The Continental Division - Ford's Brief Ultra-Luxury Fling

once standing as the pinnacle of american luxury motoring the marx series of the lincoln company was one of the most famous car brands in the world primarily for its opulent land yachts of the 1970s but also for its short-lived spell as a standalone mark by the ford company to rival the likes of the rolls-royce silver cloud today though the mark brand has fallen silent in the motoring world the rapid decline of the car market during the 1980s and the influence of european and japanese luxury models gradually chipping away at its exclusivity until all that was left was a name and very little else to help the model stand out against its foreign competition the lincoln motor company was originally formed in august 1917 by american entrepreneur henry martin leyland one of the original founders of the cadillac company who first began creating aero engines for the war effort before expanding into car production in 1920 with the model l a beautiful machine that was among the most opulent luxury tour as money could buy while the model l was a superb start for the company the firm's transition from military aero engine contracts to producing motor cars was one that it struggled to fund and under the looming threat of bankruptcy it was brought out by the ford motor company for a sum of eight million dollars or 124.5 million in 2021 the decision to purchase the company being at the insistence of edsel ford son of company founder henry ford early on the intention was for the lincoln mark to sit above ford within the motoring market being the face of the company's ultra luxury models that would compete with cadillac which had been acquired by general motors in 1909 the original model l seeing production throughout the 1920s in a variety of guises that were synonymous with the glamour scene of the decade followed in the 1930s by the equally sublime model k unfortunately as sales for the lincoln mark began to slow against competition from cadillac rolls-royce and mercedes-benz ford chief designer e.t gregory proposed in the summer of 1938 what was essentially a lincoln sports car creating sketches that placed a long hood and low belt line on an existing lincoln zephyr frame the results of which immediately caught the interest of edsel ford who commissioned a working prototype this car presented five months later being the first lincoln continental to test this new creation edsel took the car with him on his annual holiday to florida in march 1939 the machine causing a sensation when it was shown to his friends thus giving him the impetus to create a new model range for the lincoln continental that made its debut in 1940 the first vehicle being bought by world famous actor mickey rooney in 1942 the first generation continental received a facelift but the car's sales run was short-lived due to the entry of the united states into world war ii during which time all production for civilian cars was put on hold and while edsel demanded that the car remain on the market his ailing health due to stomach cancer and subsequent passing on may 26 1943 meant the car dropped out of assembly until the end of the conflict in 1946 continental production resumed the car having been comprehensively restyled by designer raymond lowery famous for such marvels of engineering as the pennsylvania railroad's s1 steam locomotive and delivery for air force one but in the face of ford attempting to revitalize its model lineup for 1949 as well as putting greater emphasis into the mercury mark only 3 700 post-war continentals were built before the car left sales in 1948 although the desire to continue the continental brand was not off the cards in 1953 william clay ford edsel's youngest son and head of the company's special products division began early considerations for the continental mark ii his ambition being to honour his late father's adoration for the car's design but also to firmly establish the lincoln mark as a name in the ford empire that would stand firm against the likes of rolls-royce bentley and mercedes-benz therefore william ford with the assistance of industrial designer gordon bowering the brainchild behind the cord 810 created an innovative unit body platform which allowed the interior to be dropped down into the pan making for a much lower car with no loss in headroom with former packard stylist john reinhardt being tasked with creating the car's external styling providing him a free hand to sculpt a machine of bold proportions including a long hood short deck and elegant understated lines with approval for the design granted a staff of 250 people were taken on to assist in bringing the mark ii project to fruition with chevrolet designer el being recruited to design the interior his duties including the creation of a modern ergonomic dashboard and ventilation system resulting in a patented automatic temperature control that finally made its debut on the continental mark iii for power in order to maintain the small block v12s that had been used in the continentals of the 1940s the engine bay was designed to accommodate such a unit but as no v12s were available at the time within the ford company the final power plant used was the lincoln wide block v8 engine that had made its debut in 1952 producing 285 horsepower and giving the car a naught to 60 time of 10.6 seconds and a top speed of 123 miles an hour the equivalent silver cloud having a naught to 60 time of 13.5 seconds and a top speed of 102 miles an hour such was the enthusiasm behind the mark ii project that a new mark was created by ford called the continental division established in 1954 at a dedicated factory in allen park michigan the brand being given its own unique symbol in the form of a four-point star with a round border but following complaints by mercedes-benz that the logo was too similar to their own the circular border was changed to a rectangular one but this would cause problems for production as ford engineers could not economically cast this delicate item repeatedly the manufacturing expense being equivalent to the cost of producing an entire grill for a 1957 ford production of the first units began in january 1955 the initial batch of 300 units being sent to select lincoln dealers as static displays in order to drum up customer interest none of which were to be sold until the new car pipeline had been filled but dealers were hesitant to take on the machine and its ten thousand dollar price tag equal to ninety six thousand dollars in 2021 as a result the price sold to lincoln dealers was reduced to seven thousand five hundred dollars but in the face of the product's incredible 21 million dollar development costs every mark ii sold was done so at a loss production expenses for this ornate machine being 8 500 per unit which didn't sit well with the management especially ford's head of automotive operations robert mcnamara who sought to direct the firm in a manner that increased its efficiency in order to maximize profits while the ford management was by this point setting to work with its highly anticipated but ultimately misguided edsel brand of medium-range cars mcnamara was determined to cut overhead wherever possible and with the continental division losing over one thousand dollars on every car it sold while very few were willing to buy a machine that cost more than a suburban home the continental mark ii and the entire division were axed in july 1956 after only 3005 units although it would take until november of that year to finally wrap up the last of its business dealings as employees were distributed into the edsel division the men behind the scheme beauregan ron would go on to work with ford engineering while william clay ford returned to ford styling the former continental plant being used as a surplus assembly line for car bodies being delivered by a third-party supplier that struggled to meet demand with its own facilities perhaps most notably for the mark ii was the fact that its general underpinnings including the chassis and powertrain were used to form the basis of the 1954 lincoln futura concept car a low-slung one-off starred by the kurozawa gear of italy which later found fame as the batmobile in the adam west batman tv series of 1966. following the end of the continental division the name continental was revived on upmarket versions of the lincoln premiere becoming the continental mark iii of 1958 and the mark iv of 1960 before the numbering convention was dropped with the new generation continental of 1961 which while essentially a restyled variant of the contemporary forward thunderbird was a highly successful machine that saw strong sales throughout the 1960s one example sx100x a 1961 lincoln continental limousine modified by hess and easonheart of cincinnati ohio being the presidential limousine in which president john f kennedy was assassinated on november 22 1963 in dallas texas in 1968 the mark series was revived as its own ultra luxury variant of the lincoln lineup with the mark iii a successor to the mark ii which served as the ford company flagship the car being the brainchild of ford vice president lee iacocca who desired a machine that would rival the rolls-royce silver shadow two-door saloon its underpinnings being largely based off the fifth generation ford thunderbird but with a huge chrome grille of clear rolls-royce influence being placed on the front unlike the mark ii though the mark iii was a major success for ford selling 85 000 units during its three-year production run while earning a 2 000 profit for each car sold and giving rise to a subsequent lineage of mark series flagship lincolns including the iconic luxury land yachts of the 1972 mark iv and the largest of them all the mark 5 of 1977 which also spawned a number of bespoke signature variants although the car's performance had been somewhat strangled by emissions rules due to the fallout of the 1973 oil crisis this unfortunately set the tone for the marx series as it entered the 1980s the mark vi of 1980 being smaller and lacking much of the style that had made the earlier mark 3 4 and 5 the face of american luxury motoring while the later mark 7 of 1983 restricted the dimensions significantly in order to help it compete with the rising influence of the mercedes s-class in the bmw 7 series in 1993 the mark 8 became the last car to carry the prestigious mark title the car styling being endemic of the early 1990s with a low profile and sweeping curves both internally and externally but with underpinnings carried across from the latest ford thunderbird and mercury cougar the resulting machine sadly losing much of its exclusivity and while it sold nearly 500 000 units during its production run the brand was generally struggling to compete primarily in terms of image with the ever present mercedes lexus and bmw products leading to the ford management dropping the mark name in 1998 and replacing it with the lincoln ls which was based on the same underpinnings as the jaguar s-type as for the continental name this had existed alongside the exclusive mark series on lower end full size sedans since the brands had been separated in 1968 and would remain in circulation until 2002 on the ninth generation model that was based on the ford taurus before that two was dropped and spiritually replaced in the product lineup by the lincoln mks of 2009 while the continental markers since returned in the form of 2017's lincoln continental which is built on the same platform as the ford fusion and mondeo sedans the ultra exclusive mark series which had long been a staple of luxury motoring in the united states and a rival to foreign brands such as rolls royce in bentley remains dormant you

Channel: Ruairidh MacVeigh

Views: 196,909

Keywords: car, cars, automobile, auto, bus, truck, motor, motor vehicle, saloon, estate, compact, sports, roadster, transport, road, heritage, historic, Lincoln, Lincoln Continental, Edsel Ford, Edsel, Ford Motor Company, Ford, USA, United States, Mark II, Mark III, Mark IV, Mark V, Mark VI, Mark VII, Mark VIII, Continental, Lincoln Motor Company, Continental Mark II, Continental Division, Robert McNamara, America, American, Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Cadillac, Lincoln Mark Series, Mark, Mark Series, Mercedes-Benz

Id: WFLlUJIYidY

Length: 11min 10sec (670 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 06 2021