In Part I of this series, we saw how General Motors had developed a brilliant way to design the Cadillac Fleetwood 75 Series without spending very much money at all and, in so doing, set a standard for limousine design for years to come. Not merely a landmark design, though, this concept made Cadillac dominant in the field for thirty-five years.

We also saw how the other manufacturers were amazingly slow to follow suit, largely because they simply didn't realize what had been done. There was one competitor who understood, though: Jim Nance, who had been named to head Packard in 1952. Nance was determined to re-establish Packard as a luxury market leader and knew he needed specialty vehicles, such as limousines, in order to do that.

It was just about this time that Richard Stout, formerly one of Harley Earl's minions at GM, came to work in product planning at Packard and it was he who enlightened Nance. As a result, a new Packard limousine was announced for the 1953 model year that was designed with the same sort of interchangeability Cadillac had pioneered in 1950. Nance did, however, add a novel twist to the concept that was to have long-term implications. Packard did not have the facilities to economically build a few hundred limousines and eight-passenger sedans — even given the cost savings inherent in the Cadillac design — and so Nance turned to Henney, a small body builder in Freeport, Illinois.

Henney had been famed for years for its "professional cars," i.e., hearses, ambulances and the like. Since the mid-1930s, it had been associated on a nearly exclusive basis with Packard. What Nance proposed was that Henney should now undertake to produce Packard long-wheelbase models along the general plan laid down by Cadillac. To do so, Packard would send "kits" — or packages of parts — which Henney would then assemble in its own plant.

Retaining an outside firm to do this sort of work was a novel idea at the time, but Nance went one step further by commissioning Derham in Rosemont, Pennsylvania, to do a direct conversion of a Packard Patrician sedan. In other words, Derham was to take a completed Packard sedan and, by means of adding a special roof treatment, an interior division and other details, convert it into a more exclusive product. In both cases, with Henney and Derham, Nance was looking to outside firms to produce specialty Packard vehicles by converting stock parts or cars. Overall, about 275 semi-custom Packards were produced: 250 Henney long-wheelbase models (about two-thirds of them eight-passenger sedans and about one-third limousines) and 25 Derham Formal Sedans, although there were reportedly additional individual orders from customers over and above the official factory commissions from Henney and Derham.

By 1956, however, Packard was gone, although Nance’s reputation as a manager and marketing expert were fortunately still intact. He soon found a new job at Ford Motor Company when Ernie Breech, the chairman of the board, named him to the new post of vice-president of marketing. This action enraged Robert McNamara and his young turk faction known as the Whiz Kids, who saw Nance as an obstacle to their advancement. McNamara quickly engineered Nance's demotion to head Lincoln and Mercury Division, which was soon reformulated as the Lincoln-Edsel-Mercury Division, almost universally known as the M-E-L Division, for short.

One of Nance's first decisions there as the man now responsible for Lincoln was to order the development of a more formal and prestigious car at the top of the Lincoln Continental line. Recalling his experiences with Henney and Derham, he elected to go the conversion route to get it and the firm he chose to work through was the venerable Hess & Eisenhardt company of Cincinnati, Ohio.

Two exclusive Lincoln models were produced for the 1959 and 1960 model runs, a Town Car and a Limousine — which, strictly speaking, were neither. Moreover, unlike most later conversions of this type, they were not even stretched, but remained on the stock 131-inch wheelbase. Similar to the old Packard Derham Formal Sedan, they were, at best, six-passenger cars. They were distinguishable from the outside by heavily padded vinyl tops with frenched rear windows. The only exterior color scheme, if it can be called that, was black. The interior followed normal Continental trim patterns, but was available only with gray woolen broadcloth. On the Limousine, the front compartment was upholstered in black leather and a power operated glass partition was fitted. These cars came standard with virtually every Lincoln option and listed at $9,208 for the Town Car and $10,230 for the Limousine. A grand total of 214 of the former and 83 of the latter were built for the two model years of production, and 31 of these were exported. Foreign buyers included the royal households of Greece and Holland.

Nance didn’t survive to see the launch of the Hess & Eisenhardt conversions he had arranged, though. McNamara was still gunning for him and finally managed to have him fired in August, 1958. According to Stout, who had followed his boss from Packard to Ford, the Whiz Kids had given Henry Ford II an ultimatum: Fire Nance or the Whiz Kids would desert Ford Motor Company in a group for a lucrative job offer at Chrysler.

Be that as it may, Ford management was not done with the idea of having a Lincoln limousine. Eventually, they were approached by a start-up conversion firm in Chicago — and limousine history was made. But, that takes us to the third part of our story, which will appear next month. R&D