Continental Mark II

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Continental
Continental Mark II
Continental Mark II
Continental Mark II
Production period: 1956-1957
Class : Upper class
Body versions : Coupe
Engines: Otto engine :
6.0 liters
(213–220 kW)
Length: 5594 mm
Width: 1969 mm
Height: 1420 mm
Wheelbase : 3200 mm
Empty weight : 2412 kg
Previous model Lincoln Zephyr Continental
successor Continental Mark III
Rear view of the Continental Mark II; the arched trunk lid established the tradition of the "Continental Kit"

The Continental Mark II was a Ford Motor Corporation vehicle that was offered as a luxury coupe in the 1956 and 1957 model years.

background

The decision, a new Continental building fell in 1951 on the recommendation of one of Henry Ford II used planning group , which should provide the basics, regroup to the increasingly ailing since the late 1930s, the Ford company. The Special Products Division under William Clay Ford , the younger brother of CEO Henry Ford II, was responsible for the Continental project .

On July 1, 1952, the Special Products Division became the Continental Division and thus an independent corporate brand within the Ford Motor Company . Their only job was to offer luxury vehicles in an exclusive market segment above Lincoln , Cadillac and Imperial . They should be in the tradition of the 1948 discontinued Lincoln Zephyr Continental , whose successor the Ford dealers as well as the affluent American public had long wanted. To illustrate the continuation of this tradition, the first car of the new brand should be called Continental Mark II .

Development of the Continental began in 1952, and a first, very near-series clay model was finished in April or May 1953. Production began at the end of 1955. After two more years, the production of the coupé was stopped again, even before further body versions could be presented.

The car

The Continental Mark II received the factory code 60-A and the designation Sports Coupe . Compared to the competing products of its time, it was a sleek coupé that combined an exclusive look with its own technology. The external design of the car was created in-house; Ford's Special Products Division under John Reinhart designed the body; Gordon Buehrig , who had designed some sensational bodies for Duesenberg in the 1930s, also acted in an advisory capacity . The Mark II had a pontoon body with a long wheelbase. The bonnet was long and the passenger compartment was compact. Instead of rear wings, the car had a classic rear section. A special feature, however, was a curved trunk lid behind which a spare wheel stood. This arrangement was elegant but impractical because it made access to the trunk difficult. This idea as a design element was particularly impressive so that it became the hallmark of the Lincoln Mark Series from the 4th generation (1969) without the impractical positioning of the spare wheel having been adopted. The simple, yet expressive design impressed both in the USA and in Europe. Soon after the Mark II was presented, the design was seen as a milestone in automotive design.

Marketing and sales

The public's interest was skilfully directed to the new top product from Ford. The first generation of Continental were used from 1954 to promote image and used in films and series ( product placement ), for example in the movie The Caine Was Her Fate ( The Caine Mutiny ) with Humphrey Bogart , Van Johnson and José Ferrer .

The Continental Mark II made its debut at the Paris Motor Show in October 1956. In the first model year, it was offered at a price of $ 9,695. This made it the most expensive series vehicle from American production and about as expensive as a Rolls-Royce Silver Dawn . The Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz Convertible Coupé (priced at $ 6,556 in the price lists), the innovative Packard Caribbean (hardtop $ 5,445, convertible $ 5,995) and Imperial's most expensive coupé , the Southampton Hardtop Coupé, sold for $ 5,094, targeted a comparable market niche .

As early as November 1955, one month after the start of production, the press reported a very good market reception, although the product planners had given too little attention to the fact that the first Continental at around $ 2,700 was significantly cheaper even before the war and therefore the target group was not identical to that for the Mark II. Early analysis found that the typical buyer was a 51 year old businessman with a family and two children, making $ 30,000 a year, owning a home worth over $ 50,000, and a member of the local country Club was. Obviously, the Continental Division never succeeded in formulating clear indicators of interest in its product. Therefore, the advertising was not targeted enough. Continental wrote to 50,000 potential customers with an estimated income of over $ 100,000 in advance. Follow-up letters established contact with the nearest dealer and enabled a viewing. The campaign didn't work; the income alone did not automatically indicate an interest in the Mark II.

Nevertheless, the start of sales was remarkable, at the beginning customers practically stood in line to purchase a Continental Mark II. The agency in Cleveland put 67 customers on the waiting list. This was partly due to the low output of 13 vehicles a day in November 1955. It happened that a seller refused to sell a customer because the customer wanted to negotiate the price and the branch in Houston ( Texas ) sold their quota of eight vehicles for 1000 $ above the list price. Unfortunately, the hype only lasted for a short time: Of the 1307 vehicles sold in model year 1956, 1251 were sold between October and December 1955, after which sales fell rapidly.

In 1957, in its second model year, the Mark II was $ 9,966. But it was no longer the most expensive US car; In December 1956, Cadillac presented an even more extravagant car, the Eldorado Brougham , which went on sale from January 1957. It had four doors (with portal doors ) and had new features such as a roof made of brushed chrome steel and air suspension . The price was an exorbitant $ 13,074 - and GM lost around $ 3,500 on each copy sold. Production ended on May 8, 1957.

Overall, the Continental Mark II was not an economic success. In 1956 1325 copies were produced, in 1957 only 444. That was certainly mainly due to the extremely high selling price but also because the marketing did not work and the Continental Division - inevitably - could not build an image fast enough that corresponded to the new car. A Ford executive reported years later that, despite the high selling price, Ford Motor Company made about $ 1,000 in losses on every single Mark II:

"It was a project that broke Bill Ford's heart, and I guess I could say that in many ways it broke ours, too" ("It was a project that broke Bill Ford's heart, and I think I can say that it also broke ours in some respects ").

Facelift

Some technical changes were made for the shortened model year 1957. The compression of the engine was increased from 9.0 to 10.0: 1 and a quadruple carburetor from Carter was installed instead of Holley , which increased the output to 300 bhp (220 kW). The engine received a more modern air filter, there was a more powerful alternator and improvements to the gearbox. A transmission oil cooler and a directed power differential with locking function were also available. Weight was saved on the chassis by omitting the center strut; this became possible because there was no longer an open version of the Mark II, which would have required greater rigidity. The air intakes for the air conditioning were now placed in the front instead of the rear fenders and there were four new metallic paint colors, which increased the choice to 18 colors (12 of which metallic).

Other planned versions

Due to the early production stop, further body versions that were initially planned could no longer be brought onto the market.

  • A version with a hydraulically retractable hardtop was developed together with Lockheed but was not produced for cost reasons. In order to amortize the expenses for the development, however, the roof mechanism of the Ford Fairlane 500 Retractable Skyliner (1957-1960) and versions for the fabric tops of the Lincoln Continental (1961-1969) and the third generation Ford Thunderbird (1961-1964) were developed . What they all have in common is a trunk lid attached to the rear for technical reasons.
  • Instead of this hardtop convertible, which was not put into production, a two-door convertible with a soft top based on the coupé was also envisaged. Two copies were built at Hess & Eisenhardt . The client was the Ford marketing department in Chicago ( Illinois ). One of them, completed in December 1955, still exists. Less than a year later, another car was built at the renowned bodybuilder Derham Body Company in Rosemont ( Pennsylvania ). This vehicle was shown at many exhibitions in the USA, then got the technical upgrades of the 1957 model year and was repainted. In this form it was acquired by William Clay Ford who gave it to his wife. This convertible also still exists. The Derham copy differs from those from Hess & Eisenhardt in that it has a slightly higher hood; In addition, instead of a metal cover for the convertible top compartment, it has a fabric cover. The open version of the Mark II also failed because the selling price should have been set unrealistically high. Various Mark IIs were subsequently converted to convertibles, but no other during its production period.
  • A four-door version on an extended chassis was planned for 1958, but was not even realized as a prototype.

successor

The Continental Division brought out the Continental Mark III in 1958, the Continental Mark IV in 1959 and the Continental Mark V in 1960. These models had nothing to do with the Continental Mark II and basically cannot be regarded as its successors. They were just high-priced, stylistically and in the equipment upgraded versions of the contemporary Lincoln vehicles. They weren't very successful. After the 1960 model year, these vehicles were no longer marketed.

The Mark II did not get a successor that roughly corresponded to its conceptual peculiarities until 1968 with a large coupé called the Continental Mark III.

Trivia

The Continental Mark II was purchased by numerous wealthy individuals. Known Mark II drivers were US President Dwight D. Eisenhower , whose brother Milton , the Shah of Iran , the singers Frank Sinatra , Elvis Presley ( vehicle identification number C5613286) and Louis Prima , the actor Stewart Granger and Walter Brennan , the Hollywood - producer Cecil B. DeMille , Darryl F. Zanuck , Jack M. Warner and Mike Todd or the industrialists and business people Nelson Rockefeller , Henry J. Kaiser ( Kaiser Motors ), RJ Reynolds (tobacco) and William Harrah (hotels; major car collector).

The Continental Mark II made an appearance in the 1956 feature film The Top Ten Thousand .

The Mark II today

Unsurprisingly, many Mark IIs survived. The car became a collector's item shortly after production ceased. The prices for restoration objects are relatively low because restoration is very expensive and some spare parts are hard to come by. Mechanical parts for Lincoln technology are more readily available but also not cheap.

literature

  • Richard M. Langworth: Encyclopedia of American Cars 1930-1980. Beekman House, New York 1984, ISBN 0-517-42462-2 .
  • Paul R. Woudenberg: Lincoln and Continental 1946-1980 - The classic Postwar Years. New edition. Motorbooks International, Osceola WI (USA) 1993, ISBN 0-87938-730-0 .
  • Beverly Rae Kimes, Richard M. Langworth (Eds.): The golden anniversary of the Lincoln motorcar, 1921-1971. Automobile Quarterly, New York 1970.
  • Consumer's Guide (Ed.): Encyclopedia of American Cars from 1930. Publications International, 1993, ISBN 0-7853-0175-5 .
  • G. Marshall Naul, R. Perry Zavitz (Eds.): The Specification Book For US Cars 1930-1969. Motorbooks International, Osceola WI (USA) 1980, ISBN 0-87938-068-3 .
  • Jerry Heasley: The Production Figure Book For US Cars. Motorbooks International, Osceola WI (USA) 1977, ISBN 0-87938-042-X .
  • Tad Burness: American Car Spotter's Guide, 1940-65. Motorbooks International, Osceola WI (USA), ISBN 0-87938-057-8 .
  • Peter C. Sessler: American Automobile Paint Code Interchange Manual 1945-1995. Motorbooks International, Osceola WI (USA) 1995, ISBN 0-87938-977-X .

Web links

Commons : Continental Mark II  - collection of images, videos, and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Woudenberg, p. 69.
  2. ↑ J. Heasley, pp. 69-70.
  3. ↑ howstuffworks.com on the Continental Mark II; Photo of the open trunk
  4. ^ Langworth, p. 213.
  5. ↑ Woudenberg, chap. 6th
  6. ↑ Woudenberg, p. 75.
  7. ↑ Woudenberg, p. 75.
  8. ^ Langworth, p. 214.
  9. ↑ quoted from Langworth, p. 214.
  10. ^ Peter C. Sessler: American Automobile Paint Code Interchange Manual 1945-1995. Motorbooks International, Osceola WI (USA) 1995, ISBN 0-87938-977-X , pp. 108-109. (English)
  11. ↑ coachbuilt.com: Hess & Eisenhardt
  12. ↑ coachbuilt.com: Derham & Co.
  13. ↑ howstuffworks.com
  14. ↑ howstuffworks.com
  15. ↑ howstuffworks.com
  16. ↑ howstuffworks.com
  17. ↑ howstuffworks.com
  18. ↑ howstuffworks.com
  19. ↑ howstuffworks.com
  20. ↑ howstuffworks.com
  21. ↑ howstuffworks.com
  22. ↑ howstuffworks.com
  23. ↑ howstuffworks.com
  24. ↑ howstuffworks.com
  25. ↑ howstuffworks.com
  26. ↑ howstuffworks.com