Dean’s Garage recently posted a fascinating story about the battle over the 1972 Lincoln Continental Mark IV’s styling. Jim and Cheryl Farrell (2022) describe how a design proposal championed by Ford President Semon “Bunkie” Knudsen […]
“[P]robably the guy that was most admired [by Ford Motor Company executive Lewis Crusoe] was [Robert] McNamara. He was a very concise speaker, he was a logician and prided himself that he was. He knew how […]
(EXPANDED FROM 10/2/2020) Indie Auto has previously mentioned that the 1961-63 Lincoln Continental represented a partial and short-lived deviation from Detroit groupthink. Let’s flesh out that argument with a fake 1964 Imperial. Yes, folks, lowly Chrysler could have outdone the Continental. […]
A brochure for the 1964 Lincoln Continental was almost apologetic in describing “significant improvements” to the car. “You will appreciate greater leg room, knee room and head room. In the rear compartment, leg room has […]
“Our mission with Ben Mills [division general manager] and Will Scott [division plant planner] was to develop a 1958 Lincoln. Then, in that era, bigger is better, longer is better, wider is better, shock the […]
(UPDATED FROM 3/1/2020) Greenhouses have not typically changed as frequently as other parts of the American automobile’s external styling, but they go a long way toward summing up the dominant design approach of a given […]
(UPDATED FROM 5/1/2020) American automakers have always had a penchant for extravagant designs that can look overwrought compared to imports. Of course, this has been changing of late as foreign automakers — particularly the Japanese […]
(EXPANDED FROM 6/26/2020) Disaster in Dearborn: The Story of the Edsel is paradoxical. On the one hand, this is a serious history book — unlike so many of the coffee-table decorations that populate the big-box […]
(EXPANDED 10/24/2022) “Lower, longer, wider” was the domestic automakers’ dominant design approach until they were forced to downsize their fleet in the late-1970s due to federal fuel-economy standards. Since that time automakers have at least […]
(EXPANDED ON 1/20/2023) The 1955 Packard’s styling was nicely done in many ways — but it was also an evolutionary dead end. The designers of the last “real” Packards deserve credit for two things. First, […]
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