The Saga of the Lynx:

 The Creation, Loss and Rediscovery
 of the Legendary Lincoln-Mercury Dream Cars
by Mark S. Gustavson

This book will reveal in detail the previously-unknown history of the "lost" Lincoln-Mercury concept car -- the Lynx -- that was a companion piece to Ford's X-Cars from 1963.  This book is the outgrowth of more than a decade of exhaustive research into Ford Motor corporate history which has involved an investigation of Ford concept cars, the Lincoln-Mercury Caravan of Stars, the Ford Division's Custom Car Caravan, as well as the remarkable story of a model car kit of the Lynx by IMC. Here is an excerpt of a bit of the rough draft text of one chapter in the book.

This multi-pronged project strikes out on new territory by involving a wide range of disciplines in the in scale presentation of the wonderful story of this previously "lost" aspect of Lincoln Mercury corporate history. This project started by an examination intricate Ford Motor Company history to determine why the Lincoln-Mercury Division apparently didn't have its "answer" to the Ford Division's X-Cars (Mustang II, Cougar II, Allegro). As research continued, we discovered that the Lincoln-Mercury Division did have its own prototype car series in 1964 and that the history of that vehicle was carefully – and, until recently, thoroughly – suppressed. The Lynx project actually involved the construction of three – not one! – prototypes each of which was aimed at exploring a different element of the then-burgeoning market for personalized, performance-oriented transportation that was successfully exploited by the Ford Division's Mustang.

The Lynx Project involves the construction of several intricate scale dioramas (the Detroit warehouse where the prototypes were located in 1998, a diorama of the Cobo Hall diorama where the Lincoln Mercury Caravan of Stars program debuted, and the Bertone carrozzeria where the three Lynx prototypes were built, and the Alitalia cargo plane off-loading of the three prototypes), models of the three Lynx prototype vehicles as well as scale models of other vehicles that played a role in this story as well as the presentation of a wide range of historic artifacts and musty photographs, this project will be presented at Twenty-Third GSL International Scale Vehicle Championship and Convention that will be held in Salt Lake City, in late April 2011. Please visit the Lynx project website for more information on this great project!

 

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