Chapter V

The Creation of the Lincoln-Mercury Lynx:
 The "Lost" Concept Cars

Dream cars force the designer to project his thinking into the future and to excite the public, thus creating interest in the company and its products. A dream car is a car which best represents the designer's interpretation of the future including unusual operating features, mechanical components and the unique application of materials.

 - R.F. Zorkas

- - Early Developments --

The absence of a Lincoln-Mercury badged to become the X-Car from the initial X-Car program has always been a puzzle. With the Lincoln-Mercury T-7 (Cougar) project closely following Ford's heavily promoted T-5 (Mustang) effort, it never made sense to suppose that Lincoln-Mercury wouldn't have had a publicly campaigned concept car to accompany the Ford styling studies, especially considering the history of the Fifties' Lincoln-Mercury dream cars. Until recently, even substantial research failed to disclose why either the Lincoln-Mercury X-Car wasn't created when Ford's vehicles were, or, if a dream car was built, what became of it. The face is, cars were designed and built, and a series of intentional and unfortunate omissions in the suppressed history of the car permitted tantalizing glimpses into the Lynx project. 

To appreciate the full story of the series of Lynx concepts cars, it's important to know of the events and bits of history that lead to the discovery of the Lincoln-Mercury dreams cars. Not surprisingly, the nature and history of the most elusive concept cars in Lincoln-Mercury history were exactly the elements that led to the difficulty encountered in learning about the cars. The long rumored and -- until now -- largely unknown story of the "lost" Lincoln-Mercury X-Cars can be told only by beginning the story in the early days of the Avventurra-class design studios and by understanding how strongly committed the Lincoln-Mercury chief Moulton was to introducing a series of youthful, performance-oriented vehicles to his product line as any other Division leader in the corporation.

Deeply distressed by the flat sales and the anemic product line, the Mercury division determined that some charges were in store for the upper management. The Division chief, intent on assembling a fresh team of talent more responsive to his goal, he replaced Walker Williams with Chase Morsey, Jr. as assistant to Lincoln-Mercury General Manager. And to breath new life into the public presentation of Lincoln Mercury materials, C.R. Paulson became public relations manager early in 1961. Glenn Cook assumed the reigns as manager of marketing research while Jack Dekker got the nod as the new programming department manager. 1961 was going to be a good year: the Comet compact (especially with the cosmetically enhanced S-22 coupe in the wings) accounted for more than half of all sales in the entire Division, but the Division chief was still not satisfied in his desire for a specialty Lincoln-Mercury sports car."

 

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