaudy, as it late-’50’s happens – and hadn’t the foggiest clue as to how to apply any of them, so stuck them all everywhere.
Then nobody was game to tell the Emperor his clothes weren’t so much missing as horrid, and it’s also then likely it was all too late anyway.
So they weren’t thinking so much not thinking as not admitting that they didn’t know in the first place.
Even time itself hasn’t improved the results.
Perfectly stated.
There is a dilapidated navy blue sedan of this vintage near me, by an old garage.
It may be there to scare away evil spirits, like those gargoyles on old NYC skyscrapers.
The featured car is in excellent condition, like if Charles Manson got buff, an Armani suit and some manscaping.
My least favorite of ALL the various Lincoln generations.
A prime example of “Wretched Excess.”
I think we need some perspective here. Custom car trends in that era were full of stacked/slanted dual headlight creations and wheel scallops. 1958 was a particularly bad year for car styling, every year trying to out do the previous. ’58 Buicks and Oldsmobiles are notable. the body design here is pretty clean and devoid of all the chrome typically seen. I think if they went with straight up stacked lights it would have worked out better, but I would believe if you were the target audience for that car in that era you would have thought it to have presence. Hell, Elvis had a ’59 model I believe.
Funny; I was thinking that a talented resto-modder could take one of these and clean up the design, and the result could be gorgeous.
I take it you don’t watch Bitchin’ Rides?
Exactly. The 58 Lincoln / Continental is a mess, to be sure, but context is everything. And in the context of the 58 Buick, Olds, Edsel, Packard, Imperial, etc., it’s just another weird late 50s car. I find the 1958 Buick and “Packard” designs just as objectionable as the Lincoln, personally.
If my understanding of the timeline, the ‘58 Lincoln would have be designed during ‘55-56, finalizing production in early ‘57. Wasn’t it during ‘56 that the beautifully classic and subtle Mark II Continental was showing early signs of tanking? If so, the message was clear: Subtlety doesn’t sell. So you go long and loud.
While jarring, I always considered the ‘58 Lincoln a big improvement over the same year Buick and Oldsmobile. At least it tried to have style.
I think the Mark II Continental was ahead of its time. If it had been launched in 1961 maybe, just maybe things would had been different.
It could be interesting to compare the design of the 1958 Lincoln with the 1958 Imperial.
I wasn’t around at the time, but surely a significant part of the population viewed these as garish and/or bad design?
Based on the looks of this Buick from ’58 which outsold the Lincoln handily, I would say your question is answered in the negative…
I meant the broader population with my question. Not specifically car buyers with questionable taste. 🙂
Daniel, you are correct, many consumers were annoyed and frustrated with the domestic auto makers, not only due to overwrought, impractical designs, but also the incessant, deliberate campaign of planned obsolescence through annual style changes supported by advertising. This frustration bolstered the fortunes of European brands in North America who, as VW promoted, didn’t make changes solely for the sake of change.
I wasn’t around at the time either, but I have hundreds of 1950s and 60s car magazines with plenty of editorials and readers’ letters expressing their opposition to this trend. These publications tended to be restrained on criticism of any particular model since the auto manufacturers supported them through advertising. But they had more freedom to criticize the trends because they could avoid mentioning any particular brand, lest they upset advertisers.
Thanks for your perspective S C. How did the ’61 Lincoln come about so quickly, and dramatically cleaner, if there wasn’t a significant and growing view on main street and boardrooms that Detroit had lost its way. It took roughly another 25 years for carmakers to effectively correct their way of thinking as you outlined. As the brougham epoch of the 70s was yet to arrive, reminiscent of the late 50s mindset in many ways.
Robert McNamara, president of Ford by 1960, was responsible for this sudden and dramatic redirection of the Lincoln division’s strategy. But it was one of financial necessity. McNamara thought Ford’s strategy of adding divisions (Edsel, Continental) wasted money and distracted the firm from producing profitable volume products. The Lincoln division was losing money at the time and lost 60 million in 58-60, proving the concept of outdoing Cadillac wasn’t successful.
In 1958, McNamara had Edsel, Continental and Lincoln on the chopping block, but faced strong internal opposition. Continental went first. Edsel was pared down in 59 and 60, then was cancelled. Lincoln was pared down as well. The model range was reduced for 61 and the model life was extended from 3 years to nine. These extreme measures of economy resulted in the long lived, smaller model we love. With little money for restyle, Lincoln chose superior quality and elegant restraint as marketing differentiation tools vs Cadillac.
“In 1958, McNamara had Edsel, Continental and Lincoln on the chopping block, but faced strong internal opposition.”
The Deuce, William Clay and Benson Ford supported McNamara’s direction of Ford and mid-market decisions but he was playing with fire even suggesting Lincoln be scuttled in the name of loss reduction. 1958 was only fifteen years after the death of their beloved father Edsel in 1943. They all fully understood his interest in and affection for the make and how it had been a refuge for him from his tyrannical increasingly paranoid and cruel father. Needless to say, their mother Eleanor Ford would not have approved the end of her husband’s pet Lincoln. She still held significant blocks of FoMoCo equities, which gave her approval great weight. Additionally, for a company to be considered among the Big Three, it had to have a luxury nameplate at the top of its brand hierarchy.
Changing design direction was their only course to somehow redeem the failure of these unibody giants. It was fortuitous the originally Thunderbird concept was available and perceived to have greater value as a top-line luxury car. Whether McNamara, who has been credited with that perception is true, whoever did exercised taste well beyond what was available when the 1958 was being developed.
The book “The Insolent Chariots” published in 1958 reveals how some people thought of the cars of the day. It’s a good read for anyone interested in old cars.
There a wide-spread upsurge of negative press and general disdain of the new crop of very large and flamboyant cars in the 1957-1959 period, most of all in 1958, which was a sharp recession year. This was brought up in the media, books, magazines, etc. It directly led to a huge upsurge in import car sales during those years, peaking in 1959, and of course the Rambler and Lark enjoyed great success.
This led directly to the ’61 Lincoln and all the ’61 full-size GM cars being a bit smaller and narrower and a tad taller. And the short-deck Cadillacs in ’61-’62.
1958 (and cars like this Lincoln) was essentially the turning point that started the great terminal decline of the Big American Car. It was just a bridge too far for the general public at that time.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/automotive-history-who-killed-the-big-american-car/
John Najjar was the lead stylist, working under the mandate to make the Lincoln distinctive and under the influence of the Tremulis’ La Tosca styling concept and no doubt much management ‘interference’.
Best description of the 1958-1960 Lincolns and Continentals was by author Paul Woudenberg in ‘The Postwar Years: Lincoln & Continental’ : “Misunderstood Giant”.
In general, like most of the American cars of those years, it was “the pleasant insanity of innocent excess”.
Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public. Although I suppose Lincoln has come closer than many…
One of my favorite quotes and it sure does apply here. Thanks
Strange that you would say that, the vehicle pictured reminds me of someone.
I’d paraphrase H.L.’s famous quote:
“No one ever when broke underestimating the taste, ‘or intelligence’, of the American public”.
OK; I get it. The cars I lusted over when I was 14 were a tad excessive in some – or most – aspects of taste.
But these were the “I-like-Ike” and Turquoise-Green-kitchen-appliances times.
I do think Chrysler’s and GM’s 1958 interiors were more “interesting” than Ford’s seemingly flat 2D instrument panels, even if the exteriors were an inch or two over the top. And it does appear that the Ford panels had more gauges than the GMs.
Here’s a photo of a 58 Lincoln dashboard. I’ve seen worse.
We ran a worst car face post about three years ago and I nominated something close to this.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/qotd/qotd-worst-car-face/
What a travesty compared to the cleaner lines of the Cadillac posted yesterday.
Sorry, but no. As OTT goes, these Lincolns were not extreme – look at the simple elegant grill with those beautiful dagmars.
If I’m thinking excess then I’m thinking ’61 Imperial, with the mock-spare on the trunk and the unbelievable free-standing headlights.
I’m with Mellow on this one. As noted above, 1958 was a terrible year for styling. Imho the GM 58 Buick, Olds and especially Cadillac were worse than the Lincoln, more bulbous, over done and over decorated, covered in childish shiny gee-gaws like a cartoon parody.
The Lincoln isn’t Ford’s best work but there’s a degree of restraint by comparison, relatively less useless ornamentation and somewhat more harmonious, flowing lines than GM offerings.
Agreed, I like these.
Why was tinted glass back then green?
I’m alright with most of the styling on this car; if those unnecessary front fender scoops and the odd bumper shape to accommodate it were dropped it would be a reasonably clean shape. And Lincoln was ahead of the curve by adopting unibody construction; not sure if it helped on a car this huge and heavy or not though.
I take it the “Living Garage” concept didn’t catch on. Was this a thing that was being pushed in 1958 as a home trend? Not that I wouldn’t mind having this garage, which is considerably bigger than my entire last apartment.
But I don’t really get it. Is the Living Garage supposed to be a space for entertaining? For evening tea? Whatever, this house makes me realize my eaves are way too boring…
The name always makes me think of a garage that’s alive instead of an alternative to the living room. I’m guessing this didn’t catch on because television was blowing up in that era too and if it was a choice of hanging with the tube or the car, America chose the former.
Not to mention how often cars smelled like unburnt gas and other undesirable in-home scents.
I knew people in the late 60s-early 70s who had a multi-panel screen setup that attached in the garage door opening, complete with a hinged door in one panel. I think the idea was to add outdoor living space for people without a dedicated screened porch.
This concept just kicks it up several notches for high earners. Who would not want to gaze upon your new Lincoln as you sip Manhattans while entertaining the neighbors?
Seriously, it seems that the attached garage was a new enough concept in 1958 that designers were trying to find out how far they could go with it. Not this far, it turns out.
My wife’s grandparents kept up with the living garage thing well into the 90’s with a screen to cover the area for the open door.
The neighborhood where I live, with some houses built in the late 1920s, is apparently one of the very first to feature front-facing garages designed into the main section of the house rather than looking like an attached outbuilding as many early home garages did or being hidden in the back. The ones I’ve been in are too short to hold late-50s to 70s big American cars like this Lincoln though.
I recall about 20 years ago, when the magazine that originally featured this ran a retrospective. It was either House and Garden or House Beautiful.
In those pre-fuel injection days, I’m not sure I’d want to share living space with a car, given that they always seemed to have a faint odor of gasoline when stored in a garage.
Definitely the smell. There is also the safety factor. Cars have been known to catch on fire.
I have a neighbor with a corner walk-out ranch home. There is a drive from the side street to a second two car tandem garage in the lower level. He is a car collector, and the garage is visible through large plate glass windows from the lower level rec room.
It really didn’t cost him much for the modification, just putting windows in a divider wall. And, much more sensible dividing off living space from a garage vs. the living garage.
I believe a Chevy Cameo truck and a ’60s Corvette are in the garage. He is older, and I don’t see him much anymore – he and his wife have seemingly extended their winter stay in their Arizona home – where COVID is still quite rare.
I want this house.
Me too. It would practically force one to buy a restored classic to park there, leaving aside the gorgeous space itself.
The concave front wheel arches always ruined it for me far more than the canted headlights. I think it would be a fairly graceful ’50s design, elegant even, if it weren’t for the front third of the car.
I always kind of wondered where Chrysler got the inspiration for the front wheel scallops of the 1960-61 Plymouth. Question answered.
The 59 and 60 front fenders were toned down significantly.
Your wish is Elwood Engel’s command. In 1959 the headlights are still canted but no ovals around them and integrated into the grille. The concave arch sculpture around the front wheel openings is flattened and extended into the door. It’s more of a raised outline than the original scooped out sculpture.
When this car came out I was fifteen. I loved it then and I still do. I saw a four-door in black with a black leather interior. it was elegant. Then came the sixties and vinyl black interior son more common vehicles. There was no comparison to the fineness of the big Lincoln interior in that color. I would still love to own one of those convertibles! Nice tanks. Attached is an ad for the 1959 model with Mrs. Oleg Cassini, the fashion designer’s wife, seated in her 1959. Look at the picture. Perhaps Mrs. Cassini was petite but the contrast of the lady to the gargantuan automobile is a riot.
That’s actually the wife of Igor Cassini, younger brother of Oleg and a New York high-society columnist. He was one of a series of writers to use the pen name “ Cholly Knickerbocker.”
What’s amusing about this endorsement is that even then, a well-heeled Manhattanite really didn’t need a car, much less one that she drove herself.
Rich Manhattanites generally had country houses, which were particularly appreciated in the summer before the widespread adoption of residential air conditioning.
Anyone who was in a position to leave the city during the hottest summer months generally did so. They would need a car for use while at their country home.
It would not be surprising, however, if that car was something on the order of a Ford Country Squire, as opposed to a Lincoln (or Cadillac).
I’m trying to figure out why rich Manhattanites wouldn’t have air conditioning in their own home, which was certainly widely available by 1958.
Central air conditioning for homes wasn’t that common in the late 1950s. Plus, by the late 1950s, a large percentage of rich Manhattanites would have lived in large apartment buildings, not single-family homes.
Plus, having a country home was a status symbol, as was being able to vacate the city for long periods of time in the summer. Middle-class and working-class New York City residents could not afford such a home, and certainly couldn’t leave their jobs for long stretches of time.
I was thinking more like window A/C boxes, like this 1958-vintage (GM-built) Frigidaire I still have that dates from 1958, which could be used in many rented apartments.
The question would be whether the building owner would allow tenants to install such units. It’s my understanding that the electrical systems of older buildings (and most of these buildings had been built prior to World War II) were not able to the handle the additional load of many air conditioners.
I’m not an expert in postwar air conditioning in New York city, but I recall many pictures from not so many years ago with buildings fairly bristling with window AC units. Look up vintage pictures of the city, and you’ll find them to be prolific.
Window AC can run on 110 volts, so a typical wall socket was all that was needed. Yes, total load in a unit or building was likely quickly an issue, but I would imagine that many buildings, especially upscale ones, saw continuous upgrades. Many kinds of electronics, including notable energy users like dishwashers, television, Hi-Fi, bigger refrigerators, etc. came on like gangbusters after the war, and wealthy Manhattanites would be the last to sit out the postwar consumer product revolution. They had more access to television signals both before and after the war than any place on earth, and were not going to bypass the products Milton Berle was pushing as early as June 1948.
This article from CNBC gives a contemporary look at the use of AC in older buildings in New York city.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/26/ac-units-central-air-summer-window-new-york-america.html
Helen Hays was one of the finest actresses, both film and Broadway, she was also arount 5 feet tall and very petite, Lincoln did an ad with her 1959 Premiere coupe, in off-white, with white leather interior, she described how effortless it was to drive from her farm, to perform on Broadway each evening.’ The car was gorgeous.
In the lead photo, it looks like she could be asking, “Help me dock this boat!”
As noted before, outlandish styling was par for the course during the 1958 model year so I do not have a special disdain for this particular example of excess.
However what does interest me about these cars is that despite their size and what has to be great weight, they are unibody cars. At first glance one would think that they need a truck chassis to support the body but that’s not what they were. I guess these must have been, along with the contemporary T-Birds, the first Ford unibody cars.
I’ve read that the basic unitbody structural engineering was shared with the Lincoln and T bird. The long Lincolns weren’t particularly rigid, but the lighter, more compact T birds were very strong, and over built (and heavy) because they used a structure intended for the larger Lincoln
Ford engineered these Lincolns and the 1958 Thunderbird without the use of computer-aided design. The engineers took prototypes to the proving grounds (located in Arizona, if I recall correctly), and proceeded to abuse them. Any structural failures and “sag” in the bodies were were addressed by beefing up the structure. A 1956 Hudson, and a 1957 body-on-frame Thunderbird, were on hand for comparison purposes.
The result was a strong structure, but one that was also very heavy for its size. One of the advantages of unit-body construction – lighter weight – was lost.
Those…lights… have to be the worst part for me. Not sure if it gave anthropomorphic vibes in its day but I see this fellow in them every time.
1958-60 Lincoln = the Roger Smith of old cars? Perfect.
Carmine’s report is fun and well-done. He is very fair in his assessment. Easy to show contempt for these today, but as others have done in the comments here, he gives good perspective.
I was only a year old when these were launched, but there were plenty of 1958 cars on the roads by the time I was old enough to care and know, and I think that was a pretty low year for Detroit. Even the ‘58 Fords and Chevies looked overdone compared to their predecessors; really only the Forward Look Mopars have stood the test of time well.
I have a video of the late ’57 TV debut of this car on the Ed Sullivan Show.
Opening shot: Trumpet fanfare, and they knock the viewer’s eye out with a zoom-in on the canted headlight pod up front. Voiceover: “Presenting classic elegance in motorcars…” The supremely elegant Julia Meade presents these as the “…longest, lowest, most spacious Lincolns ever!” As we hear violins playing “Around the World in 80 Days”, Julia breathlessly tells us that “Every known power assist is at your command…” The Mark III convertible is “the most beautiful car in the world, made with the highest standards of craftsmanship!” Closing shots of cars on pedestals; Voiceover exclaims, “The most magnificent new motorcars of our time!”
Cut to Ed Sullivan on stage, who quips, “Those are really knock-outs, aren’t they? I had my eye on one out at the factory–it’s a Mark III in Peach–oh, brother–this is really a JOB! So visit your Continental and Lincoln dealer this week, and see these magnificent new cars for yourself!”
Your post brought back a very foggy memory from long ago. Again, Ed Sullivan show, because that’s what everyone watched at 8pm Sunday night, but I think it was the intro to the 56 Lincoln, probably fall of 55. I distinctly remember Sullivan excitedly announcing the next commercial (live of course) as “The Dance of the Lights”. It might have even been pre-announcement because I remember the car being covered and only the front visible. Now the 56 had a lot of lights in the front, 2 headlights, 4 separate driving/parking lights and two fog lights mounted on the bumper. 8 lights total. They rigged it up to let each of the 8 lights blink individually, timed to some sort of music if I remember correctly. As a 9yo, I was extremely excited by it. I guess you had to be there!
Huge though these may be, I saw one in the metal a few years ago, and it seemed astonishingly small in a way – these cars are short (low). Longer, lower and wider taken to an extreme. The optical illusion created by the proportions is really quite amazing.
How short is it? 56.5″ according to a Wikpedia page. Height of a Toyota Rav4? Up to 68.6 inches. A car over a foot shorter than an average modern car will really catch your eye today.
These were rare used up unloved used cars when I was a kid, I really was not aware of any Lincoln prior to the ’61s for many years. When I finally “discovered” these, the novelty was quite addicting. I could rock one of these in my garage, especially the one in the lead photo.
But your modern example is a crossover. I’m thinking very few, if any, current sedans exceed 60 inches in height, which coincidentally was the height of a 1957 Chevy. So 56.5 inches isn’t that much lower, but the great length and width of these Lincolns would certainly make the car appear lower.
A 60 inch woman is considered short. A 56.5 inch woman isn’t that much shorter but is considered to be very short. Sometimes a few inches makes a world of difference. Just ask the two referenced short ladies above.
Agree entirely. But, the bestselling Rav4 is very representative of the average vehicle (car) today. It’s the modern landscape in which an old dinosaur like this would roam. I have two extended family members that will tell you they are shopping for new “cars” at this time, and both are looking at Rav4s.
I call my F-150, Ford Freestyle and Ford Fusion “cars.” Sometimes I’ll throw the term truck at the F-150, just because it hauls and tows in a way most modern “cars” can’t. And, they are all taller than the ’58 Lincoln.
The convertible versions of these were very well executed. They had a reverse canted backlight, similar to the “breezeway” Mercuries, framed in a heavy chromed bezel. The glass rear window retracted behind the rear seat prior to folding the top. And the top itself appeared to be thick and well insulated.
These were extremely heavy cars, overbuilt due to being the first true unibody cars from Ford Motor Company. Without the computer modeling we now take for granted, the engineers simply added more structure to be on the safe side.
That decklid looks big enough to hold a queen-size mattress. I agree though, I might not even realize this was a convertible.
That one is a Continental model, but that’s the only convertible model they made.
Buzz,
Actually, the rear glass has to be up to retract the top. There’s even a “fail safe” to put the window up if it’s down when the top switch is activated.
Ah, my mistake. Seems like it made sense for the glass to be down.
I actually really like these – the GM/Cadillac Buick cars may have been more popular at the time but these are much more exciting. The ’59 Cadillac is a car show Cliche, a ’58 Lincoln is an attention getter.
Indeed, many of the late fifties cars fall into the Ed Wood movie category of being so bad, they’re good. The ’58-’60 Lincoln could fit that description.
In my pursuit, in younger years, to have every car made, (I started driving at age 15, in 1963) over the years I had at least one of every American car built in 1958, usually more than one, this ’58 Capri was 1 of a dozen Lincoln’s and Continental Mark III (also had ’59 and ’60’s). This car had been completely gone through electrically, everything performed as new. I drove it on a few long drives, , biggest drawback on these, they all got 10 mpg with the 430/375, they reduced to 430/350 in ’59, and put 2 bbl’s on in ’60 with 430/315 to try better fuel mileage, it didn’t work. This car and a white Mark III convertible, because prior owner’s spent on them, were wonderful, other than fuel mileage, the rest, especially the ’58’s had problem’s, another black sedan had a rear door that jammed shut at the factory, and still was when I had it, the fit was so tight paint chipped on the door edge constantly. The body’s made unusual noise’s also, which was fixed for ’59-’60. When these were right, you had comfort, silence, speed, decent handling and brakes and to me, and people who admired these car’s, style. Of course, I thought following had style also.
some of the Buick’s
nostalgia B&W of my silver Limited.
One of my ’58 Cadillac’s
Maternal Grandparents had a Turquoise 58. I was all of 6 when i first saw it in the Fall of 57. I loved it. Bizarre as some of the details were, it was essentially long, low and wide. Made the GMs look like like overyeasted loaves of bread. Even my Paternal Grandfather, a long time Cadillac man gave up on the marque, keeping his 57 Cadillac until 61 after the excessive fins fad had passed and then Went to Buick Electra. Dad did likewize. Buying Mom a Mercury, as overdone as they have been in 58, and only returning to Pontiac in 59, after the doughiness was sliced off of GM offerings. I still like the 58 through 60 Lincolns. though due to sales numbers, MacNamara was about to kill Lincoln when he spotted a possible 61 Thunderbird styling buck, asked if it could accommodate 4 doors and made a Lincoln. The stylists said it could. but the smaller doors necessitated adopting what became a styling trope for Lincoln in the 60s, the “Carriage” or to be more crass “suicide” doors. My Maternal Grands did trade that 58 Lincoln for a new 61.
I actually love the 1958-60 Lincoln’s and feel they were some of the best Lincoln’s ever built, especially the 1958 Lincoln’s with the 430/375bhp V8 engine, weren’t they the longest Lincoln’s built prior to the 5mph bumper era?
First off, the 1958 Mercury was a beautiful car, and so was the Chevrolet. Not all 1958 cars were extreme.
Second, how do you know if a car is too big unless you make one that is too big? Ford found out with this Lincoln. All cars grew in size during the 1950s, and if your brand is known for size, what do you do when your low price brands are as large? You get bigger, right?
We see cars designed for freeway driving, not schlepping down Main street. Big cars, big engines, big styling.
Loved it then (at age 5)
Love it, even more, now.
As Carmine noted pointed out if there ever was never a more Googie car than the ‘58 Continental.
If there ever was a more Googie idea it was the “living garage”, which thankfully never caught on. Attached garage go back farther than one would think. Chicago has two of what are believed to be the first homes with attached garages, a 1906 house on the northside by Walter Burley Griffin and the famous Frank Lloyd Wright designed 1909 Robie House (Griffin & his wife had both worked for Wright). The attached garage concept didn’t really gain popularity until after WWII, and by the late ‘50’s some attached garages were unable to contain barges like the ‘58 Lincoln. So the why not admire those Detroit beauties while entertaining or relaxing?
Remember that many people drank heavily at lunch in the 50s.
I would like to see a photoshop done of the front end. The lights would be stacked vertically straight up and down, the fender edge canted forward with a distinct V’d hood. The bumper edges would be flatter and blend into flatter fender coves. It would look like a ’67 Cadillac, which is one of my favorites. I think that people might have thought that luxury cars should be big like yachts, not small like a typical speed boat. The bigger the better, smooth sailing, though you have more room in the ocean.
I loved these as a kid but now I agree, these Lincolns reek of bad taste – just like the “squarebirds”
I like the Imperials so much more – much better built w/ better engines, transmissions and suspensions – and more comely too
I think Imperial actually outsold Lincoln because of these monstrosities
Ford made the opposite car w/ the 1961 Continental and that’s pure class
As I recall Imperial outsold Lincoln only in 1957 when Imperial was brand new and Lincoln had screwed up the gorgeous 1956 design. For the rest of Imperial’s life it was number 3.
Imperial outsold Lincoln once, in 1957. By the next year, the quality of the 1957 Chryslers was a known problem, and in the recession year of 1958, Imperial suffered mightily, and Lincoln was solidly in second place again in big three luxury sales.
According to some sources, Imperial outsold LINCOLN for 1958.
That is because Continental was apparently considered a separate marque for that year, even though Continental was, by then, really another trim level of the basic Lincoln body. Combine Lincoln and Continental sales for 1958, and they outsold Imperial.
With the technicality that the Continental Division was not officially abandoned until either 1959, or with the end of the 1959 model year, I took a look at my go to source for numbers, the Standard Catalog.
For 1958
Lincoln = 17,134
Continental = 11,550
Imperial = 16,102
Close, but not quite, according to this source.
According to Consumer Guide, I was off by a year.
Imperial outsold Lincoln in 1959 and 1960. But for 1961, there was no separate Continental marque, while Imperial went off the styling deep end.
Imperial was definitely back in third place.
The technicality of a division or marque is an interesting one.
Imperial as a marque obviously faded into the woodwork over time, and the public rightly saw it as nothing more than a high trim / well optioned Chrysler in its final 1974 -1975 iteration.
I read somewhere that Chrysler executives finally killed Imperial as a marque as they were tired of seeing it dead last among sales of mass market marques, and nearly dead last even counting exotic sports and luxury offerings.
Ford executives had to be in the same spot in the late 1950s.
The ’58 Lincoln to me looks like a one off George Barris custom car that someone at Lincoln liked so much that they decided to build copies of at the factory. If I had been a new car buyer at the time, I would have gone Imperial, but being a Mopar guy, that’s not surprising. Yet, as being so relentlessly a product of its time, I still kind of like the ’58 Lincolns in a grudging admiration kind of way. If I were to park a Lincoln in my garage, it’s always going to be a ’61 or ’62 which are probably some of the most timeless cars ever made.
They seem to have just kept throwing styling features at it to see what would stick, unfortunaly they all did and the effect is bizzare the first time I saw a picture of one of these Lincons I thought it was a badly done custom not a production car.
Those concave whatchamacallits could probably be accurately called coves ala C1 Corvettes. It’s busy and full of 50s styling tropes but I think the Lincoln pulls them off better than 58-59 Ford/Mercury/Edsels that are almost as overdecorated. Being a Unibody, Ford’s first(domestically?), actually adds some engineering substance to the lavish exterior. Those basic bones would go on to underpin the 61
The 58 Thunderbird was unit construction as well. It had been decided that both T-Bird and Lincoln would be built at the new Wixom plant in 1958. If my memory is right, the T-Bird guys were excited about the unit construction because they wanted a low floor with minimal frame interference. The Lincoln guys squawked because they were forced into the unit structure for production efficiency reasons.
The engineer who pushed for unit construction was Earle MacPherson who recommended the method for the four seat Thunderbird to achieve the low profile with rigidity. Problem was no one had built a car of the immense size of the planned Lincoln. The benefit of unit-bodies for small cars was well-known but because they were in a trial and error engineer mode for these, applying bracing and gusseting added weight as testing revealed failures.
Body-on-frame was a better choice for luxury cars, easier to isolate NVH, more flexible when developing wider body style choices. There were very good reasons Cadillac stay with the method for years.
Lincoln, chronically beset with low sales volumes, appeared the ideal make to fill out the capacity at the all-new Wixom plant. It did fill that role for years, though Thunderbird carried the overhead and more, while it would be the late 1960’s before Lincoln turned into the cash cow it did. By then, the Lincolns were back to body-on-frame construction.
The profile shot in the post is from a brochure or ad and is stretched, as one did in those days, not that it would seem to be in any way necessary.
The ‘558-’60s were an acquired taste. The idea was to outdo Cadillac on every front, size, style and power. Well, two out of three. I’ve owned three of them, currently a ’60 Turquoise convertible. They’re very comfortable, powerful and handle surprisingly well. Styling? Well, they de-contented the design every year, arriving at something closer to normalcy by ’60. Quality was improved by ’60, but it was too late for this design.
The original design for the ’58 Mk III was much closer to a cohesive design, but politics intruded and the “one size fits all” design for the Lincoln/Continental was chosen.
Here’s another shot of the prototype.
I see so much of Lincoln’s 1960’s success in this prototype.
And the ’60 convertible…much more cohesive front.
“What Were They Thinking?”
They were thinking, “This is the styling buyers want.” And apparently, the buyers agreed: 51.8% of respondents said ’58 Lincoln styling is the car’s best feature. (A higher percentage than Imperial or Cadillac).
(Popular Mechanics, July 1958)
I would have to agree that by 1960 this design was better worked out. I remember going to a used car lot with my Dad in 1966-67 and seeing several of these Lincolns, even a convertible,in the back row. They were all offered at 499 dollars. I got to inspect them up close and even sit behind the wheel. I was in the fifth grade and I thought that they were pretty weird, as opposed to the late 50’s Cadillacs which always struck me as being “cool.”
The inspiration for the fender scallops reputedly came from this 1955 Citroen 15-Six limousine by Franay displayed at the Paris Auto Show. Typically, the upper management of automakers attended these European shows, where they saw the work of various coachbuilders and their individual designs. Some of the styling feature created enough of a impression to later find expression on American cars. No judgement whether this one should have been left in France…
It all boils down to Ford motor company getting the discordant styling mess award for 1959-59 then it was passed on to Chrysler corporation for 1960-61 for their bizarre designs while the others started to clean up styling. Not to insult owners of these cars; they are all interesting unlike a lot of more modern models.
It appears to me that Woodstock wasn’t the only time when that bad brown acid was floating around…
I thought that I had posted this, but it looks like it did not take, so I will try again.
Actually, the 1960 Limo was a rather impressively expensive looking handsome car. Somewhat toned down from the 1958 models, and with the private limo look of the rear portion of the roof, it was much less radical. Landau bars may not be factory original.
I would have loved to see the look on the faces of citizens of Mayberry, when this car pull up to Goober’s gas station for a fill up!
An ad for the ’58, and a picture of the set–showing structure to be obscured by the car. From this angle the front-wheel coves and front end seem more restrained than in the car-show or “Living Garage” photos:
One more advertising shoot (I can’t find an actual ad that corresponds):