1958 Mark III Interior Trim Info?

Paint, sheet metal, hood ornaments, trim, vinyl tops, emblems, seats, carpet, dashboards, etc. Paint cleaning and detailing messages should be posted in the Cleaning and Detailing sub-forum.

Moderator: Dan Szwarc

Post Reply
danemodsandy
Newbie
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Feb 09, 2005 10:54 pm
Location: Atlanta, GA
Contact:

1958 Mark III Interior Trim Info?

Post by danemodsandy »

Hello:

I've been browsing this forum, researching a writing project I'm working on. The members here are obviously awesomely knowlegeable! I hope it's okay for me to stop lurking and ask a question:

I'm working on a project that involves Alfred Hitchcock's "North by Northwest", where Eva Marie Saint drives a gorgeous Starmist White, 1958 Mark III convertible.

I'm trying to find some info on the interior trim for the car. From what I can see in the film, the interior is a combination of black and white- while bolsters on the seats, black on the upper doors.

Can anyone tell me more precisely what the interior trim was on a Mark III convertible? Were the seat faces black leather or black fabric, or something else? If fabric, what kind was it (nylon, etc.)? Were any trade or advertising names used for the interior trim (like "Corinthian Leather" was for the Chrysler Cordoba)? And last, does anyone know the trim code for this combination?

Thank you in advance for any assistance; a whole article will be devoted to this automobile in a future magazine issue, and I want to be certain that the info in it is detailed, accurate, and represents the Lincoln community well.
Sandy McLendon
danemod@netzero.net
User avatar
Chris Whalen
Addicted to Lincolns
Posts: 1146
Joined: Wed Dec 19, 2001 1:01 am
Location: NY, NY
Contact:

Post by Chris Whalen »

Sandy -- Interesting that you should mention the interior trim combination on that NBNW convertible. '58 Lincolns are a favorite of mine, and so is that movie. I've noticed the white leather bolsters on the NBNW Mark III and wondered myself what the trim combination might have been.

I have a list of the combinations available that year, I'll pull it later today (writing this at 4am, not the time to go looking now). As I remember it, there was only one trim scheme with white bolsters listed -- and it seemed to me the rest of the combination was not one that would have installed on that car, the NBNW convertible. So I wondered whether it may have been specially ordered. The door panels appear to be the standard-issue black-and-white door panels available that year -- see the picture of the driver's door panel in my four-door Mark III, below. Details might differ depending upon what part of the model year the car was produced.

Seat faces were black leather -- though fabric may have been available on the convertible, I'll check when I pull the list. The leather was described in promotional literature as coming from Bridge of Weir, Scotland. (I'd gather by your use of quotation marks around "Corinthian" that you know there was no such thing as Corinthian leather, it was an advertising ploy?)

I can give you all the trim codes available for '58 tonight when I get that list. Anything else you want, just let me know -- as I said, both the '58 Lincoln and North By Northwest are favorites of mine.

Regards, Chris

Image
danemodsandy
Newbie
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Feb 09, 2005 10:54 pm
Location: Atlanta, GA
Contact:

Post by danemodsandy »

Chris:

Thanks for the reply! Very interesting to hear that the white bolsters might not have been a standard trim option, because that is entirely possible, given what I know about the NXNW car. Basically, Ford had a special office set up to deal with the movie industry, supplying cars and tech support. They could deal with special issues like supplying bodies and interior trim for "cutaways", which were dummy cars used to shoot scenes inside a car. Movie cameras then were way too large to go inside a car, so cutaways were essential.

What is suspected about the NXNW car is that it may have been specially ordered, and it may have actually been two cars. Ford may have produced two identical cars at Wixom, then shipped one to South Dakota to use at the real Mount Rushmore, shipping the other to Culver City, CA, for MGM to use in the scene where Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint talk beside the car in that fake forest. Local dealers in both cities would have accepted delivery of the cars, prepped them, and supplied a mechanic to deal with any problems on the set, with Ford picking up the cost. That would have saved a lot of shipping cost, and eliminated the risk of damage in transit during shooting. After shooting, the dealers involved would have gotten to buy the cars into their used-car inventory. Win-win-win, you know?

How this relates to the white bolsters is that the car may have been specially ordered that way, for artistic reasons. Eva Marie Saint was wearing grey, and she would not have shown up well against black. Red would have been a problem too. It just might be that when the car was being ordered for the movie, that the art director said that none of the factory combinations were usable for the movie. Since NXNW was a Hitchcock movie, Ford would probably have cooperated with any reasonable request, becasue of the publicity value of having the new '58 design seen in the film.

I appreciate the info that the interiors were Bridge of Weir leather- I was not certain if Lincoln had carried that over from the Mark II. Yes, I knew "Corinthian Leather" was nothing but ad hype, LOL.

I'll look forward to any further light you can shed on the trim for the NXNW car. The article is planned to tell exactly WHY the 1958 Mark III was selected for the movie- it's a very interesting reason.

Thanks for showing me the beautiful photo of your car- there is more style in that door panel than there is in an entire Lexus today.
Sandy McLendon
danemod@netzero.net
User avatar
Chris Whalen
Addicted to Lincolns
Posts: 1146
Joined: Wed Dec 19, 2001 1:01 am
Location: NY, NY
Contact:

Post by Chris Whalen »

Writing this from work -- not home yet to check on the trim codes.

I knew the ambulances used on location and the soundstage were different -- one has a single liftgate and the other the standard '56 Chevrolet station wagon tailgate. Hadn't occurred to me that the convertibles may also have been different. Interesting.

I figured the white bolsters may have been used for the reasons you mention. Produced TV commercials for a number of years, so tend toward noticing that kind of thing. After writing you this morning, I got to wondering if the movie's art director might still be alive and able remember and answer questions about the car.

I've read that Hitchcock spoke of but never developed an additional scene that would have taken place at a Ford new car factory, along the assembly line. It would have ended with a corpse tumbling out the opened door of a car that had just been built. Can't believe Ford would have approved that.

Am fascinated to learn that the Mark III may have been chosen for a specific reason. Wondering already what that reason is. I do realize new Ford products appear all through the movie -- '58 Fords as taxicabs and police cars, a '58 Mercury and '58 Edsel both in the Glen Cove, Long Island drunken driving scene.

May I ask, do you know if either or both of the two NXNW Mark IIIs still exist?
danemodsandy
Newbie
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Feb 09, 2005 10:54 pm
Location: Atlanta, GA
Contact:

Post by danemodsandy »

Chris:

I have not been able to determine the fate of the NXNW car or cars. My feeling is that one of two things happened. MGM might have bought the car into its studio fleet, a pool of cars intended for use in filming. However, MGM was in quite some financial distress at that time, with a lot of cutbacks in most departments. The Mark III was a very expensive car, and auto styling was changing very rapidly in those days. Any 1958 model would be considered stylistically dated soon under the "planned obsolescence" tactics of the day, so it would not have made financial sense for the studio to purchase the car. My feeling is that the Mark III would have been returned to Ford, with thanks.

The likeliest disposition of the car, in my opinion, is that it was returned to the servicing dealer after shooting, and the dealer permitted to purchase the car, for its used-car operation. I was once offered a Citroen used in filming "The Green Berets" on this basis, when Citroen was still being sold in the U.S. A customer purchasing such a car might or might not have been told of the car's use in a film. This tactic recouped some of the manufacturer's cost in supplying a car for a film, and the servicing dealer got a low-mileage dreamboat at a favourable price, further compensating him for his efforts in receiving and prepping the car. If two cars were used, then this would have been done in both Rapid City and L.A.

Yes, my I.D. does have something to do with Modernism; I'm editor of jetsetmodern.com, an online magazine about Modernist design. I also write for Modernism Magazine, a print magazine about the same subject. I also have a book about prefab architecture coming out in May. The Mark III article is planned for jetsetmodern.com, as a follow-up to another NXNW article, which was about the Vandamm House seen in the movie. You can see that article here:

http://jetsetmodern.com/modatmovies.htm

That article has become one of our most famous ones, linked from most Hitchcock sites and the Internet Movie Database. We hope to give readers even more info about the Mark III. In the upcoming article, I will be revealing the reason the Mark III was chosen in preference to any other luxury car available- Alfred Hitchcock chose his characters' cars very carefully indeed. To hint, the Mark presented an advantage to filming that no other car, foreign or domestic, could offer.
Sandy McLendon
danemod@netzero.net
User avatar
Chris Whalen
Addicted to Lincolns
Posts: 1146
Joined: Wed Dec 19, 2001 1:01 am
Location: NY, NY
Contact:

Post by Chris Whalen »

There's a '58 Lincoln convertible on eBay now whose data plate suggests it was originally the same color combination as the North By Northwest car.

It's in primer now and has a non-original red/white interior, but it was originally Starmist White (paint code 07) with a beige/buff/white interior(trim code 840E).

Most Starmist White convertibles produced appear to have had black, black/white, red/black/white or blue interiors. So this one seems a bit unusual.
User avatar
Chris Otis
Lincoln Maniac
Posts: 282
Joined: Thu Apr 01, 2004 1:01 am
Location: Woodridge, Illinois
Contact:

Post by Chris Otis »

Not sure about the '58, but in '59 the convertables came with leather seats as standard equipment.
User avatar
W. Higgins
Addicted to Lincolns
Posts: 1492
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 1:01 am
Location: Unionville, PA. and Little Rock, AR.
Contact:

Post by W. Higgins »

If you look at the picture with the maintenance manual on the seat, the red portion looks like cheap vinyl. And the contrast between the red on the doors and dash, and that of the seat, makes me think they have been painted. This is especially apparent in the picture showing the seat and passengers side door panel. Look at the contrast in white between the air duct on the kick panel and the door panel. I think it has been painted, too. In fact, if you look at the shot of the instrument cluster you can see red overspray on the steering wheel, and the instrument hood has been poorly recovered. And the color looks too dark, isn't the proper red supposed to be what, in '60, they would have called Cherokee Red, or in '59, Bolero Red? (Sorry, I'm lacking '58 literature).

I wonder what that plaque on the center of the dash pad says? It is also a February car, any idea when the movie was shot?

Was the original posters article ever published? I had forgotten about this thread.
User avatar
Chris Whalen
Addicted to Lincolns
Posts: 1146
Joined: Wed Dec 19, 2001 1:01 am
Location: NY, NY
Contact:

Post by Chris Whalen »

The movie was produced in 1958, released in 1959. February car? Interesting. So it may be the same convertible, or one of them?

Matador Red is what Lincoln called its '58 red. Has more orange in it than appears in those pictures.

If Sandy published the article, I don't know about it.

Image
User avatar
W. Higgins
Addicted to Lincolns
Posts: 1492
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 1:01 am
Location: Unionville, PA. and Little Rock, AR.
Contact:

Post by W. Higgins »

What a great picture! Ah, Matador, I remember now.

Yes, February. The seller added this to the listing yesterday morning:
FYI: THIS IS A 8 CYLINDER CAR NOT 12 LOL BODY-68A Color-07 TRIM-840E DATE-04B GOOD LUCK!
Nuts on the article. I wanted to hear his reasoning behind Hitchcock choosing the '58.
User avatar
Chris Whalen
Addicted to Lincolns
Posts: 1146
Joined: Wed Dec 19, 2001 1:01 am
Location: NY, NY
Contact:

Post by Chris Whalen »

Another shot of the North By Northwest car.

Image
User avatar
norgale
Lincoln-ally Insane
Posts: 2868
Joined: Fri Jan 20, 2006 8:04 pm
Location: Bonita Springs,Fla
Contact:

Post by norgale »

That is one beautiful picture. I had a 58 Cont.Convert. back in 63 and it was polished up just like the one in the movie. It really sparkled. Sure wish I had it now.
Pete McGill LCOC 023903M
2006 Dodge Pickup 2500 v-8 Magnum Hemi
1981 Lincoln Continental Mark 6



ON TIME IS WHEN I GET THERE.
Post Reply

Return to “Body, Trim, & Interiors”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests