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"I love your car..." Real American Steel

It wasn't the first time. Driving on the freeway, a brand new black Volvo SUV slowed down after passing me, thirty day tag still adorning the license frame on the rear-gate. Slowing down to 65, the man honked, waved, and gave me a definite "thumbs-up". After I acknowledged his accolade, he sped off. This was different from the pro-American Patriotic "thanks" people rendered after 9-11. "Well, that's a switch..." I thought. Since when do Volvo drivers ever notice a vintage Lincoln? Next time a well heeled gentlemen was opening the door of his new MK X, white with bucksin interior. I happened to pull up next to him as the light changed to red, causing me to stop. He bent down and said: "Now that's a Lincoln..." Indeed, I told him, "it's in better shape than I am..." It occured to me that these accolades weren't representative of the average American, just perhaps a nice infrequent happy wave. When I was fueling up, a well coiffed professional woman driving her late model silvery-grey BMW convertible changed my mind: "I love your car..." she told me as she was reaching for the gas pump. "I've driven a few of those..." I told her, "Ohh but I LOVE that..." The car she was admiring: A 1969 Continental Mark III.

"Same Sausage Different Length..." BMW CEO Eberhardt von Kuhnheim stated explaining why he was "tired" of concurrent BMW design and subsequently hired Chris Bangle to redesign BMW cars and launch the brand on the "Haptic" approach allowing for the flame surfacing and sculpting in their cars. BMW purist have hated the Bangle approach, but BMW sales skyrocketed more than 30% plus since he arrived from Wisconsin to California and Bavaria to take the reigns at BMW design. Though "promoted" upstairs, and other more adventurous designers as Adrain Van Hooyndonk are in the driver seat from the latest at BMW, the Bangle regime hit a nerve. The same kind of nerve on a different level that has brought forth the success of the Mini, return of the VW Bug, the Fiat 500, and the adventurous style of the Djordjevic designed Rolls-Royce Phantom and the Cameron inspired EX100/DropHead Coupe. Regardless of whether or not you like the style of those particular cars, much less the Bangle approach, it is the style itself that sets them apart from the mundanities on wheels called Camry's, Accord's, Infinitis, and the like. When you have seen one Lexus, you have seen them all, as much as Hyundai's. Automobile Magazine put a dozen econo-sedans on the side-view on a single page and challenged the readers to be able to identify them, they were carbon copies of one another, the weakness of their design character self-evident in the excercise.

Homogenized design has befallen American industry in an attempt to ape its German and Asian competitors, throwing away an advantage we once enjoyed without even realizing it. One has to feel a bit of remorse for the generation that thinks a Honda CVCC from 1975 is a "classic" design much less a B210 Datsun from the same era. By the same token Detroit couldn't nor shouldn't be expected to bring back the 1959 Cadillac Fin, any more than it would be likely illegal to manufacture given the stringent safety and crash standards. Yet the individual character, flamboyance of design, the very fresh restatement of product on a regular basis is what gave rise to the prominence of the American Auto Industry between 1925-1972. What we threw out with the bath-water over time was quality, performance, and the once tried-and-true reliability of Detroit pig-iron under all those once fabulous lines. All you have to do is drive a 1963-1965 Riviera to understand what was cast aside. At the juncture that quality and design suffered in tandem with terrible build quality, competitors were handed the market on a silver platter. Detroit lost its way, alienating not only its traditional base, but any chance of capturing the buyers whom they were so desperate to please.

Thus we endured Vegas, Pintos, X-Cars, Cimarron's, Versailles, Cadillac V8-6-4-(3-2-0), V8 equipped Chevy Monza's requiring lifting up the engine or disconneting the steering columns to remove the driver side spark-plugs, and HT4100 engines that self-destructed at 41,000 miles. Tarted up Granada/Monarchs pedaled as Mercedes, Ford Fairmonts with non-existent head-gaskets, and the like. One only needs to remember the name Dodge Aspen to reach for the malox: a car that replaced something bullit-proof with a car even Chrysler admitted wasn't fully engineered and rushed to production. The list of automotive "high crimes and misdemeanors" of crapulous cars built within Detroit during the decades after the 1960's too numerous to list.

Nor was that all. We can't forget The Roger Smith Era at GM, where GM spent enough money to purchase Toyota Motors Corp., only to lose 10 points in the market-place. Nor can we forget Henry Ford II's triple play of not bringing Ford designed and sponsored Korean built Ford cars (Hyundai!!) to America instead of the Pinto which could have landed stateside $300 cheaper at $1,600 in 1969; HFII's refusal to consider a Honda Engine Contract for a second generation Pinto prior to Honda's arrival in America: "No *** motors in a Ford"; and twice having forgone the chance to develop front wheel drive small platform cars at Ford (A Modern Model T?)first in 1960 with McNamara's Cardinal Project (which Ford had invested $35Mn) and a decade later under Hal Sperlich. Sperlich departing to Chrysler with FWD K-Car and Mini-Van designs when that program was cancelled. Had Ford, much less GM or Chrysler brought those projects to fruition, they never would have lost market dominance and consumer confidence to the degree they have. Why they can't miss the bus this time round.

But it wasn't just that The Big Three didn't make many small cars, it was the fact that they were so poor vis-a-vis the big cars they did make, and uncompetitive with foreign rivals as VW Bug. A let-down of consumer confidence spurned in part by the Ralph Nader episode, forever blotching the reputation of American Small Cars. A fate further exacerbated by the horror of what they did build, "sealed", rather by the lack-there-of from Pinto gas tanks to hold gasoline in a crash. Had they built a better Volkswagen, as Falcon and Corvair started out to be, things might have turned out very different. It wasn't all darkness, nor the fate of the industry now merely hanging on the sale of small frugal cars alone.

The net effect, three decades later, is that Chevy Malibu is advertisng itself as the "car that's tired of being a foreign car in its own land" or the car "that you can't afford to ignore". That's how far the disaffection has taken root against the indiginous American Auto Industry, not to mention comments previously noted. Balanced against that is the undercurrent of disaffection with amorphous German and Asian products which has surfaced and also taken root. Yes, they might be well built, exciting to drive when you get above a certain price point, but as a friend said upon purchasing his S600 Mercedes: "The most anonymous expensive car I've ever owned...no one pays any attention to it." Replaced by a Bentley, my friend knows he's "arrived" and there no doubting it from the glances  one receives behind the wheel of the Big Green Driving Machine from Crewe. While Detroit fell from the high perch it occuppied both in terms of engineering, quality and style, by the same token European, and Asian designs blended together, looking more and more like. People are longing for something more, and it's the home court advantage that GM, Chrysler and Ford can win.

Taking their well deserved beatings, the former "Big Three" have learned that there's no margin for error building errant autos from the get-go. "We will bury You", the hovering competition is banging away in the market-place much like Krushchev banging his shoe at the U.N. forty plus years ago. So the 300's, Fiesta's, Focus, Fusions, and even the Town Car's can't reek by any measure, or they will rot on lots until the discounts move the metal, along with corporate red ink. What the engineers try to save in fractions of a penny to make a profit, the sales-staff flushes away with rebates, discounts, and what-have-you. But Ford hasn't the luxury of that option any longer, not after $18Bn in losses since 2005. No more so than GM or Chrysler. From the misfortunes of the past comes opportunity for the future. A door has opened in the same fashion that people are "tired of the same sausage, different length"  and looking for something beyond that. Thus the door is open for Cadillac CTS, Coupe, Corvette, Solstace, and the fabulous reverberations of the Mustang, Challenger, and Camaro today. Just as it was once taken for granted American cars weren't any good, now they have been burnished from the mistakes, and bettered their measure by any accounting, charging fast to become first again. Yet the competition isn't first in line when it comes to good o'l Yankee Style.

It's more than "love" that the unrequited BMW driver expressed when looking longingly at the Continental Mark III I was driving. No doubt she wouldn't sign up for 12 mpg, boulevard ride, and forty plus-year old finnicky wiring. She would sign up for those beautiful french curves of the wheel-arches, the Continental style so evoquative of the series, teak wood veneers coupled with glove-soft leathers, packed with punch that Mark III delivered from the right foot even when new, all mated to chassis dynamics that would put the Bimmer in the bin. Delivered standard with modern accoutrements now demanded of every driver: from blue-tooth to voice command, the full range of rolling entertainment systems from DVD to Internet. A warranty lasting 100K, up from the 5YR/50K Powertrain Warranty & 2/Yr/24K overall warranty that Lincoln offered in 1966 and initiated in 1961. Part and parcel of what Lincoln designers today are calling the "Fourth Space": that space between home, office, entertainment, and the road which consumes so much of our lives, the Lincoln thus becoming the "Fourth Dimension"  or realm of our lives spent on the roadways between the private places in our lives.

If Lincoln is to occuppy the "Fourth Space" in owner's lives, as designers Peter Horbury and Gordon Platto plus his "Plattoon" of men and women working so hard to create, they are going to have to rediscover the "Real Steel" of American design, able to arouse those kinds of BMW drivers which I encountered. What that BMW driver and Volvo driver saw was something perhaps kindled from their long lost past, an ethereal era of the youth of their lives, which either one might be enticed behind the wheel with a design commensurate with Real Steel from those halcyon days, the kind of design that makes you remember it forty years later. Real Steel: that melding of the classic Lincoln and Continental style with a Hot-Rod Chassis, indicative of the legend of the song and the brand, married with the style that Edsel Ford worked so hard to develop, capitalized upon by generations of designers ever after...is where Lincoln must drive. Rumors abound that Mercury may last as long as the next Comet, thus it falls to Lincoln to preserve something of our national motoring heritage. Without which, one fears for the fate of Ford Motor Company. As Henry Ford II once intoned: "I want to drive that one home..." when he saw the L. David Ash design for the Mark III, and BMW drivers, not to mention the tried-and-true owners of the Lincoln Motorcar, have to look at the next Lincoln and say the same, when you arrive: "I love your car..."

DouglasR  

The Continental Life is Never Out of Date

From his office in the GM Tech Center, once the domain of Harley Earl, also dubbed "Dracula's Bathroom" by a GM Executive in the 1980's, GM Design Chief Ed Welburn has turned a gear for the Cadillac CTS Coupe, and biting into the future for Continental. The CTS Coupe was unveiled at Detroit, surprising everyone, spy shots show the engineering staffs are busy testing prototype mules to bring the car to market as fast as possible. What seems bad news for Lincoln, is actually the best possible course of events for Continental.

"We're not trying to be an English car...we want to be an American car...we want to stand for what made this brand great again in its day." Gordon Platto's opposite number at Cadillac John Manoogian II commented with respect to the CTS Coupe program. The design executed from a drawing by Robert Munson and brought to full-scale almost unchanged. GM top brass Robert Lutz and CEO Rick Wagoner approved the project whole cloth: "We can't afford not to do this car" was the reaction. It's very hard not to like this new Cadillac---it has all the verve and dash of the brand coupled with a dramatic statement---nor does it look like an Euro-Asian copy of something else. The Cadillac Sixteen might never see the light of a production line, but this front-end captures it very well, and the slicing of the sheet-metal from the three-quarter view nothing but a sweet iteration of the current style. You'd be hard pressed not to be amazed at the tail-light treatment. Score one for Mr. Welburn, Manoogian and Munson. Score one as well for Mr. Wagoner and Lutz for having the nerve to say YES, and approve this car.

"Our Rear Wheel Drive (program), as we have already stated, we are working on a new platform portfolio of vehicles." Derrick Kuzak, Ford's Chief Product Planner commented with the announcement that RWD wouldn't die at The Blue Oval. The story was confirmed: "Ford Motor Company is bringing RWD development back to the U.S. from Australia. The automaker has green-lighted a vehicle platform that will provide the basis for a new generation of rear-wheel-drive cars." by the Detroit News. Ford Motor now has $1.7Bn cash-in-hand for the development of the new program with the sale of Jaguar/Land-Rover to Ratan N. Tata and Tata Industrial Group. "Now is the time for Ford to concentrate on integrating the Ford brand globally as we implement our plan to create a strong Ford Motor Company that delivers profitable products for all." CEO Alan R. Mulally commented upon handing off the Big Cat. But he had stated only days before: "The proceeds will be invested on our quality, productivity and new product development---for Ford."

Yes, Mr. Mulally, you still have to cut $778 in costs, per vehicle, out of products you sell in North America to redress the $2Bn in losses necessary to eradicate the gap towards profitability for Q1 2009. That works out to about $.05 on each of the roughly 15,000 parts in the average vehicle. Yet one can't help but believe that as one former Mustang Group Engineer told me: "We'd bust our necks to save five cents on a part to make our budgets, or cutting out things we really thought were necessary, only to watch the sales guys piss it all away with rebates and discounts on the lots."---that the way cars are sold and traded is as much of the problem as anything else. Especially when average discounting and rebates average $3,000 plus per vehicle sold. That's a lot of engineering bucks out the window. Since Ford failed to meet its target in labour "buy-outs" offered to each of its 54,000 North American workers, those cuts have to come from somewhere---so staffs are being reduced to the bone hither and thither across the Blue Oval. IF you're MR. Mulally, you can either shut down plants, lay-off workers, pay them less money, or slash and burn through your product to meet those goals. Never-mind the rising costs incurred by the falling dollar and $107 per barrel oil. None of these choices will land you in the Automotive Hall of Fame. Make the wrong move, and you will be joining Roy T. Hurley of Curtiss-Wright with Studebaker-Packard as the worst auto-executive in the last half-century. Even Chrysler, in the darkest days of 1980 and particularly again in 1989, didn't cut capital spending for products thus saving the company. Fiat came back from the dead with a cash infusion of $1.7Bn, equal to the Jaguar sale, that GM paid when it had to abrogate its "buy-out" contract, and now Fiat is posting profits again. While the situation at the Blue Oval is dire, the clock is striking near to midnight, the chance now is to strike in the correct direction, and that direction is Continental.

While CTS Coupe provides the impetus for a return of Continental, Automobile's Jamie Kitman puts the hammer down on Cadillac's prospects for the future. "I've got a feeling I'm not the only one who's pained to learn that Cadillac won't replace its aging Northstar engine, having decided to punt the whole business of building its own V8's". IN a decision that has to be worthy and stupid as any from that from the Roger Smith Era at GM, (Will it win the 'Roger Smith Trophy'?), if true, the garage doors are wide open for Ford, Lincoln, and Continental. People are fighting over Shelby KR500's with an additional build scheduled to meet demand. No V6 engine underhood would ever accomplish that. While Messers. Wagoner, Welburn, Lutz, Manoogian and Munson might have the cojones in the design department, they've castrated their engineers in the horsepower and torque race. What will Cadillac do for the V Series without a V8? They've finally learned how to pass the Bimmers and the Benzes at the 'Ring and they're tossing that out with the bathwater if Mr. Kitman is 'Korrect'. It won't be Ford's problem if they "steel" each and every one of those customers with the arrival of a bucks-up hot-rod V8 Continental sedan, coupe and convertible. Reason alone to press ahead with a new Continental program. All that hard work that Cadillac has done will be for the benefit of Lincoln and Continental.

Ford, more than any other domestic manufacturer, has power-trains on the shelf within development range to make some truly stellar cars carrying the Lincoln and Continental name. From V6, V8, V10, and even V12 derivation, from 4.6Litre to 6.2Litre engines there is something salacious able to find its way behind the right foot of the next generation of drivers. The cost amortized as the technology is ready now. Perhaps Ford can checkmate the GM High-Performance Engine Plant at Wixom, while producing a better engine for the boys in blue, if they torque together their motors and options correctly. Just ask Carol Shelby. Platto's Plattoon likewise has their work cut out for them to present ideas, before MR. Munson has another brainstorm, if they are to send MR. Welburn back into "Dracula's Bathroom" for some all-nighters and beat Manoogian's momentum at Cadillac.

Continental has a chance from the starting line to attain Number One Rank. Not necessarily in sales, but in driveline, build and unique design quality. Sales will come if the product is right, as Cadillac's 81% increase in CTS sales and One Million Chrysler 300 sales have proven. Bringing Lincoln and Continental to a level of quality equal to, if not better than its best competitor is the only viable goal. Nothing else makes any sense. In the global market, where Lincolns are built in Mexico, Canada and the United States; Cadillac assembled in America, Belgium and China; BMW & Mercedes assembled in America and Germany, it will be the design and engineering work coupled with the TEAM effort at factories towards first rank that sets the tone, casting the trophy for who is Number One. American design and engineering work must remain paramount. We shouldn't have to make excuses for what our domestic firms make. Otherwise Ford will die under the weight of its own rebates and discounts, and MR. Mulally won't be able to find enough nickels to survive much less break-even. No one is arguing about the price of a KR500*...the line too long. Pride behind the wheel is the issue.

Why BMW often advertises: "We didn't set out to make a religion..." When Dan Gurney crossed the finish line first in his Ford GT at LeMans in 1966, Lincoln-Continental advertisements claimed: "The Continental Life is Never Out of Date" and captured a sentiment that has remained true ever since for the die-hards and traditionalist alike. The style and quality of the car was crisp and refreshing then, attracting new customers while remaining true to the spirit of the Continental Ethos. Something Continental needs to return to, like the efforts expended on Ford's F-150's, design that stands the test of time, forty years on.

Bringing back the Continental will allow Ford to start fresh, at the pinnacle of the market, as second best will not do. No one said Ford could win against Enzo Ferrari at LeMans, and they did. No one said Lincoln could ever beat Cadillac, and they did. No one said they could build the best car in the world, and they did in 1956 with the Mk II. No one said a young 28 year-old Henry Ford II could revive his company from the "Rigor Mortis" of 1946, and he did. Naysayers today declare that Ford is defeated, manufacturing in American is doomed and headed for the junkyard: "Does the world need Chrysler, GM or Ford?" one serious expose stated succinctly. Continental will prove not only the mettle of the men and women (remaining) at Ford Motor today, if successful, no one ever need under-estimate American design again. Those sentiments expressed by Mr. Manoogian as valid for Cadillac as for Lincoln, speaking silently to millions of Americans waiting for great cars again. Those sentiments can ring true, so that when asked and answered new buyers can say without hesitation: "I drive a Continental"

...silently expressing across America, that "we're number one..."

DouglasR

*Addendum: Mark Fields, Ford's North American President, helped gavel down an additional $100,000 in bidding for the last Shelby KR500 at the Barrett-Jackson Auction at Palm Beach. That doesn't include the price of the car!! The sale was part of a package of two Mustangs built for the Knight-Rider TV Show. The last Shelby allocation, the 1,571th car, was thrown in by Mr. Fields personally as inducement for the charity benefit sale, bringing the winning bid to $300,000! No V6 underhood would ever garner that kind of money for a Mustang, and it wouldn't be a Shelby without a V8. Performance and hot engines sell cars...something Lincoln and Continental can achieve.

(sources: Automobile Magazine May 2008; CAR Magazine, Tim Pollard; Motor Trend Magazine, May 2008, Todd Llasa; NYT; WSJ, FT; Ford Motor Company; Tata Industrial Group; interview with anonymous former Mustang engineer, Ford Motor Company; ESPN-Barrett-Jackson Auction)  

"Too Bad..."

"We rented a pair of Mustangs from Hertz. We cut open the rocker panels and torched out the brackets we needed. Welding them into our prototypes while we were testing in Naples solved a lot of the cowl shake." my friend, who was program engineer for Mustang some years ago, began to tell me. "Repairing the rockers, and repainting them we returned the cars to Hertz who was none the wiser. That was the problem, we had no one on our team that had knowledge of where Mustang had been in the past, engineering wise. A lot of experience and emperical knowledge was lost---we were relearning what had already been done...and we were on a very tight budget." It was only the tip of an iceberg that provides a marker as to where Lincoln must not go today.

As Ford Motor tries to salvage its current predicament having approved development and production of its rear-wheel-drive platform, today's engineers and designers have both opportunity and hardship building cars that must be better than their predecessors while matching competitors cars that haven't even been built yet---such as the impending 7 Series BMW due a year from now. T-Bird drive line engineers tried to duplicate BMW performance with their IRS set up and found how hard it was to calibrate the fine harmonics which take years, if not decades to develop, that makes a rear end work properly. They were all men and women in a hurry, working 80 hours a week as the Mustang team did during the Troutmann-Nasser-Telnack era. Competing against larger budgets and sometimes greater stealth at solving problems. Lexus, for example, calibrating the frequency which the antenna relay bracket oscillates below the frequency of the body-shell so the customer never felt it driving down the road---allowing Lexus to use a cheaper bracket! These are the challenges that Lincoln is also facing if they're ever to match and surpass competitors, especially as the margin for error drops conversely with the chance of success depending on the resources allocated for the new platform. $10Mn buys you a couple of taillights and a grille rework these days, so every million counts when doling out the money.

J. Mays, to his credit, reorganized Ford Motor design after he was romanced and hired by Jack Telnack and Jaques Nasser to replace the retiring Telnack in 2001. Deciding at dinner atop The Glass House in the Executive Dinning Room, these gentlemen thrashed out where Ford design should proceed, which is now making itself apparent. "It will take a decade" Mays said at the time. Mays cashiered the entrenched system where designers worked on Ford's on Monday, Wednesday on Mercury's and slung clay on armatures on Friday for Lincoln. Instituting whole cloth dedicated Lincoln studios with a Chief Designer appointed coupled with a team of individuals who would "eat, breathe and sleep Lincoln..." Gerry McGovern, the first 'Chief Designer-Lincoln' and author of the stillborn Mark IX, Mark X, and Continental Sedan, put some heft into Mays' marching orders. "You run your business, you decide how you want to do it." Mays told McGovern. Mays didn't stop there, under the aegis of McGovern, who also created a 'Lincoln Design Council', comprised of engineers, product planners, marketing and manufacturing people that would be responsible for bringing the designs to production feasability and manufacturing plus interfacing with the customer through marketing, advertising and dealer input. Mays largesse putting a focal point on what was happening with Lincoln within The Blue Oval. Allowing the Lincoln Design Council in McGovern's words: "...to develop an overall design philosophy for what we want Lincoln to be about in design terms and that will be a halo on everything. In order to decide where we want to go, we need to recognize where we have come from." Adding that: "I think beauty comes in getting the fundimentals right, in terms of proportion, getting the wheelhouse relative to the overall length in the right place and getting the overhangs right." Without a proper organizational structure for Lincoln and the power approved for designers to act as Mays' delegates, there will be no chance for Mr. Horbury and Platto to get the "fundimentals right."

Therein lies another problem indicative of the dearth of engineering and design history rearing its head at Ford Motor. McGovern worked fast and furiously, by all accounts, on the Lincoln show cars and projects. Had they been approved, using a platform then under development and partially in production sharing components with LS/T-Bird, those cars would have seen the showroom floors 'round about 2005-06. The ante would have been 100,000 sales per annum added to the Lincoln stable, plus revival of Continental all while amortizing the costs of production. The clock wouldn't be chimmng midnight now had they been approved. Cancellation deprived not only customers who had been enticed by the showcars, which they never had a chance to buy voting with their pocketbooks, but exposed a deeper problem within the ranks at Ford. A problem which potentially threatens today's automobiles---providing the basis for core Ford Motor automobiles as Crown Victoria, Marquis, and Town Car, plus Mustang & Cougar, if there is ever to be one. Cancellation of the previous program endemic of an exodus of talent, apart from today's corporate "down-sizing". "Why waste three or four years of my abilities, when all they do is cancel the program---what incentive do I have to bust my ass when we really don't get paid for all the real-time hours involved that we spend building a car---and see it all washed away." my friend told me, paraphrasing the pervading attitude that many engineers often expressed. Ford loses potentially talented individuals when corporate machinations effectively eviscerate thousands of hours worth of work over several years. How many millions were lost when those cars were cancelled?

That scenario a reason why Gerry McGovern, and other designers such as the case of Marek Riechmann who was once part of the Lincoln team, now at Aston-Martin and designer of the upcoming Rapide sedan, now providing competition for Ford rather than being part of it. The talented Mr. McGovern having decamped elsewhere when his hard work came up for naught, after Mays romanced him to come to Ford to begin with. Harley Earl never would have stayed within GM much less attained the greatness his work has commanded had Sloan lopped off his programs and proscribed his budgets beyond the pale after a half dozen to a dozen years. The lopping off of programs also creating a dynamic where engineers necessarily won't expend their best shot, going for the expedient solution because the cause and effect of episodes as Mr. McGovern's is to expedite the second rate as acceptable, giving fodder to the undercurrent of discord that produces less than stellar cars. Designers have the freedom to do their level best, but without the verve and tenacity of the team and engineers in place to follow through to production, that effort will never be appreciated by the public because they will never be given the chance to find out just how good their work was.

Lincoln and Continental have now come full circle. "We were too naive to believe that we could possibly fail..." Robert Thomas, who worked in the Special Operations Division that became the Continental Division, recalled when working on the Mark II. "As a group we were totally dedicated but had no idea as to the help we were about to get..." Thomas added with respect to the design process, as he was part of 15 designers and modellers, plus 9 engineers that brought the product to fruition. "Harley Copp was a terrific engineer, but I think his main forte was organization...at this he was a genius and the group he put together for Bill Ford was a good example of his talent." Copp was Chief Engineer for Mark II, working along with former Duesenberg-Auburn-Cord designer and team-mate Gordon Beuhrig's expertise and Chief Stylist John Reinhardt, all of whom reported to Bill Ford. William Clay Ford Sr. was Vice-President for Special Operations Division "skunk works" that morphed into the Mark II. "Being isolated from the main styling studio was a big plus for us for we had only to answer to Bill Ford for our work." Thomas recalls. "The company was interested in a new Continental and they had some very wild, very ugly suggestions on what a new Continental should look like, and they organized a new Special Products Division under Bill Ford. We had probably the greatest organization that Ford had ever had...and it's too bad the whole thing blew up" Gordon Beuhrig recounted about his tennure as Body Engineer for Mark II. Adding: "It was the most dedicated group of people you ever saw...oh yes, they called us the 'Country Club Group'...but we did it right, the way it should be done...we had a new frame and we wanted a good test period with the new chassis." During the life of the development of the Mark II, the project engineers had the right to stop the production line if things went bad; "if the welds weren't correct on welding this thing up he (Pully Blank, body engineer) could stop the line."

The Mk II succeeded initially, but when corporate manderins outside the project became both jealous and greedy towards Continental Division, production was "speeded-up" to meet demand from 16 cars per day to 28, flooding the ultra-high end market with too many cars: "let's get the cars out, let's get the money in...they were just not...that's what killed it." Beuhrig recalled. Thomas reinforced that point of view, adding that Mark II would have at least broken even: "if (upper) management hadn't put so many stumbling blocks in our way, we might have succeeded." This is part and parcel of what J. Mays,  and McGovern started, what Peter Horbury and Gordon Platto have hopefully achieved with Lincoln today---isolating the Division from the malaise of the larger studios and bringing together a team to advance future Lincoln and Continental automobiles to production---this time giving the car verve and dash that it needs and providing a framework from which quality and profitable production can meld together. The Continental Division providing a perfect organizational example for the future.

This time, if management curtails the Lincoln Design Council---and what should be called the 'Continental Council' a.k.a 'Corps', just as Mark II had its Special Ops, the 'Country Club Group'---its budget and impetus to create the finest, the designers and engineers will call the last shot. They won't fear for their jobs if they aren't given the resources. This time, they will watch from afar at their new posts within Nissan-Renault, Porsche SE-VWAG, Toyota and Honda---for they will hand management their walking papers...and Ford will collapse under its own weight of shrinking market share against rising costs and endless rebates that fail to entice the buyers.

There is a photograph taken of William C. Ford Sr. standing in front of his Honolulu Blue Mark II (chassis C56B1961) twenty years ago, and thirty years after the last Mark II rolled off the assembly line May 13, 1957, at his home in Grosse Pointe. The look still evident in the determination in his eyes, a quiet pose, his right hand casually tucked on his hip, under the grey-blue blazer says it all: Pride still matters. This time, William C. Ford Jr., who had the nerve to face the families of those workers killed in the Rouge Steel boiler explosion his second month on the job as CEO, must show the same resolve when it comes to facing the product that carries the family name on the building. "If you look at Ford's history, one of the most obvious lessons it teaches is that great products are what drives success in our industry." Bill Ford stated in 2005. Handed down from the generations that created the company and the legend, what inculcated that pride then, can well serve Lincoln today and each day towards the launch of 'Job 1' May 14, 2012 for a new Continental. This time, they must spend at least $1.369Mn per day to make their goal---for the next four years. This time they must stand together with Platto's Plattoon, with Messers. Mays, Horbury, Kuzak, Fields and Farley...among many individuals...in creating the next generation of great products as Continental.

Otherwise the engineering teams will be cutting up rental cars to see what is required to finish the job, and risk working from prototype tooling for production parts; the product less than stellar as a result, the engineers knowing they could have done a better job. Inculcating as well, a demarche that The Blue Oval will never make it back to the top of the market. Fomenting Only Rudimentary Design will not cut it either, if allocations aren't forthcoming for the designers will have no need to do their best under such circumstances. Ford Motor will achieve what they have already attained: falling consumer confidence and market share. The loss of capital talent representing an obituary of the potential for "great products" shouldn't resonate with the echo from half a century ago: "too bad it all blew up". Mark II wasn't about breaking even, but setting a first class standard at Ford Motor: "we're not building Cadillac's" Reinhardt and Beuhrig told the purchasing people. Today's Continental Council has the harder task: make a great car and money...selling with no rebates, just lines around the block for buyers---customers able to order the car to spec from home and pick it up from the dealer of their choice. IF the new Continental does hit the showroom floor, potential buyers can't find themselves saying the same thing that Mr. Beuhrig found himself saying: "...too bad..."! This time, given today's economic realities and market, this is the last chance. "Too Bad" will not describe what will happen for all of us, if they fail.

DouglasR

Sources: Benson Ford Research Center, Gordon Beuhrig Interview with David L. Crippen July 1984; 'Confessions of an Auto Stylist', Robert Thomas, 1984; 'American Car Design Now' C. Edson Armi, Rizzoli Press International, NY 2003; 'Decade of Dazzle' Henry Rasmussen, Motorbooks International, 1987; 'Ford Tough' William C. Ford Jr with David Magee, John Wiley & Sons 2005;Interview with Anonymous Mustang Group Engineer, April 2008 by author; Author's Mark II files.  

I just received a Franklin Mint WCF Mark II model. The accompanying brochure says that in 1983 the car was "discovered" (sic) parked in a dormant Packard factory.

Do your Mk II files have anything that would explain this "discovery" story?  

The Franklin Mint story might be true. Ford Motor bought large parts of the old Packard Motor facilities when Studebaker-Packard signed its management contract with Curtiss Wright July 27, 1956. At the time James Nance was trying to negotiate using 1956 Lincoln bodies for the upcoming 1957 Pakard, since he could not find financing to build the Bill Schmidt designed "Predictor". Packard production was moved out of Detroit to South Bend, effectively killng the Pakcard brand, though it surived through the end of 1958. It's plausible that WCF Sr. kept his Mark II in one of the old Packard buildings, but it would not have been forgotten or "lost", simple stored. I sat the WCF Mark II in 1981 at the national Lincoln meet in the Ford styling Rotunda with the introduction of the latest Lincoln Continental sedan. It was also for sale at the time, and foolishly I did not buy it. The car then had a 1969 Mark III engine and brake booster/master cylinder in it, but still was a very nice car in good condition. Who owns the car now, I am unaware...because it was rumored sold in the late 1980's after the photo shoot in the Rasmussen book.

DouglasR  

Lincoln & Ras Tunara

Part I Below...  

Lincoln & Ras Tunara

The shadow of the letters remained on the wall where the dealer's name had been. Driving out to see the new Mark S, I was shocked to find an empty lot, the longstanding marque sign g-o-n-e, winds blowing the scrabble of detritus between the building from where one of my favorite Lincoln dealers had been for decades. It made me think: "...is this how it ends?"

Having just driven 500 miles up the east coast to Cape Cod in a late model E320 Mercedes-Benz, I wanted to compare the MK S driving performance against the E Class while still fresh in my memory. The Benz had superb road manners, handling, suspension, steering, brakes, etc., plus good fuel economy. The car still drove like a bank vault on wheels with 50K on the odometer. Acceptable seating was offset by a terrrible dash layout: the sweep-hand half moon speedometer design "borrowed" from a 1958 Lincoln. The ancillary controls worthy of a Fisher-Price Play Station, especially the HVAC system that was nothing short of incompetently arrayed and exasperating. The inherent simplicity and quality of Benz's of yore that I have driven seemed washed away by concurrent CEO Juergen Schrempp's engineering and cost-point committees trying to be all things to all people. Aerodynamic slithering of the styling meant that I was drivng a set of windshield wipers and half a hood ornament when looking forward. I couldn't see the actual footprint of the car from the driver's seat, much less determine where the end of the car was when backing up. Now I know why they have sensors to do that job today! The comparison wasn't to be. It would have to wait until I hunted down the next nearest dealer across the state-line to see what what Lincoln has wrought from Chicago. 385 new Mark S drivers already know, the first few cars reaching dealers towards the end of June.

The first 2,130 barrels of American developed and drilled oil, struck from Well #7 March 16,1939 at Dammam Dome, left Saudi Arabia aboard the SS D.G. Schofield  at Ras Tunara in May 1939. At the same time Edsel Ford was cruising the streets of Palm Beach taking orders for his new custom Continental. The importance of that discovery and development by California-Arabian Standard Oil Company, CASOC, led by Chief Geologist Max Steinecke, wouldn't factor into our lives until American oil production peaked and we became a net importer of oil after 1970. For nearly 40 years we've become increasingly dependent on outside resources of oil and energy to fuel our economy. Today 58.2% of our oil is provided from foreign sources. While we produce 12% of the world's oil capacity, we consume 25% of world's oil production. 42% of our economy is driven by petrochemicals. When we turn the keys of our cars and trucks, we are all part of the 19.6Mn barrels of oil, or roughly 320Mn gallons of gasoline consumed in America each day. Approximately half of each barrel of refined oil produces 19-21 gallons of gasoline, so each barrel is worth about $105 plus dollars at the pump, not counting other by-products. Four Middle Eastern Wars, two oil embargoes, and a 300% rise in fuel costs have now dramatically affected what we've long taken for granted: that America would always have abundant and cheap supplies of energy and oil to sustain our way of life.

Working in Paris a decade ago, it then cost me FR650, $105 to fill the tank of my Lincoln my job required I drive. While I had other cars to use which lent me a stark comarison on the costs of driving in The City of Light, I found that "I got used to it", paying the premium for driving a Lincoln as opposed to the Datsun convertible---which cost me $30 to fill. Returning stateside finding it cost me $30 to fill my Lincoln at home caused me to think: "How long will this last?" I wondered. Anyone regularly reading the leading newspapers could come to the same conclusion, much less requiring first hand foreign experience and travel to understand that hard cold reality.

Lincoln has two products dependent on V6 power today: Zephyr/MKZ, and Mk S. Where will the future upscale buyer go if this is all that Lincoln offers? The currently approved RWD V8 platform provides an answer. Especially if MK S doesn't reach the mark, finds fewer rather than many buyers over the next four years. Naturally, with the body-shell or platform necessarily larger, the use of lightweight high tensil strength steels and materials will have to increase, just as Audi and Jaguar have done with aluminum. Keeping the power-to-weight ratios competitive is as much a key as the real challenge of the power-train. V6, V8, Twin-Charged, Turbo & Super-charged engines as well as diesel technology are all within reach for Lincoln. Ford Motor has built them all, including V12's. The engines must now match driving habit and economic demands of the buyers. One assumes that it would take a miracle for Ford Motor and the Lincoln team to offer a true rechargeable "electric" as GM is doing with Volt. After 25 years of development, competitors as BMW are far ahead in hydrogen based engine technology, having built a test-fleet of hydrogen-gasoline V12 7 Series on loan to preferred customers. Lincoln and Ford Motor must either "buy-in" such advanced technology or develop its own within a crash course of four years if anything other than gasoline-diesel engines are to be offered as a serious alternative.

Unless Lincoln wants to find itself closed out of the market by its competitors, then the new platform must offer alternatives for buyers. Specifically smaller displacement V8 and V12 motors showcasing higher output and performance range. The architecture of both the 3.9, and 4.6 Litre V8 can find another life in the new Lincoln. Development of a small 5.0 Litre V12, akin to the 267/292/305 V12 from the 1936-42 Zephyr, can offer upscale buyers for Continental something that they can't get anywhere else: premium power output coupled with a smooth torque curve plus economy here-to-fore not associated with V12 engines. Marketed as a "Twin-Six" Continental might be able to corner a part of the top-end of the market, as well as leaving the door open for the larger market both with V8 engines, backed up by high-output V6 in a pinch. A Continental range can likewise showcase new technology between hybrid, hydro, and rechargeable electric becomes viable. The market above Mark S can be well covered by Lincoln and Continental with an avant-guard engineered RWD platform.

Mercedes, BMW, Lexus, even Hyundai engineers aren't sitting still, much less the team at Cadillac, and Buick. Mr. Jacoby at VWAG just announced VW is coming back to America building a sedan: "tailor made for the American consumer", show how keen the competition is to take away market share from Ford and Lincoln. As Messrs. Kuzak, Fields, Platto, Farley, Mulally, and Ford consider what to do with the future of Lincoln, with the RWD program "on the bubble", it is clear that if Lincoln abdicates the market and fails to follow through with such a program, they will necessarily cede the market to the competition. Look what happened to GM during the Roger Smith Era. People won't perceive Lincoln as offering top-line cars, when they have no choice but to go to the competition after their stint in the Mk S. There will be nothing but comparisons with Mercedes E Class left for Lincoln, and no point in comparing them to future S Class, 7 Series, 460L, or top-line V Series Cadillacs and Shanghai Designed Buick Invicta's. The shadow of the letters on the wall of my favorite Lincoln dealer will become a harbinger for its fate: becoming a shadow of itself; if it survives at all.

Tough choices have to be made now, and sometimes pure numbers can't extrapolate much less explain it all, but having the guts to place the bet does. Europeans have regularly stepped up to the plate for higher performance and engineering given their much higher operating costs per vehicle than what Americans have had to pay. Higher costs will demand better solutions, and Americans will want the same. The plans for the platform for 2012 not only provides expansion for Lincoln and Continental, but likewise leaves the door open to continue Mustang much less revive Mercury. International expansion for Lincoln could also be considered, just as Cadillac is doing in China/Asia and Europe. Taking the competition head-on and check-mating them ahead of the game will keep Lincoln and Continental alive for the future, and tilt the balance at Ford Motor. Just as Edsel Ford had a Continental to sell, William C. Ford Jr. can find himself behind the wheel of the best engineered generation of Continentals ever built. It's too bad for all of us that "Indiana Jones" was looking for cultural artifacts instead of being a geologist looking for oil from Ras Tunara, but we "have to get used to it" and consolidate our national resources today to survive, and that is what Lincoln must do for the future. People won't stop driving, nor will the whole of the market shoe-horn itself into 4 cylinder and V6 engines. Killing the current program for 2012 tells the world Lincoln doesn't want to play for Number One, much less lead the market.

DouglasR

Sources: The Kingdom of Saudi-Arabia, Robert Lacey, 1981; Gibson Consulting; U.S. Department of Energy; Automotive News; Automobile Magazine  

Lincoln & Ras Tunara Revisited

"The only one we have is leaving in about five minutes...we couldn't keep the new owner waiting any longer." the salesmen told me. Their Town Car had been traded in on the new MK S and the two new owners were kind enough to let me look over their new car. My favorite dealer had consolidated all his branches to his main store. "I've got another one coming, but I sold the only other car we could get before it left the rail-yard." Like any new product launch there is always buzz and excitement. But the dealer told me that the response had been far more than they expected for MK S and were now fighting for allocations. You can thank $4 a gallon for that. Even at 4,127 pounds, 40 pounds less that a Chrysler 300 Hemi, the V6 MK S is carving out a niche for itself in the market-place.

The build quality of the first batch of Chicago assembled MK S was really tight. Panel gaps were uniform, especially where the bumper valance panels met the body-shell. The finish was an even consistency and deep looking. The proportions of the car looking far better in person than either advertising in print or on-line can reflect. Thank God the car was not Kelvinator White like the show car. This one was a soft champagne complimented with a Mikado Yellow and tan interior. The chrome accents on the interior were very well arrayed compared to the show car I saw a year before. They offset the real-wood trim in a fashion that was easy on the eyes. All the headliner, bulkhead/pillar/door-jamb panels didn't rattle or oscilate when I tapped on them lightly, and the fit uniform. The packard seams of the Bridge of Weir Leather sewn evenly and cut in a comfortable fashion that made me want to get behind the wheel. The only discordant note about the seats were the sensors sewn into parts of the backrests for the air-bag/seat-belt system though they seemed to be covered in matching peforated leather. I was very happy to see a decent set of gauges, and the HVAC and info/entertainment controls arrayed in a fashion that didn't make me wince. Mr. Horbury and Mr. Platto's Platoon have done well with this car, especially considering the engineering constraints they were working within. Packaging the car upright and wide a shrewd move to give the same interior sense of size as that of the Town Car. So that hip-high swage line down the side of the car plays an important part of keeping your eye along the character line of he car, hiding its real height, and bringing the whole design together. The reincarnation of the Najjar designed 1958 Lincoln "U" shaped hood scythe line looks far better in the steel than it does on the page or screen, and mirrors the hood cut line into the grille. No doubt the engineers were happy it was there to keep the structure of the hood a little stronger in the stamping process. All-Round Lincoln has obviously learned from the Jaguar XK/XJ experience, and it shows. I was relieved that the MK S build-parameters were a notch above what I had expected to find, and far above Mk Z.

The first Mk S I saw going down the road was all black, and it looked rather dashing in motion coming up in the lane beside me and whirling on past. Many Lincoln enthusiasts were encouraged to drive the Mk S at the National Lincoln Show in Colombus, Ohio. In the hospitality tent extended for all members, with two black Mk S provided for a ride & drive, it was hard to get behind the wheel of one...as the lines and enthusiasm for the car long and loud. Fortunately  both cars survived, along with the champagne coloured Mk Z, the lashings of Lincoln drivers, the cars coming back unscathed. Though a sadder fate was bestowed upon the red MK X which returned in rather many pieces than one---one felt sorry for the Lincoln representatives, who all went running when they heard the sound of the crash at the nearby intersection. But crashing isn't what's happening to the Mk S in the market-place since its quiet introduction. 11,211 buyers have swamped Lincoln dealers since June to get one. A bright spot for Ford Motor Company amdist very dark sailing. Ford Motor having lost $6,363 per vehicle sold since January against a river of corporate red ink totaling $8.667Bn. Mk S, based on an amortized platform, has brought in nearly $470-520Mn in revenues thus far and should be making a handsome profit per vehicle for Ford Motor.

This last August 29th was the ninety first birthday of the Lincoln Motor Company, having been founded initially to manufacture Liberty Aero Engines, and refloated after the 1918 Armistace by the Leland's to build automobiles. While built to a superlative standard matched by the Leland's reputation for precision manufacture often to 1/100,000th of an inch, equal to what Rolls-Royce was building at Springfield, Ma. for their American chassis, the Leland's approach to retailing cars: talking about axle tramp, plus a distinct lack of styling pizzazz ran right up against the worst post-war recession in America's history. Henry and Edsel Ford saved the firm from bankrupcty in February 1922. The L, KA, KB, and K remained in production for more than a decade as a loss-leader. According to a Roosevelt Administration study released in 1935 Lincoln lost more than $10Mn between 1925 and 1935. The privately held family owned Ford Motor Company, which then garnered more than 45% of the U.S. Market, could afford to keep Lincoln in production regardless of what it cost to make the cars. The Ford largess allowed Lincoln to approach the market in that very fashion---cost be damned---and Edsel directed production of the finest cars he knew how to make, and kept on making them until the market dried up for the K Series. The Zephyr & Continental V12 saved Lincoln for the post-war era and led to very successful years.

The days of "cost-be damned" are long gone at Ford Motor, the Continental Mark II being the exception to the rule since 1945, which was built to break-even like today's Bugatti. With Ford Motor's market share having fallen to 14.4% during Q2 2008, success of the Mk S becomes even more important with each passing day. With Mr. Mulally having bet the farm to raise cash for Ford, though sitting in reserves of $26Bn, and Mr. Ford is openly lobbying Congrress this week for access to the $25Bn technology fund approved with last year's Energy Bill, both men know that failure is not an option. Given the current melt-down on Wall Street of the investment bankers, given the Detroit 3's bond and risk ratings, it is likely that lenders would be hard-pressed to extend more credit directly. Given the share price $5.03, only controlling Ford Family holdings in Class B voting shares and its profitable operations overseas in Europe and South America is keeping the firm afloat, out of bankruptcy and/or away from hostile take-over from foreign wealth funds of corporate raiders, despite Mr. Kerkorian's 6.5% holdings in The Blue Oval. For now there will be no "garage sale" at Ford Motor. If there are to be subsequent anniversary celebrations for Lincoln and new cars for potential Lincoln enthusiast to bash about, the time for action is now. The final decisions about future product for RWD and 2012 made this week.

Chrysler canceled plans for Imperial, a decision which Mr. Nardelli and product boss Frank Klegon can reverse. Lincoln can breathe easier knowing they will have one less competitor to deal with, and who will not take 35,000 sales away from them. But Lincoln shouldn't make the mistake which Chrysler has made. Having built the stellar SRT8 300, the fastest production sedan made in America until the new 2009 Cadillac V passes them, without an Imperial or uprated 300 SRT8 there is no place for owners/customers to go at Chrysler. Just as Ford Motor had done in the 1920's they are making customers for their competitors. If the team at The Glass House cancels the nascent RWD program, regardless of the reason, then they will be creating customers for Lexus, BMW, VWAG, and not to mention Hyundai and as yet-to-come Chinese manufacturers. What do you think that men and women who have "made-it" in this country will do when it comes time to move up to the top-rank of the automotive market if the only choice at Lincoln is a V6 or a V6 Turbo? Cadillac may be considering a 4 Cylinder yet again, but they aren't likewise neglecting the top rank of the market, increasing the peformance range and power of their vaunted V series. It's no longer an embarassment to drive a new Cadillac today. But it will become so for Lincoln if they neglect future customers and engineering largess that Ford has within their pervue to provide.

The matter rests not just with the right foot, but the right thinking side of the brain. VWAG surpassed Ford Motor recently as the third ranked auto firm in the world, selling 3.27Mn vehicles in the first half to Ford's 3.22Mn. VWAG has achieved that position in part because they expanded their product range both upscale and downscale. Derrick Kuzak, Ford Motor's Product Development Chief states that Lincoln, like Cadillac, may see "room for a smaller car in the Lincoln brand". No doubt Lincoln can adapt Ford's European chassis and engineering to the problem in short order thus going up against BMW's 1 Series and cheaper 3 Series. While VWAG posted a E1,162 per vehicle profit in the first half, BMW also made E962 per vehicle profit, something which seems like a dream today for Ford Motor to report about regaining. Hopefully the shift cut-backs at Chicago will not hamper prodution of MK S. A car that is saving Lincoln's bacon, for now. The opportunity cost of the cash-on-hand at The Glass House is as risky and high as it could conceivably be, so the choice made with respect to Lincoln's future of even greater importance.

Where will Lincoln take its customers if it stops with MK S, or a merely reworked version for MK R, cancelling the RWD and V8 program? Where will those increased per vehicle profits come from if they fail to reach above the current success with MK S? The price per barrel for oil will remain in flex, but an individuals' desire for top-line performance and luxury will not waver. What will waver is the size and range of the market. Yet Lincoln must compete in that range if it is to regain and regenerate the image of the brand and raise it's position from its current fifth place doldrums. For 2008 Lincoln's car sales will hardly surpass the level equal to that of 1969: roughly 61,000 cars. Another range of cars must occupy the empty space in Lincoln's stable above Mk S if no improvement to the Town Car is ever to be made. Cadillac has its V range of cars, Chrysler the SRT8, but what does Ford Motor and Lincoln have to offer to compete against its rivals? With the arrival of the Tau engined Hyundai Genesis, and the new VWAG/Audi plant in America, the competition is getting hotter, and coming down the pipeline faster. The Mustang was approved because Gene Bordinat arrayed all the Chevrolet products against Ford's, and one empty spot existed where Mustang should be, subsequently Henry Ford II approved Iacocca's program. At VWAG Lamborgini has set sales records and profits per vehicle of $26K for 2008, and the profit on one Bentley Continental equal to ten VW's. No one expects Lincoln to build a similar car, but VWAG made the capital investment requisite in the product which has now remunerated them with profits. Capital investment in Lincoln has been nothing less than, as the WSJ characterized it, as: "serial neglect". MK S has become the bright spot in the picture, but there is little alternative for Lincoln than to press ahead with its traditional RWD range, with the power and performance to match its best competitors. The opportunity cost of not doing so is to hand over a large and profitable segment of the market, once traditionally dominated in part by Lincoln, to its competitors. And leave an empty spot not only in the garage at The Glass House, but in many private driveways and apartment garages across America. A spot that belongs to Lincoln.

Mr. Ford and his team, here in Washington along with Mr. Wagoner and Mr. Nardelli, are pressing Congress this week for release of the $25Bn low-interest loan fund tied to last year's Energy Bill authorizing funds for advanced vehicle development, with a request for an additional $25Bn. Speaker of the House Ms. Pelosi also stated, along with Michigan's Carl Levin, that Congress "might have something for Michigan" attached to a continuing resolution or addition to the latest Energy Bill HR6899, recently passed by the House. While members of Congress "were very supportive and understand the importance of making sure that we move forward on technology and fuel economy and, in our case, converting some of our truck plants to smaller cars..." in Mr. Ford's words, if anything such funding could be secured and used to advance showcase technology as a talismen for the company in Lincoln first, subsequent Continentals and filtering throughout Ford Motor. If Mr. Ford is not willing to advance the cause of higher technology and use it in top-range higher priced cars, would Mr. Ford then be saying to customers: "...if you want a luxury car, buy it from GM?"

If Mr. Ford and his team presses ahead this week, Lincoln will not suffer the fate of Packard, but reward Ford Motor with profits gushing as much as the oil from the ground at those wells drilled so long ago by our countrymen in lands far away at Ras Tunara. The good fortune will be Lincoln's and William C. can bank the credit on the right side of the ledger. Don't keep us waiting much longer...

DouglasR

(Sources: Federal Trade Commission Report 'Report on the Motor Vehicle Industry', 75th Congress, 3rd Session #515, 1939; Automotive News, WSJ, FT, Reuters, Chrysler LLC, Ford Motor Company, GM; Detroit News 09-17-08)