John Najjar

John Najjar Ferzely known as John Najjar (Nov. 11, 1918; Jan. 6, 2011), was a lead designer and executive stylist at Ford Motor Company for over 40 years. He is credited for having co-designed the first prototype of the Ford Mustang known as Ford Mustang I with Philip T. Clark.

John Najjar was born to a working-class Greek Orthodox Christian Lebanese family in Omaha, Nebraska. He joined Ford Motor Company's Apprentice School in Dearborn, Michigan. While working there as a mere machinist, he was approached by Henry Ford during a plant tour who asked him if he enjoyed his work. John's response that he'd "rather be drawing cars" led to an invitation for him to add his talents to Ford's newly-created Design Center.

He continued working as a designer for Ford for over 40 years. He worked with E. T. Gregorie, George Walker, Elwood Engel, Gene Bordinat and Lee Iacocca. For many years his work was centered on futuristic show cars whose revolutionary features later appeared in many Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles.

John's Advanced Styling Studio developed the 1962 Ford Mustang I concept car - so named because of his love for its namesake, the P-51 Mustang fighter plane. His design talents span decades - from work on the M4A3 Sherman tank and B-24 bomber in the 40s, the 1957-58 Lincoln Continentals, the XM-800, the soybean car, the LevaCar concept, the Gyron, Detroit's People Mover and Renaissance Center.

John Najjar also co-designed jointly with fellow Ford Motor Company stylist Bill Schmidt the groundbreaking Lincoln Futura, a futuristic concept car that served as a base for the Batmobile for the 1966 TV series Batman, as well as for the first movie adaptation of the Batman comics.