The Last American Car With a V12 Was a Lincoln !

📘 Think you know your car? Check the VIN first. Full decoding guide for Classic Cars → https://classiccarshistory.com/ The Last American Car With a V12 Was a Lincoln! In America, the V12 engine started at the very top of the luxury car world. Packard introduced the first American production V12 car, the Twin Six, in 1915. By the early 1930s Cadillac, Packard, Pierce-Arrow, Auburn, Franklin and Lincoln were all fighting a “cylinder war” with V12 and V16 engines. Yet the last major American automaker to sell a V12 car wasn’t Cadillac or Packard. It was Lincoln, with a cheaper twelve-cylinder engine that started life in the streamlined Lincoln-Zephyr. This classic car history documentary follows the American V12 from Henry Leland’s Liberty aircraft engines and Henry Ford’s 1922 purchase of Lincoln to the 1948 Lincoln Continental. We cover Cadillac’s V16 and the press leak about its V12 that kept the V16 secret, the Packard Twelve, the fall of Pierce-Arrow, and how the Great Depression collapsed the market for twelve-cylinder luxury cars. Then we turn to Edsel Ford’s gamble. With John Tjaarda’s streamlined Briggs design, Bob Gregorie’s styling and Frank Johnson’s 267 cubic inch V12, the 1936 Lincoln-Zephyr saved a dying brand. Edsel’s personal one-off Continental, first built for a Florida vacation, turned that engine into a status symbol. Meanwhile, every prestige rival dropped its twelve. You’ll also learn why the Zephyr V12 had no dipstick and why it got a reputation for overheating and sludge. We explain why the larger 305 cubic inch engine could not be rebored, and how Edsel Ford’s death in 1943 changed everything. Under Henry Ford II and Ernest Breech, postwar Ford wanted high-volume cars built on the assembly line. In 1948 the V12 was replaced by a flathead V8 from Ford’s heavy trucks. We finish with the Lincoln Cosmopolitan, the Continental Mark II, the MoMA exhibition, and the surprising Florida-built car that brought twelve cylinders back decades later. Did anyone in your family drive a Lincoln-Zephyr or a Lincoln Continental V12? Tell us in the comments, along with the classic car you want us to cover next. Topics covered: Lincoln-Zephyr V12, Lincoln Continental 1940 to 1948, Lincoln Model K and KB V12, Cadillac V16 and V12, Packard Twin Six and Packard Twelve, Pierce-Arrow Twelve, Ford flathead V8, Edsel Ford, Henry Ford, Henry Ford II, Ernest Breech, Bob Gregorie, John Tjaarda, the 1949 Lincoln Cosmopolitan, the Continental Mark II, American automotive history, and Detroit luxury cars of the 1930s and 1940s. #LincolnContinental #LincolnZephyr #V12 #ClassicCars #CarHistory #EdselFord #Cadillac #Packard #PierceArrow #AmericanCars #VintageCars #AutomotiveHistory #Lincoln #ClassicCarHistory #FlatheadV8 Sources Jim Farrell, “Lincoln Continental - The Lost Years,” Continental Comments No. 213, Lincoln and Continental Owners Club E. T. Gregorie, 1985 Oral History Interview, Benson Ford Research Center, The Henry Ford Mac’s Motor City Garage, “Inside America’s Best-Selling V12: The 1936-48 Lincoln-Zephyr” Disclaimer: Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for ‘fair use’ for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. I do not own some or all of the video materials used in this video. In the case of copyright issues, please contact me at historymediachannel1@gmail.com for credit or removal.