Re: 1934 Pittsburgh Auto Show?

Posted by 58L8134 On 2009/4/14 11:00:13

Hi

To the design of the Lincoln Continental: Edsel Ford, who made many trips to Europe in the Thirties, visiting all the major auto show venues, would have imparted that knowledge and design preference to E. T. Gregorie, who was fully aware of the design trends of sporting European luxury cars.
Those could be characterized by low, long hoods, short rear decks, close-coupled passenger compartment proportions. Details such as full-length hoods, separate boxed trunks with rear-mounted spares, low, rectangular convertible-style window treatments are to be found on myriad coachbuilt cars there such as Bentley, Bugatti, Delage, etc.

Since Edsel had Gregorie design special personal cars for him throughout the period, the design was just the natural result of Edsel's desire to have a personal car of "continental" design. To his credit, he made it available to a group of interested customers

I have to agree with others the time frame given in the post regarding how the Lincoln Continental was designed would preclude this lovely Packard from having direct influence in the 1938-39 time period.

Apropos whether the original factory photo was discarded to prevent management from realizing they had allowed a sterling design to escape only to be used by other. By 1938-39, management was obviously far more interested in volume production rather than the peripheral market the Continental represented. While management seemed to embrace Darrin as one of their own in '40, recall the story of how Darrin got one of his early victoria presented to a Packard dealer meeting. Initially, management was uninterested in offering the Darrins through the dealer network until those same dealers had a look at one, albeit a damaged one. The force of the design sold the car, management came to that idea after the dealers showed great enthusiasm for it.

As I posted earlier in this thread: WHAT A STUNNER!!!!!!

Steve