Lehmann-Peterson was a well-known converter of Lincoln Limousines in the 1960s and 1970s, a full history of which I am working on for a future article. A discussion on the recent 1980 Duesenburg article about coach-built customs reminded me of one of their more interesting creations, this four-door 1970 Lincoln Continental Mark III created as a one-off for a well-heeled customer.
But before we get into the featured car, let’s cover the (all too brief) history of four-door Marks. While the original Continental and Continental Mark II were two-door models only, the 1958-60 Continental Mark III-V were available as both two- and four-door models, as well as a convertible (with the four-door model handily outselling the two-door variants, I might add).
The retconned 1969 Lincoln Continental Mark III (based on the 5th generation Thunderbird) was available only in coupe form, supposedly at the insistence of Henry Ford II, who wanted to stay true to the coupe concept of the Mark I and II Continentals. The Deuce’s protestations aside, the Mark II coupe it was actually intended to be the start of a full line of Marks, including a convertible and four-door hardtop (rendered below).
I’m a big fan of the 4th generation 1961-69 suicide door Continentals and the Mark III, but the fifth-generation Continental always left me a little cold. It lack the presence of the 1961-69 Continental, especially with its conventional forward-hinged rear doors. Apparently Mr. Grover Martin Hermann, retired chairman of Martin-Marietta, felt the same way and commissioned Lehmann-Peterson to create this one-off four-door 1970 Lincoln Continental Mark III.
The story goes that Mr. Hermann phoned Ford, inquiring about a four-door Mark III. Ford informed Hermann that the Mark III is available only as a two-door car. When Mr. Hermann reminded Ford of how many vehicles Martin-Marietta purchased from the company, they referred him to Lehmann-Peterson, the same company that made the factory custom limousine conversions for Ford.
While it is hard to say how much of that story is legendary, this is one of the better documented “factory” customs I’ve seen. Unlike some customs with sketchy provenance or murky history, some documentation does exist for this car and is presented here.
A 1970 Mark III started out at around $7,300 ($49,000 in 2018 dollars), but by the time you added in such necessary “options” as air conditioning, leather seats, AM-FM radio and six-way power seats, you were looking at an out the door price of closer to $9,000 ($60,000 adjusted). Thanks to the surviving invoice, we know that Grover Hermann paid $13,325 ($87,000 adjusted) to Lehmann-Peterson for the conversion (on top of the cost of the donor Mark III), which means that all in he probably spent about $23,000 for this car ($150,000 today).
Grover Hermann’s cash outlays didn’t stop there. When he brought the car home, Mrs. Hermann supposedly didn’t like the original gray color of the car, so he sunk an additional $3,200 in late 1970 stripping and repainting the car in the metallic blue color you see here.
While I love my Lincolns as much as anyone, in my opinion there were better ways to spend $23,000 on a luxury car in 1970. This amount of money would have gotten you into a short-wheelbase Mercedes Benz 600 “Grosser,” whose short wheelbase was still an incredible 126 inches, and was by all measures a far superior car to the Lincoln. In any case, I’m glad Mr. Hermann went the route he did, or else we wouldn’t have this one-of-a-kind Mark III.
So let’s take a closer look at this car and see what Grover Hermann got for his money (aside from bragging rights). For starters, the Mark’s wheelbase was stretched 7.3 inches, from the adequate 117.2 inches of the standard Mark III to a generous 124.5 inches, all of which went into the back seat. While the scale of this car conceals the added wheelbase fairly well, you can see the massive amounts of back seat legroom this stretch afforded in the interior shot above.
This frame extension would have necessitated a longer driveshaft and a custom vinyl roof, but the stretch was probably the easy part of this job. The four-door conversion had to be where most of the money and effort went. While the invoice offers no specifics on how this was accomplished, from the photos I can reasonably guess how this was done.
For starters, even though the Mark III was only available as a two-door, its platform-mate Thunderbird was available in both a two-door and four-door configuration. Better yet, the four-door was a suicide door, with rear-hinged back doors. So by borrowing liberally from the four-door T-Bird, much of your rear door hardware (hinges, window lifts, latches, wiring, etc.) would have been taken care of. The center pillar came from a Thunderbird, as you can clearly see in the “zig-zag” shape of the center latches in the pictures above. Even the shut lines of the rear doors are the same as that of the 4-door Bird.
Indeed, the front doors and door glass appear to be straight from a T-Bird, just with a shortened Mark III door skin on the outside. The rear doors are stretched versions of the T-Bird rear doors, with a cut-down Mark III rear fender as the door skin. The rear door glass is definitely not from the T-Bird – it is probably custom-cut from a donor front door pane.
Overall, the car appears to be far better balanced than the four-door Thunderbird, with the front and rear doors being about the same length (the rear doors of the 4-door Thunderbird always seem to be too stubby). If Lincoln had actually produced this car, it is hard to say how well it would have sold. The Mark III was already very popular, and by 1970 the Continental has lost its signature suicide doors, much to the dismay of Lincoln loyalists. But the Personal Luxury Coupe was still in its infancy, and the poor sales of the 4-door T-Bird shows that the market pretty much expected their PLC to come with two doors.
Of course, we don’t have to speculate: The last chapter of this story has already been written, and we know how it turns out. From 1980 to 1983, Lincoln did produce one last four-door Mark, in this case the Mark VI. While it was literally just a four-door Continental with opera windows, fender vents, and concealed headlights, it did still manage to slightly outsell the coupe Mark VI.
Postscript
Grover Hermann’s 4-door Mark III was featured at least twice in Collectible Automobile magazine: In the April 1992 issue (where some of the photos in this post came from), and again in December 2007. The car was acquired in 1977 by Colorado car collector Frank Masi after Hermann traded it in on (what else?) a new Lincoln. Frank Masi is now deceased, and the current whereabouts and condition of the 4-door Mark III are unknown.
Related Reading
Curbside Classic: 1956 Continental Mark II – Caught In The Pincers
Curbside Classic: 1958 Continental Mark III – The Party’s Over
Curbside Classic: 1968-1971 Lincoln Continental Mark III – Right On! The Mark
Curbside Classic: 1967 Ford Thunderbird Landau Sedan – Are Four Doors Really Better Than Two?
Curbside Classic: 1983 Lincoln Continental Mark VI – Missing the Mark
It’s not bad looking, but I’ve never warmed to the idea of the suicide doors – there’s a reason they’re called that! I like the reg. 2-dr Mark III. I have recently warmed to the 4-dr Mark VI however, which IMO looked much better than the 2-dr version.
In case of the Mark III it amazes me that at this price point AC was an option!
At the time the Mark III came out, the only American car with factory a/c as standard equipment was the AMC Ambassador, as far as I know. Were there any others?
The ’68 Cadillac Fleetwood 75 had automatic climate control as standard (as befits a limousine).
It may not have been standard, but in the class of car that Cadillac and Lincoln sold my memory is that it was getting mighty difficult to find one without air by that point, even in a place like extreme northern Indiana. A Mark III without air would have been dealer lot poison (unless it was sold in Michigan’s upper peninsula or someplace way up north like that where summer is 3 weeks long.)
A/C was actually made standard across the board at Lincoln in 1971, the following model year. As you surmised, very few, if any, Mark III models were sold without A/C.
I see a little awkwardness in the roof, but this was an amazing job that L-P managed to pull off. It would have been interesting had Lincoln added this 4 door as a line-topper. It would probably have kept the regular Continental from attaining the critical mass it finally managed in the 70s, though. The Mark IV with its more upright roof styling might have come off pretty decently as a 4 door.
I can recall reading something about this eons ago, but had forgotten all about it. Thanks for this.
The Mark VII is where the four-door would really have come into its’ own, particularly in LSC (LSS?) form. A four-door Lincoln that had fully moved on past the Brougham Era in 1984 would’ve been a game-changer for them.
Word of the day: retcon. I was curious about the dealership since Monterey isn’t too far from my home. Apparently it played a role in the launch of the original 1967 Cougar.
https://www.motortrend.com/news/1967-car-of-the-year-mercury-cougar/ There are still a handful of car dealerships in downtown Monterey but that location seems to be gone.
This looks great, seems like a much more natural fit for a 4-door bodystyle than the Thunderbird. The Lincoln brand could have carried the price premium better than a Thunderbird sedan too.
Quoting Automobile Magazine’s article on the 5th generation Thunderbird, the 4-door model was a replacement for the discontinued convertible. Ford’s senior management wanted a line-extension to the T-bird coupe for marketing reasons, even though the fit of a 4 door model did not fit well in the T-bird tradition.
I agree a 4 door Mark was as valid a concept as a 4 door T-bird, and probably could have been built in volume, if not for Henry II’s amateurish interference in Ford’s marketing.
The former Lehmann-Peterson factory isn’t too far from where I live- looks like it’s been torn down and a condo building has been put up.
This four door Mark III, though essentially a conversion, was one of the last truly coach-built Lincolns. Its a highly attractive car in person, recall seeing it at an LCOC meet years ago. The availability of four door Thunderbird components made this conversion possible even as costly an effort as it turned out to be.
Although not lengthened as this one-off is, it would be possible to re-skin a four door Thunderbird body with Mark III sheet metal if one was disposed to have such a custom. There are restoration/custom shops staffed by highly-skilled craftsmen who still do this work, though expensive.
A four door Continental was render by Ross Cousins for Edsel Ford’s approval before the 1940-’41 models were in production but was never built. A 1941 138″ wheelbase Lincoln Custom chassis employed for the seven passenger and limousine models would be an ideal basis, even now.
Very likely the LCOC Directory would reveal who currently owns this four door Mark III.
Lehmann-Peterson did an excellent job! Not sure it was worth all the effort & expense. The only thing I don’t care for is the angular cut of the rear door ahead of the rear wheels, it somehow works on the 4dr T-Bird, but seems awkward on the Mark III.
I kind of like the Mark VI especially with aftermarket mag wheels, but always thought the 4dr looked like a pimpmobile.
A four door Mark III would have been wonderful, but I do understand Henry II’s insistence on keeping it in coupe form, only. I hardly see his protestations as amateurish marketing; however it seems a convertible would have been a good fit. Similarly to an earlier comment, I, too, have little affinity for the suicide door design, it just never hit a chord with me, even on the 60s Continental. The four door Mark III would certainly have cannibalized some Continental sales, but I think by drawing in other buyers it may have resulted in a net gain in Lincoln sales, anyways.
Other than a custom-coachwork conversion, no Mercedes-Benz 600 would have had the cachet of this one-off four-door Lincoln Mark III.
I’m sorry, but in profile especially, this is decidedly awkward, to put it mildly. It looks like they stretched the wheelbase too far, with the rear wheels too far back in relation to the rear door. And the roof just doesn’t work for me. And the rear door cutout…and…
There’s a reason car companies have large professional styling studios. This would never have come out of one.
What strikes me is the disjointedness of the rear door shutline between the upper glass/roof and the door/fender section. Rather than stretching the door, perhaps they should’ve added the extra wheelbase to the rear fender ahead of the door shutline.
Agreed. It’s not beautiful overall but it’s relatively handsome… until you get to the C-pillar and rear doors where it looks wonky.
Though the execution is to top craftsmanship standards, I’ll agree with Paul about design/proportions looking not factory-worthy.
FWIW, a Google search turns up these photos on Pinterest:
I have seen pictures of this car before, and it always reminds me of a similar project performed on a 911 Porsche coupe in the early 1970s (pre-U.S. crash bumper regs.). That car, built by specialist builder Troutman-Barnes for a customer’s wife, also featured suicide doors. While I admire this Mark III, and applaud the decision to build it, criticism be damned, I think that the 911 “Dachsund” four-door came off better in the execution.
Oof. It’s a testament to L-P’s craft, but a monument to money’s inability to substitute for wisdom or sense, and to the apparent inverse correlation in this case between wealth and taste. Which all adds up to the car doing exactly as Mr. Grover Martin Hermann appears to have wanted: announce to the world, “I am fabulously wealthy!”.
Me, I am not fabulously wealthy, and will likely never be anywhere near it, but I would like to hope if I were, I’d remember the old 2-liner about the old bull and the young bull on the hill overlooking a bunch of heiffers.
No, sir, tempered glass cannot be cut. I’m sure L-P had the resources and connections to have glass made to spec by one of the relatively numerous glass companies that existed in America at that time, though.
I agree with most of the others here. The Mark III coupe is a fine-looking car but the four-door is a little off in too many details.
I saw this car at one of our LCOC shows some years ago. In person it made a a great impression, dignified but with a real presence. Mr. Hermann got exactly what he paid for.
I like it.
Always a fan of Mark III.
Tech Note: These cars had a fantastic power steering pump set-up. The pump was mounted on the front engine cover, below the water pump. The front snout of the crankshaft ran through the middle of it, and was driven by key on the crankshaft. Fantastic! No belt needed, and none the squealing we so often hear as belts loosen with age.
Yikes!
I Googled for more information on that power steering pump set-up, and was surprised when I saw what replacements cost. Makes sense, though, as I’d imagine they’re not exactly a high-volume item today.
It’s a carry over concept from the previous MEL engined continentals that all used a gear and crescent type P/S pump, mounted directly on the front of the crankshaft.
The rebuilder market was always tiny. These were robustly built–the only real issue with the pumps was fluid leakage…and that was easily remedied with installation of new o-rings….yes, I have done such a re-seal job myself. Truly beautiful engineering.
The early versions of the 430 V8 engine had teething problems due to a brass drive gear that sometimes failed, leaving the car without power steering and windshield wipers.
Like the idea, and even think the execution isn’t too bad. However, maybe it’s the suicide doors but when you look at this in the pictures here it almost looks like a clever Photoshop job where the rear doors are mirror reflections of the front doors.
Puts me in mind of that AMC show car from the late 60s that tried to use the same fenders front and back, same panel pressing for the hood and trunklid, and (IIRC) the doors were interchangeable, too.
I very much enjoyed reading this thread. I hope somewhere out there this Lincoln custom is still in decent condition; I’d hate to think of it as sitting outside unprotected collecting rust!
The amount of rear passenger space is very good for an American car of the period, and I’m sure the whole thing was done very well by L-P, but I have to agree with several other CCommenters: yeah, but nah. The cover pic is nice enough, but when seen in profile, the rear door looks crooked and tacked on.
It reminds me of this Chapron atrocity, committed in 1969 on a DS-21 platform. The standard Chapron DS Majesty saloon looked fine, but one client demanded a high roof AND rear suicide doors. Chapron obliged, but was similarly incapable of making the design work. A completely new design that included those features would probably have worked better, just like for the Lincoln.
And on a side note, though, the 4-door Continental MkII looks downright stunning. Did they ever make it? All I could find with a quick Google search was the clay model, which confirms my assessment. Stunning.
That clay you found is not the same as the MkII 4 door rendering. The Mk II 4 door was essentially a lengthened coupe. That clay (full size, not a model) you found is an early version of the development of the Mk II’s successor, referred to sometimes as the “Berline”. It eventually evolved into the actual ’58 Lincoln/Continental.
More info and pics on the development of this car here: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/curbside-classic-1956-continental-mark-ii/
Thanks Paul. One should always browse the CC archives before posting!
That Chapron looks like somebody tried to put a 1980s GM roofline on a Citroen DS…
I like it, wonkiness included, but I took a look again at Exner’s Duesenberg concept and in comparison the latter is certainly a better designed formal sedan – the rear suicide door is elegantly put in place whereas the Lincoln’s is not. Indeed, as Paul stated above, professional styling studios and designers aren’t there for no reason.
The whereabouts are far from unknown but I’ll save your readers the task of googling. I met Mr. Masi and admired the car at LCOC Nationals in Bloomington, MN in 1992. (The only fully documented Mark II convertible happened to be there too- it was quite a show.) Mr. Masi indicated that the car was for sale, so I walked him over to my longtime friend Phil Schaefer of Indianapolis and the deal was struck that day. Phil still owns the car and always will. There have often been rumors of a second car constructed for Ford Motor Company and we have seen a Polaroid photo, but this is the only one built for a customer.
How cool! I know Phil only by reputation/online and met him once at a local show a year or two ago. I understand he has a fabulous collection. I don’t get to many shows but will have to keep a lookout for this one.
It’s been years, but Phil Schaefer came to Austin with his four-door Mark III for a car club event. I had a ’71 four-door Thunderbird at the time, so we struck up a close alliance for a couple of days. I got to ride in the Mark down to Rosanky, TX where a now defunct private but HUGE collection of classic and interesting cars were displayed. To me, the Mark’s looks and construction were incredibly impressive. The rear-seat legroom was magnificent, and the ride was what one expected from a Lincoln of those times. I would guess that 99% of the general public would not notice its uniqueness as it is so well done. I’d have had a wreck if I’d seen it on the highway, but none happened on our trip that day!
Daniel Stern is correct, there is no cutting or trimming a curved side glass [1st production year for tempered side glass was on 1957 Chrysler Imperials]. Those 2 side glass door windows on this Lincoln were custom made, probably by Libby-Owens-Ford, better known as LOF Glass Co., the suppliers of glass to FoMoCo. They would be first choice because they would already have the pattern info for the rest of the car.
One of the tricks that L-P did was to remove the section of the T-bird’s sail panel from the rear portion of the door, and make it part of the main body shell’s sail panel. I think this was done because the rear door was to be lengthened, with a longer glass window, and then if the blank part of the sail panel was still attached to the door, this would have made the upper part of the door look ungainly. By attaching that sail panel to the main rear sail panel, it gave length to the overall car, without looking, well, goofey, the other way.
In the 1980s I had to have replacement side and rear windows created for 2 one-off British cars we were restoring, and as the first example of each piece was very costly due to set-up costs, and the 2nd [or third, etc.] example was only about 15% of the cost of the first example, I had 2 of each piece made, and the work was done in France by Guillame Miroir. Sadly they are no longer in business.
Each car owner, upon the car’s completion, was given a solid wood case containing the extra glass parts, direct from France. In one car, it was both side door glasses, and the other car was a rear window. We all agreed that Murphey’s law would be kept at bay by having the extra glass pieces. In the restoration process, one of the worries is that a “One of a kind” part will fail, as it’s installed, or tested after installation, usually because it wasn’t pre-adjusted to special assembly specs that are unknown to todays installer.
One car & owner I still know, and the crate sits under a workbench in the garage, with instructions that it goes with the car upon his death.
It is alive a well making the car show circuit out of Indianapolis. She is very much babied and in great shape.
As of now (mid-2022), the car is in very good hands, a serial Lincoln collector who gives the car regular exercise. He didn’t want me to reveal his identity in this forum, but the car does get out and about and does a lot of shows. And it still looks at least as good as in the article’s photos.
This youtuber just posted this video today.
This car was just shown on a Youtuber’s (Rare Classic Cars & Automotive History) video. The video is at this address:
I love your article and the car.