Doin' the Continental

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The Hollywood A-list drove Cadillacs and Duesenbergs; Frank Lloyd Wright drove a Lincoln Continental. Immediately, we get a sense of the 1940-41 Continental’s character, and we know it must look good. He was so smitten that he was inspired to redesign one of two examples he owned as a coupé de ville following an accident. Raymond Loewy and Brooks Stevens followed suit in trying to put their own mark on the model, but none of them ever succeeded in bettering the original effort by Ford’s ‘Bob’ Gregorie. Representing the pinnacle of prewar American car design, the Lincoln Continental could trace its lineage to a forgotten rear-engined, Tatra-esque concept called the Sterkenburg, which originated from the pen of stylist John Tjaarda. The principal of Le Baron introduced Edsel Ford to the project, he was impressed and the Sterkenburg eventually evolved into the 1935 Lincoln-Zephyr. The Zephyr was refined overtime by E T Gregorie until the aesthetically sensitive Edsel steered him towards something more ‘Continental’.

Kit Foster tells how an eccentric concept was transformed into a masterpiece of design in the November issue of The Automobile, on sale now.

Words by Zack Stiling. Photographs by Nick Clements.

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