Lincoln Motor Company
The Lincoln Motor Company Plant, built in Detroit, Michigan, by Henry Leland in 1917, was closed after 1952; subsequent Lincolns were produced alongside Mercury Montereys and Mercury Montclairs. For the 1957 model year, Ford opened Wixom Assembly in Wixom, Michigan, as a facility to specialize in Lincoln production. From 1957 to 2007, the facility produced Lincoln vehicles nearly exclusively, along with the Ford GT and several generations of the Ford Thunderbird.
For the 1956 model year, Ford Motor Company created the Continental Division, slotted above Lincoln as the flagship marque of Ford Motor Company. At its launch, Continental introduced the Continental Mark II as its model line, intended as a successor to the 1940-1948 Lincoln Continental personal luxury car. Offered as a two-door hardtop coupe, the Mark II broke from a number of American styling precedents of the time. While fitted with whitewall tires, the exterior was fitted with minimal chrome trim on the body sides; tailfins were left off of the body completely. In place of the bumper-mounted spare tire of the original Lincoln Continental, the trunklid of the Mark II showcased the design element, with a large imitation spare tire bulge (which fit over the actual spare tire inside the trunk). The Mark II was largely hand-built, with extensive quality testing done to each engine and transmission before leaving the factory.
Lincoln Motor Company
In another requirement to ensure its survival, the model cycle of Lincoln was extended from three years to nine years. While largely dispensing with major yearly model changes, the decision established design consistency and shifting resources towards quality control. For 1966, to better compete with the Cadillac Coupe de Ville and the Imperial Crown/LeBaron Coupe, Lincoln added a two-door hardtop to the Continental model line. After the 1967 model year, Lincoln ended production of the Continental 4-door convertible. At 5,712 pounds, the 1967 Lincoln Continental Convertible is the heaviest non-limousine car ever produced by Ford Motor Company; as of 2018, it is the final factory-produced four-door convertible sold in North America.
During the 1960s, Ford sought to develop a new flagship vehicle as a successor for the Continental Mark II. While the Lincoln Continental served as a close competitor to the Cadillac de Ville series and Chrysler Imperial, as Cadillac shifted the Cadillac Eldorado to the personal luxury segment in 1967, a segment that Ford exited in 1957 after the withdrawal of the Continental Mark II. As a response, in April 1968, the Continental Mark III was released as a 1969 model. While not officially a Lincoln, the Continental Mark III was marketed through the Lincoln-Mercury dealer network, who would service the vehicle. Over a number of various names considered for the vehicle, Continental Mark III was chosen, as Henry Ford II felt the Continental Mark II did not have a proper successor (thus restarting the nomenclature).