Car of the Week: 1956 Lincoln Premiere destined to be a Derham
Destined to be a Derham, 1956 Lincoln Premiere finally converted to a formal sedan.
Gene Epstein’s 14,000-mile 1956 Lincoln Premiere had been a beautiful example of just how a time-capsule mid-century car should look and drive, but in his estimation, it wasn’t quite finished.
“I had seen photographs of a ’56 Derham Continental Mark II, and one of Charlie’s employees told me there were original sketches for this car to be a Derham sedan, too,” said Epstein, whose friend, Charlie Cawley, had previously owned the Premiere. (Cawley was the famed car hobbyist who founded the banking institution MBNA.)
Coincidentally, Epstein acquired that 1956 Continental Mark II with a custom Derham-fitted padded top 18 years after seeing photographs of it and then restored it. In the meantime, he also acquired the 1956 Premiere from Cawley. With the experience of restoring that Derham Continental Mark II under his belt, Epstein felt it was appropriate to make the 1956 Premiere what it was destined to be by adding the Derham-style top that the original owner intended for it.
A 1956 Lincoln Premiere four-door sedan was an expensive car when new — $4,601 without options, and about $14 more than that year’s Cadillac Sixty Special sedan — so original buyers were usually a “someone” on a local (if not national) level. Epstein’s Premiere is believed to have been originally purchased by a someone who could not only afford to buy a new 1956 Lincoln, but could also pay the additional expense of having a coachbuilder such as Derham modify it with personal touches.
“This 1956 Premiere belonged to the Heinz family,” Epstein said. “It was John Heinz’s car, of the Heinz family — H.J. Heinz (he went by John Heinz). We figured it had to be the family car, because he was 18 years old at the time. That would be incredible for a kid who was 18 to have a Lincoln, but do you think it would be unusual that a kid... who came from the Heinz family, would have difficulty buying a car like that? So it was either the father’s car or the family car or the kid’s car.”
When Heinz and his Premiere split isn’t known. However, Heinz went on to become a U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, serving from 1977 until his untimely death in a plane crash in 1991. The Premiere eventually landed at a collector car dealership where Epstein’s friend, Charlie Cawley, bought it in 1997 as a new-looking car.
“Charlie Cawley, he had a collection of about 200 automobiles,” Epstein recalled. “He always wanted low-mileage cars and loved Lincolns. He bought this car with 11,000 miles on it from a dealer in Virginia.”
Epstein said that, when Cawley bought the car, the glovebox was full of documentation, including the plans for this Premiere to receive a padded top by Derham.
“When [Cawley] had that car detailed, they threw that out, but he didn’t care because he just liked the ride of the car,” Epstein said. “I said to [the detailer], ‘Why would you throw the documents away?’ He said, ‘Charlie wanted a clean glove compartment and a clean trunk, and Charlie didn’t want a rattle in it.’ And I was the same way.”
Epstein and Cawley regularly traded cars back and forth, and Epstein actually bought this 1956 Lincoln Premiere from Cawley twice, the second and last purchase getting sealed in 2000. At the time of Epstein’s second purchase, the car remained an excellent original down to its paint, upholstery, trim and mechanicals.
“What intrigued me more than anything was the history of the car belonging to H.J. Heinz, and besides that, one of Charlie’s employees told me that this car was destined to be a Derham sedan,” Epstein said. “It also had low mileage, it had provenance and then on top of it, one of the employees told me was there were the plans for this to be a Derham in the glove compartment.”
Due diligence to Derham
Having owned and restored that 1956 Continental Mark II fitted with a custom padded top by Derham — one of the Rosemont, Pa., coachbuilder’s specialties during the 1950s — Epstein became very familiar with the company’s conversions. Although the original plans were lost, one of the detailers who worked for Cawley well remembered the plans found in the Premiere’s glovebox and could compare them to the Derham 1956 Continental photographs. From that man’s recollections, plus the roof of Epstein’s Continental Mark II and surviving cars with Derham roof treatments, Epstein extrapolated a Derham-style roof treatment for his Premiere. Such roof treatments added a formal look and privacy to automobiles, along with an exclusive custom touch.
“What the fellow (who worked for Cawley) said was Derham had planned a small window in the back — this was in the sketches that he had seen — that he said looked like a ‘hot rod window.’ Well, that’s a privacy window. ‘And the door didn’t have little quarter vent windows in the back.’ Well, ’56 and ’57 Lincolns had a vent window in the back beside the back door. The sketches did not have that in it."
“So I started sketching out what this thing would look like, and I sent it to an artist that I know and asked, ‘Can you show me this thing with a small window in the back and the vent windows removed?’ and he sent me back something where the roof looked squared off, and I said, ‘Keep the exact roof lines.’ He looked up Derham cars that were done from the ’30s to the late ’50s and some concept drawings for Lincolns... from that, he sent me back just the outline with the back window blanked in and I said, ‘That’s the look.’”
From that point, Epstein worked with a sheet metal shop to fulfill what he saw as Derham’s and Heinz’s original plan. Under Epstein’s direction, the Premiere began to receive the Derham-style top that was originally intended for it.
From that point, Epstein worked with a sheet metal shop to fulfill what he saw as Derham’s and Heinz’s original plan. Under Epstein’s direction, the Premiere began to receive the Derham-style top that was originally intended for it.
Work to fit the Derham-style top on the low-mileage and original Premiere began by removing its rear roof trim and backlight and rear-most side windows, then fitting a framework in the cavity left by the extracted glass. Epstein said that, on cars that originally received a similar roof treatment, the framework was crafted by Derham in metal and wood, but for this project, only aircraft-grade metal tubing was used to brace the metal (instead of wood) panels. To frame the Premiere’s new smaller and more private rear window, Epstein recalled that a 1936 Ford rear window garnish molding was used, because it was very close in size, shape and proportion to other rear window frames used by Derham during the mid 1950s.
Once the metal framework and panels were in place, original-type Landau padded material was laid over the entire roof. Over that, black Stayfast German fabric completed the conversion on the outside to Derham standards.
Epstein is careful to explain that his Premiere may now look like an original Derham-modified 1956 Lincoln, though it’s not one — but there’s a big hook.
“We did what was planned for the car sometime in the ’50s,” Epstein says. “I don’t want to pass it off as being an original Derham, but it was from Derham’s plan that we did this, and it just wound up beautiful.”
The Derham-esque roof with a smaller rear window required material to be added to the inside of the passenger compartment, where the car’s original rear window had been filled in. Epstein was able to source more original headliner material from SMS Auto Fabrics. Since the headliner had to come out of the car to complete its transformation, Epstein chose to add air conditioning to cool the black Premiere during hot summer days.
“The car did not originally have air conditioning in it — very few cars did in the ’50s,” Epstein said. “We got ’56 Lincoln ceiling roof vents, but I had the fellow that added the air conditioning go one step further. After we had the air conditioning unit put in the trunk and the compressor installed underneath the hood, we wanted the air to come out the ceiling, as Derham had done. So we had constructed new roof vents going under the headliner to the back, which means we had to get new headliner bows."
“We put a modern compressor in there, because the original compressor really didn’t have enough... air pressure to really make it very cold in front. On most [1950s air-conditioned cars], it was cold in the rear seat, but there wasn’t enough power to move the air forward. So we threw [aside] the original H&H unit made in Wisconsin and went with a whole new modern unit. I just drove the car when it was 92 degrees out and it was nice and comfortable in front.”
Not just a looker, but a driver
Epstein says it took two years to have the Derham and air-conditioning conversions completed from his shop, where the craftsmen he chose did their work. Now that the Premiere is done and at its full original potential, he plans to put it to work by using it to replace his 14-year-old, 200,000-mile daily driver, and even his new ultra-luxury car.
“This ’56 Premiere, there’s nothing like it,” he says. “I wanted to get something that was gorgeous and comfortable. I took my wife for a ride in it two weeks ago and I asked, ‘What do you think of this car?’ She said, ‘It rides smoother than our new Maybach!’ It’s just a great car. I love it, and she does, too.”
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