[orconn]

Speaking strictly from a body and interior design point of view, I agree that the sixties Lincolns were a high pont in American luxury car design. The sixties cars were simple elegance at its' restrained best and really beat the Europeans when it came to displaying refined good taste in personal luxury design. Mercedes had succumbed to the finned abominations of their sedan models, Rolls was still working with the Silver Cloud mid-fifties design not to become again contemporary till the 1967 introduction of the Silver Shadow. Cadillac was still on a course of slow withdrawal from the 1959s total tasteless excess, a course not fully attained till the 1965 model year.

Truth be told Lincoln design produced some of their best work from the mid-fifties on. I still think they produced an all time post-war classic in the Continental of 1956-57. While Cadillac produced a show car for private ownership with Eldorado Brougham, Lincoln produced a personal luxury car with the Mark II that would have been at home among the moneyed upper classes, and was, anywhere in the world. Even the gargantuan 1958 Continental Mark III (the original MK III) had striking lines, it was just too big even for 1950's America and would fit nowhere in the world given the size of the roads and places to park a personal car.

The nineteen sixties Lincolns returened to sanity as far as size and usefulness as a personal luxury car. The introduction of the first four door convertible was also coup particular with its' top-up and top-down good looks.
Truth be told these cars were really slugs when came to dynamic performance, but there wasn't a lot of competition from the small displacement Europeans of the time and Cadillacs weren't much better (I had several relatives who had these cars in the sixties, which I was asked to drive from time to time; I always prefered to drive the Cadillacs because of the better feel and comfort).