The Lincoln Designer Sequence was launched in 1976, on the finish of the imposing Mark IV Continental technology. 4 big-name trend designers of the period – all-American nation clubber Invoice Blass, psychedelic Italian pattern-maestro Emilio Pucci, venerable French jewelry-maker Cartier, and à la mode French fashionista Hubert de Givenchy – have been requested to slather their magnificence on Lincoln’s private luxurious coupe.
This experiment was a wild success. In keeping with paperwork uncovered within the Lincoln archives – with the incomparable steerage of official model historian Ted Ryan – the Designer sequence “accounted for greater than 27% of Mark IV gross sales” shortly after its introduction. It was such a runaway hit, that it continued on all through the even bigger Mark V technology (by the way, the longest coupe ever produced by Ford Motor Firm), and didn’t actually peter out on these massive two-doors till the early Nineteen Nineties.
However the true historical past of the sequence nicely predates the period of opera home windows, crushed velour and wire wheel covers.
“Should you take a step again even additional, when Ford bought Lincoln in 1922, Edsel Ford was put accountable for the corporate. However greater than that, he helped set up the primary design studio at Ford,” mentioned Ryan. The fundamental Mannequin T didn’t take a lot design. Lincoln was totally different. Edsel is famed for his quote. “Father needed to make the most well-liked automobile, I needed to make one of the best.”
The precise genesis of the Designer Sequence, nevertheless, got here alongside on account of a long-term private reference to the marque’s first chairman. “Edsel Ford had a relationship with Cartier, and correspondence going all through the Nineteen Twenties and ’30s,” Ryan mentioned. “His private playing cards and stationery have been at all times ordered from Cartier.”
This enduring hyperlink wasn’t formalized till the late Sixties. “I discovered in product improvement recordsdata, in 1967, that Ford had gone to Cartier for a particular 1970 Cartier Continental coupe,” Ryan mentioned. In keeping with inside paperwork, this bundle would come with distinctive inside leather-based/fabric/vinyl surfaces and trim, modified dials, and a Cartier jewellery field, in addition to golden plating on the steering wheel decoration, dial face ornaments, keys, C-pillar ornaments, door monograms, and dashboard plaque.
“Consider that. A automobile that by no means was, that might have been,” Ryan mentioned, wistfully.
Some Cartier magic did get glossed on Lincolns within the late Sixties. A Cartier-branded dashboard clock originated within the Lincoln Mark III for 1969, and continued to be obtainable on the Mark IV earlier than the launch of the Designer Sequence.
The ultimate impetus for the sequence got here from an much more unlikely supply.
“The thought for the involvement of out of doors designers originated in 1974 with a Mustang program referred to as ‘Fashions N’ Wheels’,” mentioned Ryan. This idea concerned Invoice Blass designing clothes and niknaks that may be offered alongside the then-new Mustang II. “This concept was a giant success, main administration to contemplate find out how to increase it,” Ryan added.
The thought went all the way in which up the chain of command, to firm president Lee Iacocca.
“We don’t have the pitch deck that went to Iacocca, I simply have one thing that claims, Lee Iacocca accepted, on this date, this specific program,” Ryan mentioned.
To be able to give the sequence’ fashions specificity, and preserve them recent as they modified year-over-year, the designers or their representatives got here to Ford headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan, yearly, for a competition of cloth and trim swatches, inventive conferences, idea approvals, and wining and eating. Paint and inside colours and supplies shifted yearly. Finally, this course of turned a signpost, an occasion, within the Motor Metropolis.
“The introduction of every new designer version turned one thing like a trend line being premiered in Paris or New York,” mentioned Ryan.
Nevertheless, the adjustments have been typically lower than thrilling. “Now we have product planning committee minutes, that are dry as toast. It simply reads, Representatives from XYX designers got here to Dearborn and chosen colours. Modifications made embrace this, this, and this. The extent of humor and enjoyable is tough to discern.” Ryan mentioned. “In one of many Invoice Blass ones, he mentioned that he needed to simply add a pink stripe on the again of the rearview mirror.”
The Designer Sequence continued almost all through the tip of the Mark coupe vary, dying out solely with the introduction of the ultimate Mark VIII, within the early Nineteen Nineties. Gleefully, earlier than it ran its course, the scion of overwhelming Italian opulence, Gianni Versace, received a flip for 2 years within the mid-Eighties. However by the tip of the Mark VII, and the sequence, solely Invoice Blass was holding the design embers glowing.
Much less clear is why precisely this system got here to an finish. “We don’t actually know now why it ended. We don’t have any documentation on that. I speculate that it simply ran its course. Each good automobile line runs its course,” mentioned Ryan.
Different trend manufacturers – together with Ermenegildo Zegna, Thom Browne and Zac Posen, John Varvatos, Isaac Mizrahi, and KITH – have, lately, experimented in automotive cross-branding. And it may very well be argued that AMC predated Ford with its Levi’s, Pierre Cardin, and Gucci editions within the early-to-mid Nineteen Seventies. However AMC is lengthy gone, sadly, and by no means got here near hitting the 100-year mark.
The apply stays a distinguishing function of Lincoln throughout its century-long automotive reign, and one which aligns with the model’s foundational mythologies. Edsel Ford was the one who introduced in Diego Rivera to Detroit to create the Detroit Trade murals on the Detroit Institute of Arts. He was a designer, and artwork lover, at coronary heart.
“The DNA of Lincoln was at all times such {that a} designer sequence would have matched it, and matched Edsel’s imaginative and prescient for what Lincoln was and may very well be,” Ryan mentioned. “He can be smiling to know that his firm had performed this function.”
