Advanced in some ways and familiar in others, the Lincoln-Zephyr charted the course for the Lincoln brand for years to come.

As much as anything, the bold styling and advanced design of the 1936 Lincoln-Zephyr demonstrate this: The driving force behind the car was no doubt Edsel Ford and not his increasingly conservative father, Ford Motor Co. founder Henry Ford. But then, Edsel always enjoyed a relatively free hand with the management of the Lincoln Motor Company, which Ford had acquired from Henry and Wilfred Leland in 1922.

By the mid ’30s, the luxury car market was changing and the grand Lincoln K/KB series was falling behind the times. Edsel could see that in order to survive, Lincoln needed a more modern and affordable model that appealed to a broader range of pocketbooks, and on November 2, 1935, the Lincoln-Zephyr was formally introduced. Note the hyphen in the name, indicating that this new model was presented as a sort of companion brand to the classic coachbuilt Lincoln. The Zephyr was a Lincoln, it was to be noted, but it was something more, too. .

The basis for the new Zephyr was actually provided by a major Ford vendor, the Briggs Manufacturing Company of Detroit, supplier of auto bodies and stampings. Under contract for Briggs, Dutch engineer John Tjaarda  (later known as John Tjaarda van Sterkenburg) had designed a stunning prototype auto that was eventually shown in the Ford exhibit at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair, more properly known as the Century of Progress International Exposition,(above).

While it certainly was sensational with its rear-engine layout and dramatic styling, the Briggs-Tjaarda prototype was far too radical in its original form to become a production Lincoln, and Tjaarda himself was reluctant to change it. For the exterior makeover, Edsel turned to his personal designer, E.T. “Bob” Gregorie. Years later, Gregorie would recall that he didn’t much care for the outlandish looks of the original Tjaarda creation, and he wasn’t totally impressed with his own revised version, either, which featured a yacht-like pointed prow. But Edsel was delighted with the result, telling Gregorie that it was much as he had envisioned the car when he handed Gregorie the assignment. On the strength of this design and others, Gregorie became the Ford Motor Company’s first formal styling chief.

Advanced Lincoln-Zephyr features included unitized body and frame construction, but it was a somewhat different form of unit construction than we know today. There was a separate ladder frame, more or less, but it was welded rather than bolted to the body, which employed advanced all-metal construction (above) and a steel roof. However, the ultra-conservative suspension front and rear was Ford’s cross-spring-and-wishbone layout that dated all the way back to the 1909 Model T. It was a backdated feature in 1936, when all the General Motors car lines offered independent front suspension. The brakes were Ford’s four-wheel mechanical setup as well. “The safety of steel from pedal to wheel,” as the Ford slogan went.

The engine (above) was also a mix of old and new. A 267 cubic-inch V12 rated at 110 hp, it was essentially a 12-cylinder version of the venerable Ford flathead V8. And it inherited some of the V8’s troubles as well, including a tendency to overheat. But over the years the V12 was continually developed and improved, and it was a pretty respectable engine when it was finally discontinued in 1948.

Priced at around $1300, compared to the hefty $4300 starting price of the senior Lincolns, the Zephyr hit its target, competing head-on with Buick, LaSalle, and the similarly styled Chrysler Airflow. Lincoln-Zephyr sold more than 13,000 units the first year, where the big coachbuilt Lincolns had typically sold in the hundreds—an unsustainable volume. For 1941 the old K series was dropped and the new senior model, the Custom, was a stretched version of the Zephyr. (See a dealer film of the 1941 Lincoln line here.)

The Zephyr, of course, also provided the basis for the Edsel Ford/Bob Gregorie design masterpiece, the 1939-40 Continental. Meanwhile, the Zephyr itself was continually facelifted and updated through the years, and while the Zephyr name was dropped when civilian passenger car manufacturing was halted in February of 1942, the basic platform remained in production through 1948. It’s fair to say the Lincoln-Zephyr preserved the Lincoln brand.