Landau yachts: The history of Lincoln's Designer Series

The Lincoln Designer Series was introduced in 1976, at the end of the imposing Mark IV Continental generation. Four big-name fashion designers of the era – all-American country clubber Bill Blass, psychedelic Italian pattern-maestro Emilio Pucci, venerable French jewelry-maker Cartier, and à la mode French fashionista Hubert de Givenchy – were asked to slather their elegance on Lincoln’s personal luxury coupe.

This experiment was a wild success. According to documents uncovered in the Lincoln archives – with the incomparable guidance of official brand historian Ted Ryan – the Designer series “accounted for more than 27% of Mark IV sales” shortly after its introduction. It was such a runaway hit, that it continued on throughout the even larger Mark V generation (incidentally, the longest coupe ever produced by Ford Motor Company), and didn’t really peter out on these big two-doors until the early 1990s.

But the true history of the series well predates the era of opera windows, crushed velour and wire wheel covers.

“If you take a step back even further, when Ford purchased Lincoln in 1922, Edsel Ford was put in charge of the company. But more than that, he helped establish the first design studio at Ford,” said Ryan. The basic Model T didn’t take much design. Lincoln was different. Edsel is famed for his quote. “Father wanted to make the most popular car, I wanted to make the best.”

The specific genesis of the Designer Series, however, came along as a result of a long-term personal connection with the marque’s first chairman. “Edsel Ford had a relationship with Cartier, and correspondence going throughout the 1920s and '30s,” Ryan said. “His personal cards and stationery were always ordered from Cartier.”

This enduring link wasn’t formalized until the late 1960s. “I found in product development files, in 1967, that Ford had gone to Cartier for a special 1970 Cartier Continental coupe,” Ryan said. According to internal documents, this package would include unique interior leather/cloth/vinyl surfaces and trim, modified dials, and a Cartier jewelry box, as well as golden plating on the steering wheel ornament, dial face ornaments, keys, C-pillar ornaments, door monograms, and dashboard plaque.

“Think of that. A car that never was, that could have been,” Ryan said, wistfully.

Some Cartier magic did get glossed on Lincolns in the late 1960s. A Cartier-branded dashboard clock originated in the Lincoln Mark III for 1969, and continued to be available on the Mark IV before the launch of the Designer Series.

The final impetus for the series came from an even more unlikely source.