X-1500

[ishigakisensei]

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THAT'S IT!

But, now I see the Sad MarkII pics....and I wish that I didn't.

[Barry Wolk]

At 2:00 I met Pat outside the Product Development Center. A few minutes later the head of the Benson Ford Research Center walks in with the curator if the transportation collection of The Henry Ford, a bit of a surprise. We were escorted through the winding hallways and into the Lincoln Design Center lobby where we had to relinquish our cell phones and cameras and sign some kind of security document.

Pat had offered to bring a collection of chrome goodies, but really hit a home run with half a grill and an instrument cluster. What really had them salivating was the dealer book. They were incredibly impressed. What blew them away is that the sample book credits John Rhinehart for the car's design.

The X-1500 book was very well received. It was incredibly well-preserved. The pictures were a bit curled, but looked brand new. There were far more renderings than I had remembered, and there were some line drawings I don't remember at all.







Apparently some had not read the presentation so I simply use the pictures as a guideline and ad-libbed the rest. The time flew by. I did a segue to into the Mark II Forum and turned things over to Pat for a few minutes. I asked if there were any questions and the first one was about the top. Reliable was at the dock waiting to pick the car up so I offered to put the top up. At that point the meeting broke into pretty much what happens at a Concours, everyone has questions. I was in my glory.

As the meeting was breaking up a man came in and introduced himself and asks for a few minutes with the two of us. Turns out the he's up there in Ford and wanted some guidance on buying a Mark II. The Lincoln design chief also expressed an interest in acquiring a finished Mark II. It seems we've piqued some interest in their history after all.

Pat now knows the head of the Transportation Collection and the Benson Ford Research Center. This will likely make him far busier as tomorrow I will introduce him to the Mark II Production Orders which covers the 300 cars that the Invoices are missing.

Thanks a ton to Pat for driving up here at the last minute and making my dog and pony show a hit. Thanks to Dina Mein for making the X-1500 book available.

Thanks to Lincoln for the free winter storage. Thanks to my wife for being understanding when they said that she couldn't join me.

[Pat Marshall]

Barry did a great job on his presentation and his beautiful car sitting next to us was the piece de resistance for the occasion. I was pleased to have been able to help a little bit - they really loved the grill-half that they passed around, their reaction to it was a sight to see.

It was a great day but it didn't end there. Barry invited me to see his shop - the Continental Flyer and Ford pick-up are fine restorations, and his Ruxton is well on the way.

Afterwards I was Barry and Glynette's guest for dinner in their home. Their collection of artwork was a joy to see, each piece with a good story and uinque characteristics. When Barry excused himself to check his emails Glynette played several classical pieces on her Steinway-she said she hadn't practiced much, but it all sounded perfect and wonderful to me. Finally, we had dinner - prepared by Barry and, of course, he's an excellent cook.

What a day!

The next day Barry and I went to the Benson Ford Research Center - a real treasure! Barry and I looked at original William Clay Ford correspondance and I dug into their Production Order Files. We now have a great "in" with the Research Center and should be able to fill in many of the Dealer and car specifications gaps left by the missing+ 200 Original Dealer Invoices.

The two days were very enjoyable and rewarding. I thank Barry for the opportunity to participate in his presentation and for his and Glynette's hospitality.

[Sean Rollins]

I bet they were shocked to feel the heft of a grille half. Weighs more than a modern bumper...

[Barry Wolk]

It was our pleasure hosting you, Pat. I'm hoping the relationship you fostered with the Benson Ford will continue to bear fruit.

[RL Chilton]

What a great adventure, y'all! Thanks for sharing with the rest of us.

[Barry Wolk]

I was certainly grateful Pat shared his chrome bits. You should have seen that crew. I'm a very tactile person so I understood how they caressed some of Pat's goodies.

What astounded me was the level of interest in the Sample Book. BTW, they might be interested in purchasing one if anyone is willing to part with one in good shape.

As you can tell from the database Pat is a numbers guy. When he opened up the first box of Production Orders he went wide-eyed as one of the first things he found was a PO with no serial number on it. He matched the known info on that owner and was able to provide the Research Center with the serial number. They were thrilled, but they couldn't quite figure out new information coming into their possession without going through their dog and pony show. In all, Pat's work was deemed research, and was allowed to fill in the blanks of 40 cars on his first 6 hours there. We still couldn't find 1248 or a couple of pre-1000 serial numbers, but we did come across some confirming information.

It appears that I was confused about there being two body suppliers. There were references to Ionia Body and to Mitchell-Bentley Body. I thought the references were to two separate firms. M-B owned Ionia.

However, my story was absolutely true. Pat will correct me if I'm wrong. The Mitchell-Bentley company was just a body assembler while Hayes Body actually did the stamping, providing the parts to M-B.

We read about a conflict between Continental and M-B. That's where I got confused. It started with M-B complaining to Continental that they weren't making any money on producing bodies at 4 a day and wanted to bump to 6, but Continental didn't want to take 6.

There was a flurry of letters leading to Continental doing a study on opening their own body assembly plant and taking the work away from M-B, but there appeared to be contract problems. My memory was also correct in recalling that that 50% of the bodies being delivered were requiring many man-hours to make right before the car could be put into production. I've heard that parts were not exactly interchangeable.

Fascinating reading. Would go again.