When John Najjar was tapped to head the Lincoln brand’s design studio, one of his first projects was to complete the 1957 models. In an oral history conducted by David R. Crippen and Douglas A. Bakken (1984) Najjar stated that he wasn’t happy with what he inherited from Bill Schmidt. He “had put these gargantuan fins on this ’57 job, and he took his beautiful ’56 Lincoln creation and put these God-awful fins from the Futura on it.”
After looking at Schmidt’s handiwork, Najjar said, “My God, I don’t like this. What can I do?’ So I talked to Elwood (Engel), and I shortened the wrap-around chrome below the rear fins by about two feet. Just had them tucked in from the back. I brought down the top fins by about 7-8 inches, and tried to clean it up from my point of view” (Crippen and Bakken, 1984).
Surely Najjar was exaggerating . . . right?
My head explodes when I try to visualize the original design that Najjar described. So I wonder: Was he exaggerating? That led me to look at the 1955 Lincoln Futura concept car. Are its fins all that much taller than the production 1957 Lincoln?
Najjar didn’t discuss the rest of the car, but the front end arguably wasn’t improved by tacking on faux quad headlights.
The main way the 1957 was arguably improved was by cleaning up the four-door sedan’s weirdly complex C-pillar and adding a four-door hardtop.
Why did Lincoln mess with success?
Whatever Najjar inherited, the final result was mostly a step down from the previous-year’s models. The 1956 Lincoln had one of the nicest designs of the decade — and had been the best selling in the brand’s history.
Might Lincoln have done better if the 1957 models had not been given any sheetmetal changes below the beltline? With taillight, bumper and grille revisions the Lincoln could have looked reasonably fresh while not ruining its admirably clean styling.
Ironically, more modest changes might have better protected the brand against the dramatic new styling of the 1957 Imperial, whose model-year production came close to bumping Lincoln out of second place in the luxury car field.
Milder design revisions may not have been in the cards given Ford’s no-expense-spared efforts to build its presence in the top end of the U.S. market.
Also see ‘The 1956 Lincoln’s styling proved to be a one-year wonder’
In addition, Najjar noted that the dominant trend of the time was “fins and gorkiness. Oldsmobile, or Buick, had five bars of chrome running along its quarter panel, and somebody went along and put musical notes on them. And, I think, Oldsmobile had an oval mouth and somebody put rolled eyes on the headlights and a tongue hanging out. We were all guilty” (Crippen and Bakken, 1984).
That’s true, but the Ford Motor Company had also just displayed the design sophistication to come out with the Continental Mark II. So what happened?
NOTES:
Product specifications and production figures from the auto editors of Consumer Guide (2006) and Gunnell (2002).
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Auto editors of Consumer Guide; 2006. Encyclopedia of American Cars. Publications International; Lincolnwood, Ill.
- Crippen, David R. and Douglas A. Bakken; 1984. “The Reminiscences of John Najjar.” Automotive Design Oral History Project, Automobile in American Life and Society.
- Gunnell, John; 2002.Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975. Revised 4th Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES:
- oldcarbrochures.org: Lincoln (1956, 1957)
PHOTOGRAPHY:
- Lincoln Futura: Photograph in public domain via Wikipedia.
I respect John Najjar’s perspective on the 1957 Lincoln, even if he created the Gawd-awful 1958-1960 Lincoln and its retractable-windowed Continentals Mark III-through-V …but Ford was really going through a rough patch with its styling after the 1957 Fords. Was George Walker to blame ? I think so, given the 1958 Fords and the 1957-1958 Big Ms and those big ugly and massive bumpers. (After all, there is a tendency to blame all of Chrysler’s problems after 1957 on Virgil Exner, Sr.) The 1955 Futura was a much better concept for the 1960s to give a design detail generator than anything G.M. had offered after the 1953 Motorama year !
In doing some additional research on the 1955 Lincoln Futura concept car, the origin of the Futura inspiration was co-designer Bill Schmidt’s diving encounter with a shark, (a creature that would similarly inspire G.M.’s Bill Mitchell in the late 1950s concerning Corvette design). Yes, John Najjar was the Futura’s co-designer, but the white pearl on the Ghia concept was Schmidt’s doing, as Schmidt wanted a show-stopping paint that would excite the masses. The Futura was unveiled to the press on January 5th, 1955 at the Chicago Auto Show, which means that the car was really designed in 1953-1954. Because the pearl white did not photograph well for the movie cameras in 1959, the car was painted red for the Debbie Reynolds-Glenn Ford flick “It Started With a Kiss”. As a teenager, I owned the Revell model kit of the Futura in the 1960s. Of course, in the mid-1960s, Ford allegedly sold the Futura (which was a fully operational vehicle with its 368-cu.-in. Lincoln and TurboDrive automatic on a prototype 1956-1957 Mark II frame) to George Barris for one-dollar ! The Futura may have been one of the most successful “out-there” concept vehicles of all time, especially since it had a second life as the TV 1966 “Batmobile”, which still is an attraction at fan-shows 58-years later !
I prefer the 1956 back end although the 1957 isn’t terrible. My primary complaint is that the rear bumper sticks out too far. However, the front of the ’56 reminds me of a Plymouth. It no longer does with the ’57s faux headlight, but it didn’t make it look better. I like the sides and greenhouse of the later model.
Elwood Engel came along just in time because the 1958-50 Lincolns were a bridge too far.
Jim & Cheryl Farrell discuss the ’55-’57 Lincoln formation in great detail in Lincoln Design Heritage zephyr to Ls 1936 – 2000 published in 2000. Some excerpts from that made it to a Deans Garage article on this subject of the 57 Lincoln.
https://www.deansgarage.com/design-of-the-57-lincoln-unmasked/