Some background on the 1961 Continental is here.
Although the new Lincoln was smaller than the previous model, it was an enlarged version of the four-passenger Thunderbird. Ford executives liked '61 Thunderbird styling proposals and specified that the Continental be a four-door version with Continental-type ornamentation and other unique features.
Key dimensions: Wheelbase -- T-Bird, 113 in (2870 mm), Continental, 123 in (3124 mm). Length -- T-Bird, 205 in (5204 mm), Continental, 212.4 in (5395 mm).
Both cars shared the cowling and nearby details, as is shown below in the Gallery. Unless noted, images are of for-sale cars or factory-sourced photos.
Several such full-size models were built. This one has a fenderline similar to that used on the Continental.
The windshields are the same. And the fender tops have chrome strips on them.
Thunderbirds had a back seat which required a wide door to allow passenger entry there.
1 comment:
You are really good at figuring this kind of stuff out but I think you are mostly wrong here. I'm sure they share a lot of mechanical bits from large (front suspension?) to small.
But the Lincoln windshield, internal cowl, and vent windows are not the same as the Thunderbird's. Look at the upper corners of the windshields - the Tbird rounds off and the Lincoln's starts to curve over the side windows. Notice that the Tbird's wipers are clap-hands style and the Lincoln's are parallel (but somehow backwards for a driver-on-the-left car). The Lincoln is also 2.7 inches wider and an inch taller, and all the difference and probably more in height is in the taller body.
The heating systems are also completely different with the Lincoln having essentially separate right and left side heater/defroster units with separate blowers and heater cores controlled thermostatically by one knob and about a hundred miles of vacuum lines, with ducting through the front armrests. The 1958-60 Lincoln system was similar.
I think the story about the Lincoln being a Thunderbird proposal was because some early Thunderbird proposals incorporated some of the discontinued Mark II cues, but they decided to do this with the Lincoln instead, incorporating more of those cues and adding Continental to the name of the single model. The very wide sail panel/C pillar and short rear side window were explicitly meant to recall the two door hardtop Mark II look along with (obviously) the tail lights. The suicide rear doors are not just cool and recalling the Cosmopolitan's, but necessary to avoid having to crawl in and out of the back seat.
Stylistically the overall Lincoln body concept was of a wide rounded fuselage between two vertical walls. Although they both had the stainless strip at the top and similarities like the headlight surrounds, the Tbird does not follow this idea.
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