As a teenager, I visited the Henry Ford Museum with my parents once every year or two. It was a nice day trip for the family and it allowed me to have my social time with the things I understood best, those grand American cars of the 1950s and 1960s. I would pay homage to all my favorites: the 1967 LeMans-winning GT40 Mark IV, the Mustang I concept, 1965 Mustang serial number 100001, and this: the Ford X-100. I’d sit down in the dim atmosphere of that decades old museum, inches from the X-100’s massive front bumper, contemplating why I found it so captivating. I don’t think it’s traditionally beautiful, but some things (like some people) have a presence that transcends any explanation. It wasn’t until later that I realized how many cars it stylistically influenced.
The X-100 initially hit the show circuit in 1952 but really made the rounds starting in 1953, racking up more than 30,000 road miles driving (!) from show to show in America and in Europe. Based on a 1952 Lincoln chassis with a 317 cubic-inch Lincoln Y-Block, the X-100 was almost the next Continental, but when Ford decided to take a more classical approach with the eventual Mark II, the concept car reverted to its original name. Mac’s Motor City Garage did a nice writeup of the X-100, and if you want to know more about its history, Jim and Cheryl Farrell’s Ford Design Department Concept & Show Cars 1932-1961 is an excellent resource.
So, back to the X-100’s influence on production cars. It’s clear that at the very least the 1955 Mercury’s headlight surround was a dead ringer for the X-100’s. Its bold grille also maintained a familial resemblance, although the X-100’s was more prow-forward than the production Merc’s.
Even more obvious is the headlight surround, front wheelwell, and fender shape of the 1956 Lincoln, a car that is still highly praised as being among the most tasteful 1950s American luxury cars. The X-100 was too popular a showpiece not to exploit, and as soon as Ford decided to look backward for its Continental Mark II, they also decided to look forward for the new Lincoln and Premiere.
The X-100’s bold hood “scoop” (it didn’t really scoop anything) was used five years later on the divisive restyling of the full-size Ford for 1958. I think it was the right choice; the Ford’s plain hood benefited from a “power dome” to add some interest, just as it did on the X-100.
Of course, the most well-known use of the X-100’s styling was the tail of the Bullet Bird, a car that was introduced almost a decade later. It’s a good sign that a show car is ahead of its time when its basic styling themes still look futuristic 10 years after it was first released.
Ford wasn’t quite done mining the X-100 for ideas in 1961; the hash marks on the door of the T-Bird’s 1963 refresh look too similar to the quarter panel trim on the X-100 to be a complete coincidence. Now’s where we get into the realm of speculation, because I think that other manufacturers also used a couple cues from the X-100.
This one may be a stretch, because many manufacturers were using aircraft-style controls for their cars. Because I own a ’63 Riviera and use these controls regularly, however, I can’t help noticing a distinct similarity between the lower knobs on the center of the X-100’s dashboard and the Riviera’s heater controls. It’s even more apparent in other images.
This last one is admittedly the least likely of the bunch. The 1954 Studebaker’s grille got some additional vertical trim for 1954, a year after the X-100 became a darling of the show circuit. Coincidence? You have to admit that the shape of the grille openings are similar. The X-100 was on display (at least as a “pushmobile”) in 1952, so the grille shape itself may be a coincidence, but there was a lot of cross-pollination in the industry in the 1950s and 1960s.
Unfortunately, the X-100 has been in storage for quite a while now and is no longer displayed on the floor of the museum; this picture is from the last time I saw it in public at the 2018 Motor Muster car show. Having recently taken my yearly visit to the museum, I realized how much I miss sitting near the X-100 and communing with it.
I guess I feel bad for it in a way, and you may only understand that sentiment if you also commune with machinery. For a couple years, the X-100 was the talk of the town, pretty redheads posing behind its wheel. Then it influenced a decade of production cars from its parent company (and maybe others) before its donation to a museum where its only adulation came from car nerds. Finally, it was retired ignominiously to storage. I guess it’s better to have been adored and forgotten than never adored at all, and at least it has a story to tell. Too many cars don’t.
Before I get carried away, are there any styling cues adapted from the X-100 that I missed? Or other concept cars that were more far-reaching in their influence?
Pictures are courtesy of the author, The Henry Ford Museum and Ford Motor Company, and Classic Auto Mall (for the Studebaker).
That rear glass is amazing. Did the basket handle inspire the c-pillar of the Thunderbird Roofline?
I’m not sure, Don, but now that I look at it, its angle certainly inspired the ’55 Crown Victoria.
I find the shape of the windshield to be a good predictor of the way out of the wrap around dog leg windshield designs of the late 1950’s. This certainly was not a 1952 shape.
The fishbowl windshield and reverse-tilted A pillars had appeared on a Harley Earl GM show car in 1951, though they wouldn’t reach production until several years later.
Tail lamp divisions on the Mk.1 Ford Cortina (though inverted).
The glass forward section of the roof ended up on `54-`56 Fords and Mercurys, albeit in plexiglas form and tinted. And it didn’t retract like the X-100 roof.
I’ve had the rare opportunity to have sat in this concept a number of years ago. Innovative as the styling was, it was overburdened with a huge 10lb. phone receiver and large knobs for controls I didn’t care for, but that was 1952 for you. You could tell this concept had been driven over the years too, which isn’t all bad considering most concepts are push-mobiles.
A nice writeup! If show cars exists (in part) to preview–and maybe gauge public reaction to—eventual production-car features, there are plenty on the X-100. Nice to know that it really was fully functional and rolled up all those miles.
The Mac’s Motor City link has pictures of the 5-carburetor setup under the hood, with really stylish custom ducting.
Here at Henry Ford is the giveaway (?) brochure describing all the features—including **12-volt** electric system. Had that shown up on any Detroit cars (or show cars) just yet?
https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digital-collections/artifact/369089#slide=gs-242264
Some authors think Chrysler’s later turbine car was inspired by this.
I see a lot of later Turbine Car cues in the La Galaxie.
Was Elwood Engel involved with the X-100 or La Galaxie?
Maybe not directly, but he was working at Ford styling at the time, so he almost assuredly had a look at it.
The only question is if he had replaced Exner at Chrysler in time to use it on the Turbine Car.
Engel and Oros worked for George Walker, who was a Ford consultant from late 1947 through 1955, when they all became Ford employees. Engel went to Chrysler in 1961 after being passed over as Walker’s successor as VP of design. He was most assuredly privy to any major design work being done at Ford up to mid-1961.
I was young and Dad took me to an auto show. We were an Air Force family, lived in so many places, no idea where this car show was. I was perhaps five years old, dressed in a coat and tie. I saw the Lincoln Futura and was spell-bound. I went under the stations to touch that pearl paint. The female model showing the Futura let me sit in the car. The crowd loved the little guy but Dad not so much.
The whole format and especially the interior with its bucket seats and console is a preview of the ’58 Thunderbird. The IP influenced the ’55-up Fords. They should have called it “The Predictor”.
I don’t care for the bullet on lower front bumper outsides.
Just below the crease line on the 1963 Thunderbird, near the center of the door, were three groupings of forward-slanting chrome hash marks with five strips in each group. Motor Trend (October 1962) said these were supposed to remind one of turbine waste gates.
I remember back in the day hearing them called “Simulated Turbine Waste Gates.”
I made the case years ago that the Soviet GAZ Chaika had the same hooded headlamps as the X-100 — likely by way of Lincoln or Mercury, but still. Quite an influential design!
The prominent round taillights of course became a Ford design trademark for over a decade – a good example of a simple, elegant design concept that can be successfully reworked for years. I’m still waiting for it to reappear – it was arguably one of the most attractive details of the short-lived ‘Honda e’. 🙂
The Studebaker grille detail addition seems far from unlikely to me – it looks like a direct lift, and a good one. The similarities in the basic grille design must have been noticed by Studebaker stylists.
Imagine encountering this on the road in 1953 as it drove from one show to another. The average citizen would be darn near convinced that an alien invasion was underway.
I love the look of this. My first thoughts in relation to Aaron’s question were Studebaker and bullet bird. It looks pretty much like a cross between those two to me.
The brochure that George posted the link to is great as well. The inclusion of a dictaphone and an electric shaver definitely was ahead of its time, but certainly prescient as shaving and talking to invisible people are indeed commonplace behind the wheel activities 70 years later. Too bad they didn’t include a television camera, an electric toothbrush, and a gigantic Thermos…it truly would have been Tomorrow’s Car Today.
Finally, the brochure’s mention that one of the innovations was “electrically-operated jacks built into each wheel” is amusing. Apparently the future was thought to include pretty much constant flat tires (otherwise, why include the complication of a jack on every wheel?). No wonder they were all about flying cars back then. Fewer flats.
Looking at this concept, I can’t help but see the Lincoln Futura in those headlight surrounds on the front fenders.
Perhaps this car indirectly influenced the Batmobile that was made from that latter concept car by George Barris as one of his “Kustom” cars.
There is really not a lot of daylight between the Futura and the Barris Batmobile, so, yeah.
Looks like Suzy Parker driving it on the cover of the French magazine. The car has some nice cameos in a movie called “Woman’s World” –
It , indeed, does appear to be her! “The Best of Everything”, was just on last wkd.
I think it influenced some German Fords, too (just click on the images in the link to see the full publications).
https://www.motomobil.com/en/your-ford/17m-p2/brochures-17m-p2
And the Ford Consul Cortina Mk1’s rear lights, perhaps?
https://autocatalogarchive.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Ford-Cortina-1963-NL.pdf
In addition to Mercury, Plymouth & Packard both had that sort of forward canted hood over the headlights in ’55.
I think most of the obvious design influences have been mentioned. I’ll submit a few ‘stretches’…. 1955 Pontiac at its front – the visual effect of its three thin and vertical chrome pieces, its three-levels of chrome and the absence of a grille; the X-100’s three level bumper with its thin, vertical ‘bumps’ on each side and the absence of a grille………….. ’57-58 Chrysler & DeSoto 2dr HT back window looks like a close fit to the X-100.
The ’59 Lincoln MkIV parking lights up front seem to be directly influenced by the X-100.