by Don Kincl
Cohort Pic(k) of the Day: Lincoln Breezeway Window, 1957 Edition
– Posted on August 27, 2020
by Don Kincl
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Looking at the bumper, this must be a ’74…
Funny, but I never noticed the rear bumper being so “out there” on these. But then, the 1957 really did not have a good restyle over the beautiful 1956 version, at least to my eyes.
The full mottled colour scheme looks like a perfect ‘landscape mat’ for a vintage ‘farm’ or ‘army’ play set or board game.
Decent-looking Wayfarer business coupe in the background.
Although this unfortunate ’57 Lincoln is a full-framed door window and B-pillared sedan, the four door “Landau” hardtop could have benefitted from a breezeway rear window to visually coordinate with its dramatic canted blades and pyramid taillights. How odd FoMoCo would allow Mercury to have that feature before Lincoln..
I had forgotten about the 4 door hardtop on the 57 – that has to have been the most poorly amortized body design ever, being the second year of a 2-year-only body.
Yes, the ’57 Lincoln four door hardtop “landau” in their term, accounted for 30.5% of total sales, though the sedans like this car dropped to 15.9%.
Essentially, Lincoln had no choice, Cadillac went all four door hardtop for 1957 while Imperial incorporated them into the new Forward Look models with great success. The full-door Imperial sedans would be gone after 1960. They returned briefly for 1967-’69, then gone forever
Yes, this was a bit odd…after the redesigned ’69 Imperial came out, they offered it as a 4 door sedan (vs hardtop) just that one year…with the small sales of Imperials in general, wonder why they bothered…though I agree a sedan is likely to be quieter and better sealed, which you want in a luxury car.
Hitatchi – Maxell used a picture of one of these cars in an early 80’s advertisement for Maxell Cassettes. It was upside down in the desert, wrecked and abandoned. As a kid, looking at the ad, I could not identify the car. Given it was a lower – production model and not considered a classic at the time, I’d never seen one before. It was only later, after the arrival of the internet that I identified it.
Here’s a link to the ad (hope it works)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jbcurio/4329474640
Excellent memory and observation!
I thought there was a Peace symbol on the back but on closer inspection it’s an MG logo with the M missing.
That’s because there is an MG in the trunk!
I had forgotten how coordinated the look of the front and rear bumpers/”grilles” is on these Lincolns. But those unprotected turn and back-up light lenses…
I know it’s not a popular opinion here but I’ve always like these cars, no doubt due to a friend of my father buying one new, a turquoise convertible with white top and white leather interior that really enchanted me as a little kid. They were pretty well built automobiles, too – he later sold it to his secretary and it was around for a long time. He so disliked the 58-60 models that he moved over to Cadillac for a few years.
And the rear:
This was always one of my favorite Lincolns, too. It pains me no end to see this once elegant and expensive car wind up as a sad and forlorn junk heap. The ad below is how I always pictured this exquisite automobile. I have saved this very same ad since I was 10 years old in 1957, it came out of Holiday magazine back then.
What a great ad. And The Carlyle, where the Kennedys had a duplex apartment!
The new 1957 Imperial saw sales soar dramatically, beating Lincoln for calendar year sales
GM saw the Imperial and threw out what they had planned and copied major elements for their 1959 Cadillac
The ’56 was a beautiful design that won an industrial design award. The ’57 was all googied up by the designer Bill Schmidt who left for Chrysler I believe and the designer John Najjar came in and was told to trim the fins down, which is what you see here.
Wow!