Andy made a series of cartoon panels on his personal theory of Elwood Engel’s Revenge:
After being passed over for the Ford Design Vice Presidency, Elwood Engel took revenge by taking many Lincoln concepts with him to Chrysler, where he was made VP .One of those, the Lincoln Mk IX,above left, influenced many cars of the 60s .
Here’s more:
I have to agree!
Someone else once pointed out the similarity between the front of Chrysler Turbine Car and the rear of the 1961 Thunderbird.
T Bird
I’m not so sure the rear of the ’61 ‘Bullet-Bird’ was the inspiration for the Turbine Car’s front end. Seems like it may have been a spin-off of the ‘pie-plate’ headlight nacelles from the 1962 Plymouth, which would have been more of an Exner styling feature.
The pie-plates would then later show up on the ’64 A100 and ’65 D100 trucks.
Recent biography published on Ford design head George Walker goes into great detail about why Engel was passed over. It also has a chapter devoted to all the sexual activity in the Ford design studio by Walker and how Engel tried to copy his mentor in that area but he was clumsy about it and ended up divorced. Truly Mad Men in reality
I can’t find that biography despite a bunch of different searches. Have a reference?
Could it be “The Cellini of Chrome”…???
“Three men are generally recognized and acknowledged as having been the most directly responsible for bringing styling and design into the corporate functions of major Detroit automakers. The lives and careers of two, Raymond Loewy and Harley Earl, have been examined and recounted in numerous books, yet it is only now that the third, George W. Walker, is the subject of a book.
The Cellini of Chrome, The Story of George W Walker / Ford Motor Company’s First Vice President of Design takes its title from a November 1957 issue of Time magazine that featured Walker on its cover. The irony here is that Time had featured Raymond Loewy on the cover of an October 1949 issue—but never published a cover feature on Harley Earl…
The Cellini of Chrome, The Story of George W Walker / Ford Motor Company’s First Vice President of Design is highly commended not merely for inclusion on your library’s shelves but to actually sit down and read purely for the enjoyment of what Henry Dominguez has written and the story he’s told…”
http://www.deansgarage.com/2021/the-cellini-of-chrome/
Title: The Cellini of Chrome
Subtitle: The Story of George W Walker / Ford Motor Company’s First Vice President of Design
Author: Henry Dominguez
Description: 384 pages, 11” x 10.25”, hardcover w/dust jacket, 250 b/w & 78 color photos but (alas) no index
ISBN: 978 0 999 8754 3 8
Publisher: Racemaker Press, 2020 http://www.racemaker.com
List Price: $90
You beat me to it!
Not a cheap book, but it is an interesting chronicle of Walker’s career.
Thanks. But $90…yikes! Amazon doesn’t even have it (I was looking for a used copy). Or libraries. Or the Strand bookstore.
Maybe for my birthday….?
The book is The Cellini of Chrome: The Story of George W. Walker.
I have a copy. It is a very interesting overview of Walker’s career, and includes information on Engel’s time at Ford.
Here is the link to place an order for the book:
https://racemaker.com/catalog/the-cellini-of-chrome-the-story-of-george-w-walker-ford-motor-companys-first-vice-president-of-design/
yes it is a great book, I treated myself. It is a very large book, heavy. Many pictures.
shows a lot of those influential Ford Advanced design studio cars like the Lincoln above. Ford in the 50s was really a styling leader in many ways.
Time magazine’s cover story was an insider joke if you happened to know the sex life of Cellini…
In automotive design, cross-pollination is the sincerest form of flattery!
Another Chrysler with a front end that is a close copy of the Lincoln Mark IX is the 1970 Dodge Coronet.
Who’s going to break the news to him that it’s spelled “donor”?
“On Doner, on Blitzen, on Comet and Cupid!” It’s hard to see that Lincoln in post-history without thinking it looks less “of a piece” than would be the case if we didn’t know what the cars it begat look like.
And of course the elephant in the room, the 1961 Lincoln/1964 Imperial. Probably photos are unnecessary for those. The first year of that Imperial model also even has a version of the split grille.
I always hear at least once at ever show or cruise night I go to how someone likes my “Lincoln” and then asking why it does not have suicide doors. I just politely say Imperials don’t have them. I say the same guy that designed those did mine. Personally, of the 64-66 Imperials, I feel like 65 was the most cohesive look of the the three.
The seeds of overwrought bad taste!
Those booties have some serious 60’s Cazal sunglass envy going on.
The devil is in the details. Styling is so subjective, yet so commonly although not near universally acknowledged, ie Jag E type as a good looking car. ’63 Corvette. I see the above Continentals as good looking, the rear of the T bird, very nice. But others with distinctly similar, but different, not even in the same league.