1958-60 Lincolns—What Went Wrong?

1958-60 Lincolns—What Went Wrong?

By Jim and Cheryl Farrell

For those who believe 1958–60 Lincolns were beautiful and well built, but misunderstood, this article may not be for you.

Nineteen-fifty-eight was supposed to be the year Lincoln caught and surpassed Cadillac in sales. Ford Motor Co. spent a lot of money in the belief that would happen, and there are many responsible for the failure of 1958–60 Lincolns to sell up to expectations. Although some at Ford didn’t know it yet, in 1958, they were also in the midst of the Edsel disaster—and Lincoln was a part of it.

In fall 1956 Ben Smith replaced James Nance as head of Lincoln Division, which was soon to become Lincoln-Edsel-Mercury, and then Lincoln-Mercury Division. For the disaster, it’s easy to blame Smith, who took over as head of Lincoln and John Najjar, Lincoln’s chief designer who Smith inherited, but that’s probably unfair. In 1961 Smith was the one who finally made Lincoln profitable and saved it from being discontinued. And Najjar, who had been a Ford designer since 1938, recovered after being dismissed as Lincoln’s chief designer and continued with an otherwise stellar career as a Ford designer until his retirement in January 1980.

In May 1955 when George Walker took over as head of Ford’s Styling Department, he and his assistant manager, Elwood Engel, chose Najjar to lead the Lincoln design studio because, as they told Najjar, he was loyal to Walker and Engel and would do what they wanted. Although Najjar became head of the studio, according to designers there at the time, Engel and Walker really controlled and directed all aspects of the ’58 Lincoln’s design. Walker and Engel both preferred space-age designs, and they grossly misread the new-car market.

The ’56 Lincoln, designed by Bill Schmidt, was planned for a 3-year production run with yearly updates. Before he left in early 1955, Schmidt prepared proposals for the ’58 Lincoln. Because they was taking a run at Cadillac, Lincoln management decided they wanted an entirely new body style for 1958, not a warmed over ’56 Lincoln. Najjar was told that just as he was starting a redesign of the old body style.

Designers assigned to Najjar’s Lincoln studio, in addition to Engel, were Dave Ash (exec), Herb Tod (manager), Bud Kaufman (interiors), Rulo Conrad (peproduction), Art Miller (color and trim), Bob Chieda, Jake Alrdrich, Merle Adams, John Orfe, Joe Achor, Dick Schierloh, Bob Marcks Howard Payne, and Jim Swanson. Master modelers were Doug McCombs and Henry Klemick.

At first, Najjar and his designers had trouble coming up with a design direction that satisfied Lincoln Division and Walker and Engel. Directions from Lincoln Division were also clear as mud, which didn’t help. Engel solved the direction problem when he “drove” one of Alex Tremulis’ 3/8-sized motorized models called the La Tosca into the studio, where he told Najjar it was to be their design direction for the ’58 Lincoln. With little difficulty, Walker sold La Tosca’s “X over O” design theme to Nance and Lincoln Division.

After that, the design proceeded quickly, but when designers couldn’t come up with an acceptable front end design, Walker and Engel suggested that Najjar accompany them to the London and Paris auto shows to look for front end inspiration. At the London show, Walker and Engel were fascinated by the slant-eyed headlights on an English concept car called the Daimler Docker Golden Zebra—and by increasing the number of headlights it became the front end on the ’58 Lincoln.

Originally, the 58 Lincoln was planned with a 126-inch wheelbase, the same as in 1956–57. In the meantime, the ’58 Lincoln got the new 430 CID engine, which didn’t fit in the 126-inch body without giving the car a front tunnel “big enough to put a saddle on.” Engineering’s solution was to just make the ’58 Lincoln longer, so it grew to a 131-inch wheelbase. Even after he retired, Najjar said the ’58 Lincoln was just too big.

Although he retired in 1957, at the time the ’58 Lincoln was being planned, Ford’s chief engineer was Earle MacPherson. He didn’t like designers and didn’t get along with Walker. And he was still smarting because in May 1955, design became independent and no longer a part of his Engineering Department.

MacPherson was told early on that Bill Ford’s Continental Division had avoided lengthening their Mark III, which also was to use the 430 CID engine, by employing an inexpensive double-cardin universal joint to lower the profile at the rear of the engine/transmission. MacPherson did not pass that information on to Lincoln engineers developing the ’58 Lincoln.

Problems compounded. After Robert McNamara became head of Ford Division, he decided to turn the Thunderbird into a sporty 4-passenger car. (McNamara’s very successful 4-passenger Thunderbird discovered a new personal luxury car market.) To get the car as low as McNamara wanted, the ’58 Thunderbird had to be unibody. The Thunderbird was slated to be built in Ford’s new Wixom assembly plant, but both McNamara and MacPherson assumed Thunderbird production would use no more than 1/2 of Wixom’s capacity. Their solution was to require that Lincolns use the other half of Wixom’s capacity, which according to MacPherson, meant the ’58 Lincoln also had to become unibody. Harley Copp, Lincoln’s chief engineer, told MacPherson it was folly to build a Lincoln that big as a unibody car. MacPherson’s response to Copp was to do it or quit.

When developing their proposed Continental Mark III, Continental Division had already come up with an inexpensive way to build body-on-frame vehicles on the same assembly line where unibody vehicles were built. Continental Division’s chief engineer at the time maintains he timely informed MacPherson of that information, but that wasn’t passed on to Lincoln Division either.

The end result was that when ’58 Lincolns first came off the Wixom assembly line, welds broke and it vibrated badly. On the test track, the ’58 Lincoln mechanical prototype actually buckled. Eventually, 200 lbs of gussets and a crash program was instituted to try to fix the car’s weld and integrity problems. Copp was right, but by that time, it was too late—or was it?

After Bill Ford’s Continental Division and its Mark III proposal were terminated in July 1956, Ford’s Executive Committee met at the Styling Center to consider building Continental Division’s Mark III proposal as a Lincoln Division Mark III. Ford’s executive vice president Ernie Breech, a committee member and still the number 2 guy at Ford, after viewing both proposals, suggested the better-looking Continental Division Mark III become the ’58 Lincoln. That suggestion got nowhere after Smith informed committee members that tooling on Lincoln Division’s car was already too far along to change. Lincoln Division’s ’58 Lincoln was produced as well as a badge engineered Mark III.

A month after he replaced Nance as head of Lincoln Division, Smith fired Najjar as Lincoln’s chief designer. He felt Najjar was too much under the influence of Walker, and that Walker had “sold them the wrong bill of goods.” Don DeLaRossa replaced Najjar as Lincoln’s chief designer, but he was unable to make any real changes to the 1959—60 Lincoln body style because of its unibody structure, and because the Edsel mess had dried up development money.

Given the paths not taken, the ’58 Lincoln, as produced, became the perfect storm. During 1958–60, Lincoln lost at least $60 million and half of its already weak market penetration.

Photos: Ford Design