No Wrap-Around

(Photo by Richard Lentinello.)

The July 2011 issue of my Classic Car Magazine (July? Come-on guys, that’s two months away) features a great-looking 1955 Lincoln that has me wondering.
It doesn’t have a Wrap-Around windshield.
Really? —By the 1955 model-year, all Detroit was jumping on the Wrap-Around bandwagon.

A Wrap-Around on a ’55 Chevy.

Even the Low-Price Three had ‘em, Chevrolet, Ford, and Plymouth; although Chrysler’s version, on the Plymouth, was slightly different.
It wrapped around the top as well as the bottom.
Which meant both Ford and Mercury had ‘em the 1955 model-year, but Lincoln didn’t.
That was rectified in the 1956 model-year, when Lincoln was made much longer and more dramatic.
The ’55 Lincoln was a great car, although more a gussied-up Mercury than a Cadillac competitor. (Longer in the tail though.)
Although in the early ‘50s, the Caddy wasn’t that dramatic.
But by 1955 it was a land-barge.
Lincoln didn’t become a land-barge until the ’56 model-year.
A return to the greatness the brand had in the ‘30s and ‘40s; V12s, the Zephyr, and the first Continental.
In the early ‘50s Lincoln had fallen — it was more a Mercury.
Ford was in no position to do what General Motors was doing: field all-new ever larger cars every couple years.
Ford was essentially the same car 1949 through the 1956 model-year, although with chassis and motor upgrades.
The early ‘50s Mercurys were the proposed Ford rebadged.

The car that saved the company.

It’s just that Ford managed to field the all-new 1949 “Shoebox” Ford (at left), the car that saved the company.
If Ford had continued building the sorts of cars it had been building pre-war (and pre 1949), it would have failed.
The General fielded an all-new post-war car in the 1949 model-year, dickered it quite a bit for 1953, and debuted all new cars in 1954 — with the exception of Chevrolet and Pontiac, which waited until 1955.
I saw a ’55 Mercury stationwagon once, and it was clearly a ’55 Ford stationwagon trimmed as a Mercury.
But the 1955 Lincoln didn’t have a Wrap-Around windshield.
Amazing!
Even mid-‘50s Mercurys are Ford take-offs.
Well, the Lincoln was sort of unnoticed by me at that time.
What stood out was the fabulous new ’55 Chevy.
Which looked at now is all styling gewgaws.
The ’55 Chevy was smallish and light at that time, but now it’s big and blowzy.
The ’55 Lincoln is sort of the same car, although with styling reminiscent of about 1953.
Compared to the ’55 Caddy it was a wuss.
The Wrap-Around windshield was a fad; it lasted about six-or-seven years.
The bottom dog-leg of a Wrap-Around windshield had a habit of slamming knees.
Lift your legs to exit the car from the front-seat and BAM!
The Wrap-Around windshield was a trick by the curved-windshield manufacturers, that they could sharply curve the glass at its corners.
Curved one-piece windshields had just come into use.
Automakers are so raking their windshields now, to make their cars more aerodynamic, they have to put side-glass ahead of the front doors.

• “The General” is General Motors.