(EXPANDED FROM 6/16/2023)
A few years ago Jim and Cheryl Farrell’s articles about the 1961 Continental’s development got me thinking about what might have happened if Robert McNamara had succeeded in killing the Lincoln brand. Could that have ended up being a net plus for the Ford Motor Company?
The Farrells (2023a, 2023b) reported that McNamara, who in 1958 was a company vice president, decided to recommend that Lincoln be discontinued because it had not made a profit since 1940 and had lost roughly $184 million since then.
After much debate, a compromise plan was approved whereby the Lincoln would be given one more product cycle. To reduce costs, the brand would share the Thunderbird’s platform and only four-door models would be offered. The resulting 1961-65 Continentals went on to earn a profit of $20 million, thereby saving the brand (Farrell and Farrell, 2023b).
The so-called “Kennedy Continentals” would prove to be so iconic that the idea of killing Lincoln in 1961 may sound absurd to car buffs. Nevertheless, let’s put on our business strategy hats and play out this scenario.
Lincoln’s late-50s numbers did not show much promise
The Lincoln brand’s prospects were terrible in the late-50s. Despite an unusually rapid succession of major redesigns in 1956 and 1958 as well as the instant-classic Continental Mark II, Ford’s share of the luxury-car field fell to under 14.4 percent in 1959. That was down from more than 25 percent in 1953.
It’s true that a late-50s recession took the wind out of the luxury-car market. However, the bottom line is that Lincoln’s production averaged roughly 27,000 units per year in 1958-60 versus almost 35,000 units in the supposedly bad old days of 1953-55 (go here for further discussion).
The Kennedy Continentals may have made Lincoln profitable, but average output increased only slightly to roughly 29,000 units per year in 1961-63. Market share also didn’t didn’t improve much until 1966, when Lincoln garnered 20.6 percent of the luxury brand field.
Meanwhile, Cadillac’s market share ranged from a low of just under 73 percent in 1969 to a high of almost 79 percent in 1968 — and 1961. Think about that for a moment. In the first year of Lincoln’s widely lauded new design, its arch-rival was effectively monopolizing the luxury car market (go here).
One other thing to consider is that when McNamara was assessing Lincoln’s future, the luxury car field represented a tiny portion of the overall U.S. car market. In the 1950s luxury brands averaged only around 3 percent of total domestic production.
The numbers look equally dismal if you focus instead on production — and add another decade of data. For example, by 1969 Lincoln hit an output record of over 61,000 units. However, in the grand scheme of things that wasn’t much to brag about.
As a case in point, Thunderbird production hovered between 63,000 an 93,000 through almost all of the 1960s. Only in 1969 did output drop to under 50,000 units.
Of course, Lincoln models had higher price tags than the Thunderbird so they were presumably more profitable per car. Even so, the money spent on keeping Lincoln alive could have instead gone to market niches that Ford had a better chance of dominating.
Also note that Ford could still offer higher-priced niche vehicles without the Lincoln brand name. For example, it could have come out with a personal coupe that carried on the Continental Mark tradition — and the name.
By 1977 the Mark V garnered such a large share of Lincoln production — 42 percent — that the rest of the lineup was arguably not worth the bother. The full-sized Town Car wasn’t all that competitive and the compact Versailles was downright embarrassing. The automaker might have been better off giving the Mark series a four-door body style while introducing top-end Mercury models that were better differentiated from their lower-priced, Ford Division siblings.
The latter was important because, as the 1970s progressed, the rationale for the Mercury brand name was undermined by too much badge engineering. By 1979 every Mercury model was a thinly disguised Ford (go here).
Without a full line of Lincolns to support, a stand-alone dealer network might not have even been necessary for Mercury (although larger Ford dealers might have been pressed to set up separate Mercury showrooms in larger markets).
Yes but . . . maybe Ford just needed to be patient
One counter-argument to the above scenario is that by keeping Lincoln alive, Ford benefitted from the long-term growth in the luxury car field. For example, it inched up to 4.2 percent of the total domestic market in 1973 and peaked at 6.1 percent in 1979. By 1977 Lincoln output would top 191,000 units and its share of the domestic luxury car field would almost reach 35 percent.
In addition, by the early-70s Lincoln’s entire product line shared bodies with other Fords, so economies of scale were better than in the second half of the 1950s, when they had unique bodies.
One could argue that Ford’s biggest mistake in the 1950s was that it didn’t follow in GM’s footsteps by basing the Lincoln off higher-volume platforms. For example, might the 1958-60 Lincoln have been profitable if it had used a Mercury body instead of being given a unique one — replete with then-exotic unitized construction — that required a new assembly plant?
Perhaps, but if Ford copied GM’s approach, would it have been less successful in challenging Cadillac’s dominance of the luxury class? Thomas Bonsall (1981) suggested that Lincoln’s success in the 1970s was built upon the cachet of the Kennedy Continentals.
Killing Lincoln could have pushed Ford to not copy GM
The key thing to keep in mind is that Lincoln’s future might not have been in question if the Ford Motor Company had not spent so much money on a 1950s expansion effort that didn’t just disappoint — it failed spectacularly. This was a huge financial hit that could have killed a smaller automaker.
McNamara may have been one of the most out-of-the-box thinkers of the postwar era, but he might not have had as much standing to call for Lincoln’s discontinuance if Ford’s financial losses had been less severe.
The automaker’s crisis left an opening for McNamara to stop trying to compete model for model against GM. He made some partial reforms, such as killing the Edsel and downsizing both the Mercury and Lincoln brands. It’s too bad that he wasn’t successful in getting rid of Lincoln.
If you think that the Continental was too iconic of a design to have been aborted, McNamara could have made the additional compromise of discontinuing the Lincoln brand but still offering the car as a sub-brand akin to the Thunderbird and sold through Mercury dealers. A logical name would have been the Continental Mark VI.
The biggest long-term impact of such a move would have been to better constrain McNamara’s successors from playing follow the leader. That was needed because by the mid-70s Ford’s lineup was once again a miniature version of GM’s, albeit with more badge engineering. That would prove to be an unsustainable situation which would not be rectified for decades.
NOTES:
This story was originally posted on June 16, 2023 and expanded on February 12, 2025. Production and market share figures were calculated from the auto editors of Consumer Guide (2006), Gunnell (2002), Flammang and Kowalke (1999) and Wikipedia (2020).
RE:SOURCES
- Auto editors of Consumer Guide; 2006. Encyclopedia of American Cars. Publications International, Lincolnwood, Ill.
- Farrell, Jim and Cheryl; 2023a. “Design of the 1961 Lincoln, Part 1.” Dean’s Garage. Posted June 2.
- ——; 2023b. “Design of the 1961 Lincoln, Part 2: Reassessment and Redirection.” Dean’s Garage. Posted June 16.
- Flammang, James M. and Ron Kowalke; 1999. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1976-1999. Third Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- Gunnell, John; 2002. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975. Revised 4th Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- Wikipedia; 2020. “U.S. Automobile Production Figures.” Accessed March 28.
ADVERTISEMENTS & BROCHURES:
- oldcaradvertising.com: Lincoln (1961); Lincoln Continental Mark III (1969)
- oldcarbrochures.org: Ford Granada (1977); Ford Thunderbird (1961, 1967); Lincoln (1963, 1977); Mercury Monarch (1977); Mercury Park Lane (1958)
I have to disagree here: Taking the Mills-McNamara plan of spinning off a four-door Lincoln CONTINENTAL (with the Continental branding) from the two-door Elwood Engel 1958 Thunderbird concept made more sense than killing off Lincoln and under-utilizing the Wixom. Michigan L-M plant. How much of the Lincoln sales drop in 1958-1960 due to the over-styling of the 1957-1958 Mercurys, the 1958 recession and so forth ? How many sales did the 1958-1960 four-seat Thunderbird take from Lincoln ? The Ford dealers were riding high in 1957-1960 (for the most part), but the rest of the FoMoCo dealerships suffered in that same time-frame. Ben Mill’s analysis of Lincoln since 1941 won over the skeptical, by-the-numbers McNamara. 15-to-20-thousand more cars utilizing the same platform per year, while not outstanding, at least kept Henry Ford II’s father’s beloved Lincoln in the family line-up. Plus, killing Lincoln on the heels of the humiliation of the death of the much-hyped Edsel was not a something that a public corporation like Ford wanted to see in the pages of newspapers and business publications all over the world.
I also question whether the post-Edsel Ford Motor Company after Robert McNamara would have explored niche automobiles. I think McNamara would have supported the Falcon spinoffs of the 1962 Fairlane and Meteor intermediates, and maybe would have approved the Mustang evolution from the Falcon platform. Lee Iacocca must have known that H.F.II did not look at developing totally new vehicle platforms with favor, as the only totally new Ford platform was the 1965 full-size Ford-Mercury body and frame to meet the challenge from G.M., followed by the new body and frame Ford-Mercury intermediates in 1968. I have never read anywhere if Arjay Miller or Lee Iacocca ever thought that taking a high-value intermediate platform after 1968 and developing a Mercedes 280 / 300-like sedan as a Lincoln sedan was contemplated. Iacocca did brilliantly bring the Mark III coupe off the Thunderbird coupe to the showrooms, as well as creating a more luxurious Mercury in the fall of 1968 by replacing the Park Lane with the more-massive-appearing Marquis / Grand Marquis. These marketing moves were not what I would consider as investing in potentially profitable automotive platform niches.
Body and frame Ford intermediates didn’t debut until the 1972 Gran Torino, which I have read were based upon the full-size Ford, with a different rear suspension. 1966 to 1971 Ford intermediates all derive from the same platform, which Paul Niedermayer once argued were derivatives of the 1960 Falcon platform. (https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/automotive-history-fords-falcon-platform-from-falcon-to-versailles-in-18-different-wheelbase-lengthtrack-width-variations/)
I also wonder why the 1965 full-size Ford platform only lasted four years, as most experts like Ate Up with Motor and Adam on You Tube’s Rare Classic Cars channel say the 1969 Ford/Mercury was all-new. Perhaps the 1965 platform wasn’t suitable for the 1970 Lincoln Continental. I also wonder if the body on frame 1967 Thunderbird was a derivative of the 1965 full-size Ford.
I have read Alan Mulally wanted to discontinue Lincoln, and I think Lincoln’s purpose to exist ended when the Town Car went out of production, as the current Lincoln SUV’s and the last Lincoln cars (MKZ, MKS, Fusion based Continental) were unsuccessful.
Troy, you make some good points. Discussing platform sharing strikes me as fraught with peril because it doesn’t tend to be an all-or-nothing situation. For example, it makes sense for Niedermeyer to point to the ways the 1962 Fairlane/Meteor shared suspension components with the Falcon/Comet, but it’s also important to look at differences in bodies. Ford’s mid-sized cars were wider and taller so they presumably couldn’t share windshields and cowls. Those were expensive components. Thus, I wouldn’t say that they literally shared platforms, but rather that they were related.
I’d be curious to learn more about the 1972 Torino versus the LTD. The front and rear track of the LTD was a bit wider but the car’s width was almost the same as the Torino’s. I haven’t yet come across interior-width figures, but my anecdotal sense is that the Torino was more cramped . . . because the depth of the doors was strikingly large. Perhaps that partly reflected the Torino body having more tuck under. If so, that would make some sense because the mid-sized body was newer.
You raise a good question about the origins of the 1967 Thunderbird body. I’m also curious as to how Ford managed to mix the production of the body-on-frame Thunderbird/Mark series and the Continental, which stayed unit-body through 1969. According to Thomas Bonsall, Wixom was built because unitized construction required a different plant configuration than body-on-frame.
It’s also interesting that Ford redesigned its full-sized platform in 1969 rather than 1971, like GM. If Ford had done the latter but introduced the new Lincoln Town Car in 1970, it could have looked more exclusive because for one year it wouldn’t have shared a body with any other Ford. My guess is that Ford’s strategy was similar to Chrysler’s — they both wanted to get a competitive jump on GM.
Good question about the Thunderbird/Mark series and Continental. I remember once a story on Collectible Automobile where Chrysler menaged to built the Dodge 880 (still using the basic 1960 body), the 1963 Chrysler Newport/New Yorker who have new styling for the 1963 model year and the Imperial who was still body-on-frame until the 1966 model year in the same plant.
Then I check the 1967-71 Thunderbird design of the 2 and 4-door models, I wonder if it inspired a bit the stylists to design the 1972 Torino?
https://oldcarbrochures.org/United%20States/Ford/1967_Ford/1967_Ford_Full_Line_Brochure/slides/1967_Ford_Full_Line-12.html
https://oldcarbrochures.org/United%20States/Ford/1972_Ford/1972%20Ford%20Torino%20Mailer/slides/1972%20Ford%20Torino%20Mailer-02-03.html
From the limited impression one gets of the 1958-1960 Lincoln, there were more attractive styling proposals that could have been chosen instead of what was ultimately approved.
A Mercury-based 1958 Lincoln or updated 1957 could have been effective in theory, as for the premise of discontinuing the Lincoln brand. Could Ford have also binned the Mercury brand around the same period to further spur them from not emulating GM or would it have been worthwhile to push Lincoln in a more Euro-esque or even De Tomaso saloons-meets-Ford Europe like direction with OHC Sixes and V8s inspired by Ford Australia’s SOHC Six and the Cleveland 351C SOHC?
IF the decision to kill Lincoln had been done the first beneficiary would have been the Imperial. I expect that they would have grabbed a good portion of the Lincoln buyer that for one reason or another would not chose a Cadillac.
The Dean’s Garage article referenced at the start mentioned as one of the considerations against killing Lincoln is how it would have hurt all the Lincoln-Mercury dealers. Did Mercury have enough sales to sustain the dealerships?
IF Lincoln was killed it would have been several years before a 4 door Tbird could have happened. That would have made it a 1964 possibility at the earliest.
Mercury was lucky to not meet the same fate as DeSoto and Edsel, between 1960 and 1964, the Comet helped to keep Mercury afloat. Had Lincoln been killed, hard to know how long Mercury would have survived. Would Ford had gived a 1966 intermediate Comet and the Cougar or pull the plug? Or would Ford pushed Mercury more upmarket to fill partially the void left by Lincoln? And I don’t talk of the situation in Canada, where Mercury also sold pick-up trucks badged as Mercury until 1968 and a Meteor line-up featuring Mercury bodies with Ford interiors.
Let’s imagine a scenario where Ford pulled the plug on both Lincoln and Mercury? What would be the impacts on GM as well as Chrysler and to a latter extend AMC. Studebaker was on its last rope, I doubt that might have impact them but who knows?
Mercury was pushed upmarket in 1958 to Olds Desoto territory from Dodge/Pontiac. It did not go well. To try to joust with Buick and Chrysler would be a complete failure.
That depends on how Mercury did it. The brand’s push upmarket in 1969 with the Marquis proved to be successful. Of course, that nameplate didn’t compete directly against top-end Buicks and Chryslers (go here and here for further discussion).
The other factor to consider is that a niche product could have scrambled traditional brand dynamics. The best example of that was the Thunderbird, which competed on price with the likes of the Electra and the New Yorker yet was a strong seller in the first half of the 1960s (go here for further discussion).
Ford’s best moves tended to be pioneering new markets rather than trying to match GM and Chrysler model for model. In the 1960s they did a fairly good job of that but in the 1970s not so much.
Logic dictates that the guy who birthed the Falcon wouldn’t appreciate Lincoln. MacNamara was a cold fish and didn’t cotton to near luxury or luxury brands. Ford also went public in 1955 – so expectations were high. Discontinuing Edsel was a jolt to stockholders expecting Ford to grow – not flop. Had MacNamara had his druthers, which he hadn’t, he would have ended Lincoln. Yet he couldn’t do that. By the end of 1960, MacNamara bailed on Ford. He didn’t fit in. All this talk of discontinuing Lincoln would have never happened had it not been for MacNamara’s prejudices against aspirational auto brands.
No one at Ford planned on pulling back on their brands. When a brand is discontinued, that wasn’t planned – instead it was forced. The idea that a corporate leader would not want one of their brands to succeed is nutty. MacNamara was nuttier than a Pay Day candy bar. That is why his stay at Ford was as short as it was. Bob was not a dreamer.
I think that you underestimate how big of a financial hit the Ford Motor Company took in the late-50s. The Edsel was the most visible flop, but also damaging was moving Mercury upmarket, launching the Continental Division and giving Lincoln two all-new bodies in just two years (replete with a new factory). A smaller automaker would likely have collapsed from all of the red ink that was spilled.
Feel free to strongly disagree with McNamara’s response, but to call him “nuttier than a Pay day candy bar” is out of line.
All I can add is the Robert McNamara had the intestinal fortitude and analytical thinking to bet the farm on introducing a mew full-size Ford and an all-new Falcon for 1960 at a time when Ford’s fortunes with Mercury and a bloated Lincoln were taking a dive. Never mind the Edsel. McNamara had written it off before press introduction day. I think he knew that he could soak up the excess production capacity left by the departure of the Edsel with Falcon production and later the Comet. Has anyone ever read about McNamara’s relationship with Henry Ford II ? As McNamara proved with the 1957 and 1959 Ford and the 1958-1960 Thunderbird, his instincts into what would sell and keep production cost in line were far beter than most auto executives. I believe McNamara felt he could trust fellow “Whiz Kid” Ben Mills to rationalize Mercury and keep Lincoln alive, which would avoid shuttering more franchised dealers across the country. In retrospect, McNamara was the right man to lead Ford into the 1960s
Maybe sacrifice Ford (combined with Edsel) was the best idea.
Mercury could had moved downmarket (Ford and cheap Mercury territory) and Lincoln could had been a brand for the pricey, top end Mercury autos. The successful Thunderbird could be the sole Ford product, being sold in either Lincoln or Mercury dealerships, along with trucks/ vans (marketed solely as Fords and nothing else)