1949 Small Lincoln in Context

For model years 1949-1951 Ford Motor Company's Lincoln brand featured two separate body platforms. Topping the Lincoln line was the Cosmopolitan series that I wrote about here.  The lesser Lincoln, which had no modifying name, shared the body of Ford's mid-range Mercury brand.  It's the subject of today's post, and its Wikipedia entry is here.

For model years 1949 and 1951, the smaller Lincoln slightly out-sold the Cosmopolitans.  And for 1950, their sales advantage was larger.  Cosmopolitans had comparatively strong sales despite being priced around 20 percent more than the basic Lincolns.  That suggests that those basic, EL-type Lincolns might have been perceived as being simply fancy Mercurys -- which to some degree they were.  Or as an inexpensive means of buying a real Lincoln -- also likely true.

There are far more online images of Cosmopolitans than small Lincolns, another reflection of how the latter were perceived: few have been preserved.  But I found enough photos for the Gallery below.

Unless noted, images below are of for-sale cars.

Gallery

1949 Lincoln
Introductory view.  All images here are of four-door sedans for comparative purposes.

1949 Lincoln
Side view.  Compare to the Mercury image below.

1949 Mercury
Seen from the side, Mercurys and small Lincolns are nearly identical.  The most visible difference is the placement of the long chrome strip.  

1949 Lincoln
Rear-quarter view.  Compare to the Lincoln Cosmopolitan image below.

1949 Lincoln Cosmopolitan
Although bodies are different, both Lincoln types shared the same taillight and trunk handle designs.

1949 Lincoln - factory photo
Comparing front end designs ...

1949 Lincoln Cosmopolitan - factory photo
Despite the different bodies, frontal designs appear to be identical.

1950 Lincoln
Mercurys and small Lincolns had rear ends facelifted for 1951
in the same manner.  Here are comparative images.

1951 Lincoln
The backlight window is enlarged and reshaped.  Rear fenders are lengthened to provide more of a "squared-off" side profile, anticipating the boxy 1952 redesign.

1951 Mercury Coupe
Not a 4-door sedan, but it's the aft end treatment that matters.  The bumpers differ, but the placement of other features such as the trunk lid latch and tail light assemblies are the same, saving Ford some tooling costs.