The 1964 Mercury was the last year of the body Mercury started using in
1961. In turn, the 1961 Mercury was based on the 1960 Ford body. And the
1960 Ford and 1961 Ford/Mercury designs were done while Engel was at Ford.
So it is not surprising the 1964 Mercury still had some Engel-like touches.
The 1964 Ford was reskinned, and thus lost some of the Walker/Engel touches,
while Mercury only restyled the front end. (George Walker was head of Ford
Motor Styling while Exner was there. He was replaced by Eugene Bordinat
after HF II found out Walker helped Exner land the job at Chrysler.)
It should be pointed out that Engel's ideas had more in common with George
Walker (Ford styling VP in the 1950's) than with Eugene Bordinat, who became
head of FoMoCo styling after Engel and Walker departed. For 1965 both Ford
and Mercury got a totally new body and they lost all signs of the
Walker/Engel influence.
You are right about the 1961 Lincoln Continental starting out as a 1961 Ford
Thunderbird design. Then Ford president McNamara thought Engel's
Thunderbird design would be better stretched into a 4-door body style and
sold as a Lincoln. Up to that point Lincoln, under Engel, had been working
on restyling the 1958-60 tanker, but Engel's Thunderbird changed all that.
If you look at the various front and rear end design attempts on Engel's
Thunderbird and later Continental, you can see where various Imperial themes
came from. One Thunderbird rear end had a hump much like the 1964-65
Imperials (Ford brass wanted the Thunderbird to emulate the Continental of
the 1940's), along with the 1964-66 Imperial's rear fender line. Another
has the vertical rear fender blades as seen on the 1967-68 Imperials. A
third rear end shows the beginnings of the 1972-73 Imperial taillamp
arrangement. An early Continental proposal has the 1964 Imperial front
bumper, front fender edges and clearly points to the 1964 Imperial grille
(sans centre split). And one has taillamps that would appear on the 1962
Ford Galaxie. So his Thunderbird/Continental proposals had quite a wide
influence.
Elwood Engel took up his position at Chrysler in November, 1961 and retired
in 1972. Thus, given the timelines needed for new car designs, his
influence would have reached into the 1974 C-body designs.
It is not surprising that once Engel was gone, his influence on design would
dissappear. Harley Earl's influence ar General Motors was gone before Earl
was. The 1959 General Motors line was done under Earl, but a palace coup in
the design department all but stripped him of any influence. He was
working on more chrome on the 1958 models (more than what did appear,
believe it or not) and 1959 models that used the 1957-58 bodies. While he
was away on a trip in the late summer of 1956, his stylists were down on
Conner Avenue in Detroit drooling over the new 1957 Chrysler Corporation
line. The stylists, under Earl's successor Bill Mitchell, dropped Earl's
instructions and began working on designs along Exner's themes. The 1959
models clearly show who won the showdown upon Earl's return.
When George Walker came on board at Ford in the late 1940's, his clean, slim
1949 Ford would be the theme Ford would carry forward into the postwar era,
and in turn over to Chrysler by his right hand man, Engel. The 1949-51
Mercury and Lincoln were not of the same style, but they were the product of
Walker's predecessor, Bob Gregorie. The heavy, ornate designs of Gregorie
died with the the 1951 Mercury and Lincoln.
When a new head of styling comes on board, it seems he puts his stamp on the
company's products as soon as he can. And that is not that surprising.
After all, no one likes to have their work confused with anyone else's.
Bill
Vancouver, BC
> It's possible, because Engel was at Mercury for awhile, I believe. I
would
> have to check, but I think he was. And usually they are designing cars
2-3
> years out-- at least they were at that time. So it's possible that the
design
> for the '64 was already done by the time Engel left in '60 or '61 (again,
> sorry, I can't remember the exact dates he left).
>
> Even if he did not do it himself the designers may have followed the
concept
> that he established. I seem to recall that someone on this list said that
even
> the designs of the '66 & '67 Lincoln were based on sketches Engel did
before he
> left. Don't know if this is true.
>
> OK, and to keep this IMPERIAL . . . you can see evidence of the '67 & '68
> Imperial in a design exercise Engel did at Ford called the X65,
particularly in
> the rear with the "slab sided" fenders that extend beyond the bumper.
>
> Many have said that the '64-'66 Imperial was originally intended to be the
next
> Lincoln (after the design that debuted in '61 ran its course), but in the
> article I mentioned a few days ago another designer said that the design
of the
> '64-'66 Imperial was not a Lincoln, but another concept car or design
exercise
> Engel did at Ford. (The design for the '61 Lincoln, BTW, was originally
going
> to be a Thunderbird.)
>
> This is running longer than I intended, but I guess it's partially a
matter of
> economics that Engel's ideas persisted at Ford & Mercury even though he
was
> gone. Once they have commited a large amount of time & money in the
design
> effort, and the engineering effort, they don't want to change a design
just
> because the original creator is gone-- it would just be too costly. So I
guess
> his influence carried over for at least 3 years . . . maybe more?
>
> Okay, LAST THING. What surprises me is that I don't see Engel's influence
> persisting at Chrysler for so long after he left . . . or maybe I'm just
not
> recognizing it.
>
> Mark
>
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