Lincoln Motor Company, Part 1

Sure, Lincoln cars are luxury American automobiles, but where did they come from? Join Scott and Ben as they dive into the history of the Lincoln Motor Company in the first part of this series.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Go behind the Wheel, under the Hood and beyond with
car Stuff from house stuff Works dot Com. Hi, and
welcome to car Stuff on the Scott Bensman and Ben Bullet. Ben,
We've got a listeners suggestion today that that was too
good to ignore. Yeah, this is a really good one,

(00:22):
not that all of them aren't really good, but this
one stood out for us, it really did. This one
comes from Martin Sikorski, and Martin is a listener who
contacted us via Facebook, and I'll just kind of read
through quickly. Here his Facebook post that that alerted us
to this topic. It says, Gentz, I listened to your
podcast on my way to work at the Museum of

(00:42):
Science and Industry in Chicago. Very cool, and we recently
celebrated eight years and they brought out some rare items
and he's been posting some photos on our Facebook page
with with those rare photos. And I'll tell you in
just a moment what a couple of those are. But
um mentions that since to a lot of the house
Stuff Works family of podcasts, and it's funny to him

(01:04):
how we mentioned a lot of the things that they
have on display at the Museum of Science and industry
and that you know, like the Apollo capsule, the Enigma machine,
farm tractors, things like that, plastinated body parts, lots of
different stuff. So let's keep up the good work. And
I've got two ideas. One of the ideas which I
think we're gonna cover later. Um. And I'm just kind

(01:25):
of let the cat out of the bag here. Um.
The fiftieth anniversary of the Mustang is coming up, and
held Martin knew and he wants us to talk about that,
and that's that's coming up in So we'll talk about that.
I promise we'll get to that one. That's a good one.
That The second suggestion is, uh, the luxury division known

(01:47):
as Lincoln from the Ford Motor Company. And we thought
that was a great idea, so you know, reth blyd
and said we would do that. Um, and that's what
we're gonna cover today. But I wanted to also mention
a couple of these photos that he sent and from
the the Museum of Science and Over Street in Chicago. Uh.
One of them was like a you know this GM
sinkle mesh transmission. UH, really cool cut away like an

(02:10):
engineering exercise, I guess, you know, shows you what's inside
a couple of airplane engines UM a dive bomber engine.
One of them was a Rolls roy spitfire engine, which
is really cool. And then an electric armored car from
that they have on display, which is completely open top.
Looks like UM, almost like one of those vehicles that
you would drive around like a shop, you know, like

(02:31):
an electric vehicle that you would use in a shop application,
like like a machine shop or something. But it has
a machine gun mounted to the front. I'm sorry, just
a gun mounted to the front. I don't know if
it's a machine gun or not. But completely open top.
But it's supposedly an armored vehicle. Kind of a ridiculous
design but interesting nonetheless, And no listeners can see these
on our Facebook page, right definitely, that's awesome. And and

(02:53):
they're from right around June, like late June, so so
take a look at that. And again, Martin, thank you.
And we're going to talk about LINK and UM and
luxury divisions because you know, we've we've talked about this
in the past that a lot of automotive companies have
a luxury division, like like Honda has Accura, Nissan has Infinity,

(03:14):
Toyota has Lexis General Motors has Cadillac, and Ford Motor
Company has Lincoln. Yes, and you have probably recognized, even
if you're not a car person, Lincoln vehicle in your vicinity,
because let's face it, they'll look classy, they look polished.
If we're talking about the Lincoln town cars, the Continental. Uh,

(03:35):
this is a car that makes an impression. It's a
they've they've overtime uh gone for building a reputation of
understated elegance. That's a good way to put that. Man,
Thank you well. Uh, I I think it is true.
But the story of Lincoln is much longer than some

(03:57):
people might imagine, so long in fact, that this is
going to be a two part podcast. And you and
I decided we were going to do this before we
hit the air with Yeah, I felt it in my
bones that this is not gonna work for a single episode.
It would be way too long. So we're gonna split
it up and we'll just kind of play it by
ear here and decide when to drop it here, and
we will promise we'll get to the second half right

(04:18):
after this. But, um, the story is so long. I'll
tell you that it goes and there's a lot of history,
and don't let that scary away because it's all interesting.
There is there's some really interesting little nuggets in this
story that they come out that I had. Again, we
talked about Henry Ford a lot. We have to talk
about Henry Ford early on in this thing, that that
the whole story starts with Henry Ford in right, And

(04:41):
this is a this is a great point because this
this point for dates the foundation of the actual Lincoln
Motor Company. But it's instrumental and it's important that we
talked about this. So Scott, could you take it away? Yeah, well, go,
I mean just Lincoln Motor Company. It doesn't come around
until really nineteen seventeen, and we're gonna go all the

(05:04):
way back to the six. You have to start with
Henry Ford, um, and the way that these characters cross paths,
it all matters in the end, you'll find out. Uh
So eight is when Henry Ford is working on the quadricycle, right,
and he forms a company called the Detroit Automobile Company
in about eighteen nine, and he realizes that the you know,

(05:26):
early on, he himself understands that the products are a
little too low quality for Ford because he has a
little higher standard I guess, um, and and the cost
was getting too much. He said, no, it can't can't
cost this much. Can't can't be this low quality, can't
cost this much. I can't let this Detroit Automobile Company
continue on. I'm going to dissolve it. And so by

(05:47):
I think it was man, I think it was eighteen
ninety nine when he finally dissolved that company, so early
early on. Um, I'm sorry, he dissolved it in nineteen
o one. I was founded in eighteen nine, so, you know,
just around for a couple of years, but not a
whole lot came out of that. Well Ford, you know,
as you know, he was pretty industrious. He founded a
second company and he called this one the Henry Ford Company,

(06:09):
and he founded that one in the same year that
he dissolved the other company. So he formed it in
nineteen o one, and again the Henry Ford Company was
was with a couple of other investors, UM, an engineer
named Harold Willis and a guy named William Murphy who
was this is this title always cracks me up. William
Murphy was a Detroit lumber baron. And I don't know
why that always makes me laugh, but because it sounds

(06:32):
like a made up funny. Like when you picture a
lumber baron, it's sort of like the old railroad tycoon.
You know, it's a lumber baron wearing a three piece
suit made of flannel. Sure, yeah, with a you know
the stuff, the pocket watch, you know, through the three
three pieces. Yeah, exactly saw in hand. So anyways, you know,

(06:53):
you know Ford, like I said, he's he's really really
trying to push, you know, getting getting these cars made.
And he's very very driven, I guess. So he had
two car companies prior to Ford Motor Company. Now, remember
we mentioned the Detroit Automobile Company, the Henry Ford Company,
which as of right now on our timeline, that's where
we are. And of course Henry is the chief engineer

(07:14):
of the Henry Ford Company, so he's got a major,
major role in this thing, right and of course he's
a major investor as well well. In nineteen o two,
Um William Murphy that I just mentioned, the Detroit lumber baron,
he brought in a guy named, um Henry M. The
Land as a consultant, and Henry LO Land, as we'll
find out, has a critical role in all of this

(07:37):
and this this time in nineteen o two is the
first time that Henry lo Land and Henry Ford crossed
pass and we'll find out that later that comes up
as well. They crossed paths again and there his Yes,
So nineteen o two and we're still more than a
decade away from Lincoln Motors, but we're starting to see
the pieces come together. Now. You say, Land and Forward

(08:00):
will run into each other more than one time. But
what's their take on each other? Scott, Well, they feel
about it. Well, there there's a little bit of friction there,
and I would say a little bit more than a
little bit because um, as we'll find out in just
a moment, Ford actually leaves the company that that has
his own name, uh, you know, the the Henry Ford Company.
UM as a result of this meeting with with the

(08:21):
Land or what what the Land does to the company,
because the Land's job in nineteen two is to appraise
the Ford Motor Company. UM, you know, kind of figure
out what's going wrong, like why why aren't things working
the way they shoot and all the tooling, the factory,
everything that's involved with it. UM, find out what's happening there.
And they're talking about liquidating the factory and getting rid
of all the assets and everything. So that's the situation

(08:43):
that the that the Henry Ford Company was in. And
of course Henry you know, he's very proud of his company.
UM wants it to exist, you know, continue to exist.
And actually that that's kind of surprising because the Land's
advice was was to them not to liquidate the factory, um,
but to rather um keep everything that's in place, you know,
all the all the tooling and everything that's already there.

(09:06):
Everything is there. He says. What they should do is
they should build a brand new car with a new
engine that get this that the Land has been working
on for a company called Oldsmobile. Yeah. See this is
where we Scott, I think it was softball in it
just a little. And I said, with all due respect
the Land and Ford our enemies. They are pulling like

(09:27):
a Scaliary Beethoven sort of thing where rivals and you
know Henry Ford, right, I mean we've talked about him
so many times in the past that you know he's
got a tremendous temper on him. Yes, and he really does,
and it and it can appear out of nowhere. Really,
he tore a car apart with his bare hands out
of his own car. He tore a prototype apart that's right,
bare handed, so you know he can he can fly

(09:48):
off the handle, as we'll say, I guess maybe yeah.
And so the Land is not they're not collaborating. No, no,
he's not well accepted at the at the Henry Ford
Company by Henry Ford, and so much so that that
you know, Ford was actually forced out of the group
of investors that were led by the Land to kind of,

(10:09):
you know, reinvent this company that that Henry had founded.
So Henry again, Henry founded this Henry Ford Company. And
now that the Land is you know, kind of come
in and really I mean essentially taken over this factory,
this tooling, you know, everything that was the Henry Ford Company. Well,
Land says, you know, now that we've got this new engine,
we're gonna build this new vehicle, let's rename this whole deal,

(10:33):
and we're gonna call it Cadillac exactly right. So as
as a strange twist in this, now, I told you
there's gonna be these little nuggets here and there that
you're gonna want to pick up on. Amazingly, So Henry
Ford is credited with being the founder of Cadillac Automobile Company,
the original founder because he owned the Henry Ford Company

(10:55):
that eventually was turned into the Cadillac Automobile Company by
Henry lo Land. So what a strange twist time. I mean,
if you look up Cadillac, it's it's right there. It's
not it's indisputable, it's it's there on the Cadillac webs exactly.
So the Land and Henry Ford both get credit for,
you know, founding this company. I guess, I guess, you know,

(11:16):
under the actual name of Cadillac, it's the Land. But
Henry Ford is truly the founder of what became the
Cadillac Automobile Company. And then who who starts sniffing around
the hunting of pot At this point in nineteen o nine,
General Motors acquires Cadillac. Yeah, and that's mainly because and

(11:36):
the reason that they had interest in this. Now I
remember it's a fairly new company. Um all this is
going down in nineteen o two, and so between nineteen
o two and nineteen o nine, the Cadillac standard the
you know, I'll say that it's kind of like, um,
I don't know, internationally recognized maybe, is the best way
to say. That's that that it was. It was garnering
attention worldwide at this point for it's it's quality, it's reliability,

(12:01):
the precision parts that they used fit and finish everything that.
You know that all the cars prior to this really
didn't exhibit. I mean, there were a lot of really
low quality cars coming out of some of these smaller factories,
you know that they were turning out one after the other.
There's still a cottage industry at this point too, so
there's not there's not quite the same standardization, uh that
Cadillac introduced, Yeah, exactly. And and one of the big

(12:25):
things about this is that one of the big things
about the Cadillac Automobile Company is that it was one
of the first companies, if not the first, to really
focus on the inner I don't know how to say this.
Maybe interchangeability, the ease of ease of switching parts from
one vehicle to the next in the model lineups, so
the modular building. Yeah, that's maybe a better way to

(12:46):
say that. This is a really big idea at the time,
you know, because this is brand new, and now we
see it a lot in cars that you know, there's
some carryover parts and you can easily see what's carry
over from one model to the next within a brand, right,
and then just consumables. Yeah, at the time in in
uh in nineteen o nine and nineteen o two through
nineteen o nine, this was a brand new idea and

(13:06):
it and it really sold the company to General Motors
in and they wanted it, and they wanted it bad
because they bought it four get this in nineteen or nine,
four and a half million dollars, which is a pretty
big sum um there was. I've figured this out on
a inflation calculator. Yeah, I love that you do this.
Every time. I tried to when I can, if I
see the numbers, I try to do it. So in

(13:28):
two thousand thirteen dollars, that equals about a hundred and
six million dollars one hundred six million dollars a little
over that. So this four and a half million dollars
back in nineteen or nine was a big purchase really. Yeah,
but still it sounds like they got it first song. Well,
you know, when you think about nineteen o nine car companies,
it probably was a factory on a corner. It's probably

(13:50):
one location that's probably one maybe maybe a satellite office
that had you know, the the design studio or whatever
they happened here, But it's not anything like what you're
thinking now of now where you think of you know,
these factories that occupy hundreds of acres of property and
they have double network exactly in the robotics and all
of that going on, and you know, thousands and thousands
of employees. This is Cadillac in nineteen o nine, so

(14:12):
you know, GM to get for them to pick it
up for four and a half million dollars, that's a
pretty big sum. And the thing is that the Land,
who was you know then at the time running the place.
He he stayed on as an executive until a critical
date nineteen ah. Yes, and here we arrive at the
birthday of the Lincoln Motor Company. Uh. This was founded

(14:36):
by Henry the Land along with his son Wilfred, right, yeah,
Wilfred and uh the Land named this company after one
of his favorite presidents spoiler alert. It was Abraham Lincoln.
And the Land, according to the story, even cast a

(14:56):
vote for Lincoln. So that's how far back this goes.
You know, I had always heard heard this that that
it was named for Abraham Lincoln, and I thought, now, this.
It's too cut and drive. It just doesn't seem like
that's possible. But it's true. Uh, this Henry lo Land,
he did vote for vote for Lincoln. I forget what
year was, would that be eighteen sixty four? I think
that would be I think so. He yeah, because he

(15:18):
was born the Land was born in eighteen forty three
in Vermont, so he's an American citizen. Uh. He man,
that's just so strange to think of him dropping a
vote in the ballot box for Abraham Lincoln in eighteen
sixty four. I don't know why that's unusual, but he
I mean, this guy lived until nineteen thirty two, so
he was old when he passed away in Detroit. This
this Land character, and you know, at this point, he's

(15:41):
he's here with his son. He's just come off of
being you know, having a company that was purchased from
you know, from him by General Motors. This Cadillac Motor
Company for automobile Company's four and a half million dollars.
So he's not hurting for money. He's flush with cash
at this point. But again, like Henry Ford, we get
the distinct implication that the Land would rather be his

(16:04):
own man would rather own his own stuff. And Lincoln
Motor Company a little bit a trivia for for some
people here. Lincoln Motor Company was not originally founded to
build cars. Yeah, well, um, maybe that was the intent
later on. I think that they did have the intent
that they were going to do that, because they were planning, okay,

(16:24):
and planning to build it later on. But their first
product was aircraft engine. Yeah, that's right. You know, you're right,
And I'm maybe I'm reading too much into the story,
and I think you're right because clearly it's it's a
motor company cars where motors at This is a car guy.
I mean, he's been around, he's been in the car
business now for some time, you know, more than a
couple of decades at this point. So he was interested

(16:45):
in cars, to be sure. But you're right. The first
product that the Lincoln Motor Company put out was actually
it was actually engines for for aircraft for Liberty aircraft
that were assembled really at the Lincoln factory. Uh. The
cylinders were produced by the Ford Motor Company. And again,
these are World War One aircraft engines that they're building
at this factory, and that's their first source of income,

(17:06):
their first revenue generating job, I guess. And this also, Scott,
we should point out that manufacturing Again. I feel like
we say this every time we deal with cars and wars.
Manufacturers were doing this on on a frequent basis, because
when a war effort kicked in, then the manufacturing base

(17:29):
of not only the United States but Europe as well
would shift to focus on military hardware. Now, I think
I owe you a little bit of an apology, Scott,
because clearly the Lincoln Motor Company was made to make cars.
They made a quick buck off the aircraft engines, but
in nineteen twenty they already made their first car. Yeah,

(17:50):
they were, they were making cars by and I do
I want to get to that in just one second,
but I do really feel like we need to just
take a moment here and really talk about and read
the land and you know who he was, where he
comes from. I think that plays a big role in
this entire story, and it will kind of maybe more
give a more of a clear idea to our listeners

(18:12):
that this was a car guy through and through. Really,
let's pay a picture. Yeah, how about that? So he's
a he's an American born um machinist, engineer and ventor
automotive entrepreneurs. He's described here. He's born in Vermont in
eighteen forty three. I think we mentioned that he lived
all the way until nineteen thirty two, so he was
aged eighty nine when he passed away. Um he was

(18:32):
the as we mentioned already, the founder of Cadillac and
of Lincoln, the Lincoln motor company. That's not letting any
secrets out at this point. We've already told you so,
you know, to luxury marks that are still known today,
well known today that compete in the marketplace today. Kind
of interesting there, I think that you know, he founded
two companies that eventually compete against each other, were actually
competed right from the very beginning because they were both around. UM.

(18:54):
He also he learned engineering, precision, precision machining to the
point where he was able to for a firearms company.
He worked for cult for a while prior to doing
all this other stuff with the automotive industry and forming
all these companies. And these guys always have their hands
in a lot of different things, don't they. Yes, very interesting,
interesting stories for all of these guys, as you'll find

(19:15):
out now. By eighteen seventy I think they said he
was already interested in what was known as the automotive industry, which,
as you know, it wasn't really the automotivedustry at that point.
It was really just motors. People were kind of tinkering
with motors, as was Henry Ford. Yeah, it's a it's
to me, it's always fascinating to think about that period
in time because it was ums strange when you think

(19:40):
about how in the modern age now people have talked
about d I Y stuff as though it's a thing
that people are rediscovering. But that's how the car industry started.
It really did start with some very very very smart
people saying, how could I make this do something useful?
Literally building car engine on your kitchen, kitchen table, out

(20:04):
in the garage wherever it happened to be, and then
putting it into whatever vehicle that you had on hand
would be a exactly. There was so much R and
D that went into these things was amazing. I'm sure
that you know, not by eighteen seventy as as a machinist,
as an engineer inventor, he was already you know, I'm
sure he's working on his own type of engines and

(20:24):
we said he developed an engine for Holsmobile, right, so
the competitor engine to Ford exactly. So, you know, a
couple other things of interest here before we move on,
because he you know, he's still around this this guy, this,
this Henry the Land guy when we get to the
ninety twenties. But um, he also this is just a
side note here. I see no one in one place
that says he invented electric barber clippers. I don't know

(20:46):
if that's true or not, but I did find some
information that supported that he invented a kid's toy. It
was a train model model train brother that was kind
of a hanging mono rail type thing. And you can
buy these, you can, and these still they're called the
the Land Detroit mono Rail and they're very very cool looking,
uh you know, of course obviously vintage your antique toys.

(21:09):
You know, a dealer might have something like this, and
I'm sure they're expensive, but it's really just to kind
of an interesting thing. If you want to look it
up that it's called the the Land Detroit Monorail. And
you can find a bunch of these around, you know,
collectors have them. They're on sale, you know, antique shops
things like that. So I think we were in the
nineteen twenties, right, Yes, So in the nineteen twenties on

(21:30):
the Nose, the first linking car is introduced. It as
the L Series, and um, the L Series, No, Scott,
I want to say this. I want to say this diplomatically,
be delicate. Um, well, what, let's just be candid didn't
do well enough to help the company. Okay, it wasn't

(21:51):
up to the standards of what we would think of
a luxury automaker would create. Yeah, it's not it's not
what we would associate a Lincoln car with today. Uh.
The L Series just did not perform and this led
to some disastrous things at the Lincoln Motor Company. Yeah.

(22:11):
And the thing is, you know this is early, early
on in the history of the company. I remember they
were you know, this is this is a tough time
for a company because you know, they're coming off of,
you know, having all this work during World War One
with the aircraft engines and everything, and now they're doing
what they truly wanted to do when they formed, and
to build these luxury automobiles, and they're having a hard

(22:32):
time of it. And someone came riding to the rescue.
But before we talked about that, Scott, I wanted to
take a little moment and talk about something different. Yeah,
why not? Okay, So you know, it's that time of
year when people like to travel. We see some loved wines,

(22:53):
the weather is nice. I travel all the time. You
travel all the time, and uh, maybe just hopping the
car and go on spontaneous road trip, which is one
of my favorite things to do. I'd like to recommend
an audiobook. What have you got? I have a book
that dovetails nicely with our story of Lincoln Today. Uh.
It is called Driven Inside BMW, the most admired car

(23:15):
company in the world. That's part of the title. That's
not me luxury manufacturer. Uh huh. This audio book is
an exclusive look at one of the world's most successful,
controversial companies and the mysterious family behind it. Yeah. So
the guy who is writing this is a guy named

(23:36):
David kylie K I l e y maybe mispronouncing that
um Detroit Bureau chief at USA Today. He is the
author of Getting the Bugs Out, which covered the Volkswagen
demise and rebirth. So he goes into the BMW automaker
to see how they do what they do so well.
And this is for anybody who enjoys hearing the history

(24:01):
of a company, for anybody who enjoys gathering bits of
obscure knowledge about a company. Exactly what we're doing today,
kind of what kind of exactly what we're doing today? Uh,
kind of exactly this guy anyhow. Uh. This is available
on audible podcast dot com and you can listen to

(24:23):
it today. It is thirteen hours and forty one minutes long,
so if you listen to it today, you'll be listening
to it for several days. And the good news is
that if you do choose to download this book that
Ben suggested, what is called what was it driven? Driven
inside BMW? If you want to learn about BMW and
the history of BMW, you can get a free audio
download of your choice when you when you sign up today,

(24:45):
and I'll have to do is go to audible podcast
dot com slash car Stuff and again you get a
free audio book of your choice. And I know a
lot of these books been some of these are kind
of expensive. Some of them are you know, for non members.
This is a bargain if you're if you're a car
stuff listener, it's not like you know, this is just
kind of a throwaway, giveaway thing. Yeah, these are that mean,

(25:06):
it's the real thing. It's you're getting a pretty good
deal to be able to do this. And again, you
don't have to to choose the one that been selected
here this. Yeah, my heart will go on if you don't.
And we've suggested many of them in the past, if
you want to go back and check those archives. But
um man, there's there's over a one hundred thousand titles
to choose from, so you know, you can download them
to your iPod, your MP three player, whatever device you

(25:27):
usually listening to something like this through. And it's it's
a really good deal. And speaking of really good deals,
the Ford Motor Company acquired Lincoln for eight million. Yeah,
I'm laughing because this. Can you imagine what Henry Ford
was thinking when he said, you know what, here's my opportunity.

(25:50):
Oh my god, I'm gonna swoop in and I'm gonna
take over this company. That's like count of money, crystal level.
This is I mean, I bet I can I can
just picture now. I I honestly pictured this like you know,
almost like Mr Burns rubbing his hands together at the
windows sill, you know, like my days come, you know
that kind of thing. You know, that's exactly Yeah, that's

(26:10):
a that's exactly the way I picture this going down.
And and I don't think that's terribly too far off.
I mean, this is a huge win personally for Henry Ford,
uh you know, following this nineteen o two situation with
the land and uh in the Cadillac company, which you know,
then became a competitor to Ford, which you know, just
added insult to the injury. I can just imagine Henry Ford.

(26:33):
He had been so excited to be able to do this,
and it must have been so satisfying for him because
he bought it for eight million dollars um. And this
is in what Nino and uh oh look at that.
I have the calculation, I have the inflation calculator here,
so um in two thousand, thirteen dollars that amounts to
about a hundred and one hundred and eleven million dollars.

(26:57):
So again it's a it's a fairly large sum. However,
he was getting a luxury brand for his for his company.
I mean that's something that Ford didn't have at this point.
And I think there's a whole lot of information that
we need to cover. Why why they would be interested
in acquiring the Lincoln brand, because it was kind of

(27:17):
counterintuitive to what Henry was doing already with the Model T, which,
just so everybody knows, of course, the Model T was
built to be the first affordable car. Yeah, I mean,
how else do you think Henry had, you know, it
was an eight million dollars to throw around in um
he was doing very very well for himself with the
success of the Model T brand. And you know, there's

(27:39):
there's oh my gosh, Ben, there's so much more to
this story that I think we've reached a point where
maybe this is a good jumping off point for part one,
because we we've talked about, you know, Lincoln up to
this point, We've we've hit on the on the founders,
all the players involved. At this point, we've gotten up
to the point where, you know, Lincoln has been sold
to four Word and where does it go from there?

(28:02):
I mean, we've got what's the next turn? Exactly what's
the next turn in the story. And there are some
twists and turns in this and some interesting ones. I mean,
this might be a three parter, to be honest with you,
there's a lot. Well it could be. I'm thinking maybe two,
maybe three, we'll see, we'll see how it goes. But
you know, there's there's some really good stuff, modern day
stuff about Lincoln that I want to talk about later.

(28:22):
And uh, you know there's this whole thing with Edsel
that's gonna come up. Yeah, I promised Part two is
going to be exciting with Edsel because he's got his
own direction, his own his own his own focus in mind. Well, uh,
let's let's and then really quickly on one, maybe a
cliffhanger or a good note. You know, I'd like to

(28:43):
end on a good note, So on a good note,
and then I'll go into some listener mail. So after
four took over the Lincoln Motor Company, Uh, they reduced
prices to change the bodywork, and sales increased to over
five thou thousand vehicles from March to December bad. So

(29:04):
as soon as they got in there, they started shaking
things up. So there was some improvements. There was some improvement,
and I'll tell you it wasn't all Henry, and it wasn't.
It's part two, fair enough, it's part two stuff. Um,
do you want to do listener mail? I do great Scott. Scott,
I owe you an apology. I misspoke. What are you

(29:26):
talking about? Well, Steve Read wrote to us UM from
North Carolina. Great guy, says, Hi, guys, love your show.
I need to point out a small microscopic thing. Oh
I remember this now. I thought this was so clever
and he's very nice about it. I'm sure I'm not
the first to email you about this. You were. But

(29:46):
in the Bare Metal Cars Part two episode Ben says
one millionth of an inch is a micron. Micron is
actually short for micrometer, or one millionth of a meter.
I'm not sure what a millionth of it inches called,
but it's not a micron, but that you've already cleared
that up in a more recent episode which I will
be listening to soon. Thanks have a great day, Steve.
I really appreciate it. I did misspeak, you know, Scott,

(30:10):
You and I do try to have this be a
conversational show, so we don't like to stop over knowing
against some room. But I definitely botched that one micron,
Ladies and gentlemen is short for micrometers. Steve is correct,
and uh, this is the episode where we're clearing it up, Steve, so,
thanks so much for listening, and uh, I hope you

(30:32):
enjoy the bare metal cars. Despite my egregious sins against
measurements Van Delfield today, that was it was easy enough.
I mean, when when we're talking, we just it's kind
of like we're just having a conversation over a table.
Here are notes happened to be in between us. But
which is how I prefer to have conversation, right, Yeah,
I like to be prepared, I guess right, but uh

(30:54):
but really, I mean I didn't even catch it when
you were saying it, so I I doubt a lot
of listeners even heard the first time through. Don't that
don't be too hard on yourself. That was a very
good catch though. And then it's good is Steven. Yeah,
And and again I don't know what a millionth of
an inch would be, but I think you're getting down
to the nano scale at that point. Very very small. Well.
I love that he said it was a microscopic, microscopic

(31:17):
correction and very tiny air. I wouldn't worry about it. Uh. Well,
I appreciate your time, Steve, thank you for listening to
everybody else out there listening. We hope that you are
enjoying our first part or the end of our first
part of our episode on the Lincoln Motor Company. You
promise there's one more episode coming up. I mean, we've

(31:39):
got a lot of backstory, but we're going to take
it back to the future when we talked to you
next time. In the meanwhile, you can drop a line
for us on Facebook, maybe a topic suggestion on Twitter,
or if you'd like to write into with just like
Stephen Uh multitudes of other listeners have done. It's in
this an email. We're approachable, sure, and that on your

(32:00):
computer at car stuff at discovery dot com. For more
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