The 1961 Lincoln Continental - Learn About its Origins, Design and Influence on Automotive History

the 1961 lincoln continental is one of the seminal cars in automotive history and it's also one of the vehicles where the bauhausen philosophy of less is more is best exemplified interestingly this philosophy is not best exemplified by a european car or a car from any other continent but a car from the us and a car that almost didn't make it through to production throughout the course of its history lincoln has been on the chopping block or near the chopping block a number of times and one of these times included the summer of 1958 when robert mcnamara then forwards group vice president for vehicle operations essentially told lincoln's top managers that the division should be discontinued because he saw little hope of reversing the losses associated with the division and in the short term he was anything but incorrect in 1957 lincoln sold about 40 000 vehicles across its premier and capri line however in 1958 production went from about 40 000 vehicles down to around 12 000 vehicles the sales cratered with the launch of the new 1958 models they did recover slightly in 59 and 60 but even by 1960 the division was not selling over 25 000 vehicles and it was having significant financial challenges its cars were viewed as having very radical styling and they certainly were physically large with a hundred and thirty one-inch wheelbase and in some cases overall lengths of around 227 inches lincoln's were certainly large cars of their day it was in this environment that the 61 continental was conceived as a last-ditch effort to save lincoln hopefully restoring it to profitability and even though when the year concluded in 1961 lincoln had still not sold over 25 000 vehicles it did certainly create a new design philosophy that set the tone for the auto industry for the next decade and influenced many vehicles not only from ford but also from general motors and chrysler and amazingly the same parties that were involved in designing the flop of a 1958 lincoln were the ones who also spearheaded the design of the 61 namely elwood engel and john najar the origins behind the continentals bauhausen lines are often debated but one thing is for sure elwood engel at the time was one of george walker who was ford styling vice president's primary assistance and he made frequent trips to cologne germany leading fort's cologne studios was a gentleman by the name of wes dahlberg who was working on the tauna 17m at the time angle allegedly viewed the 3 8 scale model the 17m numerous times and while dahlberg himself doubted that the tauna 17m had any direct influence on the 61 continental it's pretty clear at least in the front end that there are a number of similar design themes we'll leave it to you to decide how much influence you feel the tauntus had on the continental though i will say that one of the chief sculptors in cologne at the time fred hodley did assert that he believed the 17m significantly influenced the 61 continental however while the continental is obviously associated with lincoln history the vehicle actually started life as a proposal for the 1961 thunderbird at the time the ford studios were having trouble establishing a design direction for the 61 thunderbird and elwood engel asked his boss design vice president george walker if he could have a separate studio to develop a new idea for the thunderbird engel hand-picked john the jar the individual with whom he'd worked on the 58 continental to help him in this studio and the team came up with a proposal for a two-door car that was set atop 113-inch wheelbase and a width of 75 inches with a body length of 205 inches materially shorter in every single dimension by almost 20 inches versus the 1958 9 and 60 lincoln's although remember at the time this was a thunderbird proposal while ingle was busy creating his two-door version of the thunderbird the ford studios were also making their own proposal and the designs came to a head in a competition wherein ingle's proposal was not selected to become the next thunderbird however despite not being selected to be the next thunderbird key senior executives at ford including william clay ford himself thought the proposal was too nice to be a thunderbird and that it should be the new continental in the coming months then ford group vice president robert mcnamara had bi-weekly meetings with lincoln leadership to better understand where the division was headed needless to say he was not pleased and threatened to pull the plug on lincoln in one of these meetings however some other key members of the team convinced mcnamara that this was not a wise move the ford family would never allow the killing of the lincoln division especially after just sunsetting the continental division as well as edsel cooler heads ended up prevailing but mcnamara insisted that if lincoln were to continue he wanted to see a smaller car and remarked that he had discovered a failed thunderbird proposal in elwood engle studio that he thought could be made into a four-door continental even though it was a two-door currently with lincoln now thrown a lifeline yet again the design team headed back to ingles studio to make a four-door car out of the original two-door proposal as they worked on the model and created a seating buck for it they realized that ingress and egress to the rear seat was a significant issue given this car's shorter wheelbase and overall length this eventually led to the proposal for the suicide door continental and having the door hinged at the back of the c-pillar as opposed to at the b-pillar in order to afford passengers better ingress and egress without bumping their knees and legs on the door itself trying to get into the back seat the team thought that this was the only way to have a comfortable back seat in a car with a wheelbase that would be approved by mcnamara since he wanted something that was significantly smaller than the 131 inch wheelbase of the 58 9 and 60 lincolns that preceded the 61 continental as the design and engineering teams worked they coalesced around 123 inch wheelbase car and that meant a number of things because the 61 continental was going to be significantly shorter the engine and transmission had to be moved as close to the firewall as possible creating a huge transmission hump in the front passenger compartment this would threaten limiting passenger capacity to four people instead of six and that was just simply not palatable for a lincoln lincoln ended up working with dana corporation to come up with a constant velocity double card and universal joint to allow the engine and transmission to be angled down and provide for six passenger capacity in the car with the now the transmission hump being able to be smaller than it was originally conceived to be with the major issues now being resolved the car marched forward to production and to becoming one of the seminal vehicles in automotive history interestingly at 25 000 units of sales the 61 continental really didn't sell all that much better than the 1960 lincoln but remember during this time that the auto industry was reeling from the effects of the late 50s and early 60s recession and 25 000 units of sales in 1961 actually represented almost a 60 gain in market share for lincoln the car was also significantly more profitable than the vehicle it replaced making the continental a relative double if not a home run for lincoln division as time progressed the 61 lincoln would impart its design philosophy on many other vehicles across various automakers and while many people point to the 64 imperial or the 65 to 6 cadillacs as the direct response to the lincoln continental actually the first response to it certainly from the general motors camp was the 1963 pontiac grand prix it seems very strange to say that the sporty division of general motors and the mid-price division took such a design cue from the continental but they absolutely did as confirmed by bill porter who later became pontiac's styling chief but who also worked for pontiac in the 60s when the 63 grand prix were being designed and if you look closely at the 63 grand prix very upright side sections and lack of curvature you can really see a hint of the continental in that design cadillac later copied this similar philosophy when it introduced a 65 and six cadillacs that had very clean sections on the body side in very different forms from the 61 to 64 cars that preceded them and the 64 imperial is another car influenced by the 61 continental perhaps not only just in thought process but because the chief designer who is responsible for the continental elwood angle left for chrysler corporation and if one studies the chrysler corporation vehicles done under engel it's interesting to see that none of them take foreign language cues from the 58 960 continental that engel had worked on and championed but many many do take design cues from the 61 continental so what are these continentals like underneath the skin a few interesting features just like the 58 9 and 60 continentals these are unibody vehicles believe it or not they are not body on frame and the 58 9 and 60 lincoln's were the largest unibodies that had been made at the time and were until the 73 imperial came along a number of years later they do have coil springs up front and leaf spring rear and do employ the 430 cubic inch mel v8 that was introduced in 1958 but in spite of being 430 cubic inches just like the 60 continentals that preceded the 61 the 61s came with only a two barrel carburetor yes that's right two barrels feeding 430 cubic inches this was really due to robert mcnamara who thought that four barrel carburetors were simply excessive and gave an edict that many ford vehicles simply employ two barrel carburetors during this period once he left for an appointment in the kennedy administration however four real carburetors came back and they did in the continental in 1963. and while it changed throughout its lifetime all the way from 61 to 69 the continental was always a handsome vehicle if not in the later years it got a bit long in the tooth i guess i would say however it certainly has earned its place in automotive history and influenced many other vehicles at the time and even still today i hope you enjoyed that overview of the 61 continental and thanks again for watching and take care thanks again for watching this video in the 1961 continental and the vehicles that it inspired hope you enjoyed it if you did please be sure to like and comment as that helps the youtube algorithm serve this video up to more viewers like you and if you haven't yet subscribed what are you waiting for click the icon of the 67 buick riviera at the top left then hit the bell to ensure that you're notified of all my future videos also check out a few videos for you in the thumbnails at the bottom left and right until the next time thanks again and take care

Channel: Rare Classic Cars & Automotive History

Views: 97,476

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Id: D0IahvYtL1A

Length: 12min 21sec (741 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 03 2022