The Brooks Stevens Lincoln: The original owner of this Lincoln was George Holley of Holley Carburetor who purchased the Lincoln new in 1940. The car was assembled on March 25, 1940 and shipped to Richmond, CA, Lincoln’s wholesale distribution point for Northern California. The paint color was Dove Gray with a red leather interior and a black convertible top with red binding. Holley moved the car to his summer home in Lake Placid, NY, and eventually sold it to Henry Uihlein II, another Lake Placid summer resident, in the early 1950’s.
It was Henry Uihlein who commissioned Brooks Stevens, a noted post-war industrial designer, to customize the car in 1954. Stevens gave it a two-tone paint job in metallic gray with a gold stripe on each side, designed a new black and gray leather interior with sunburst designs on the doors, replaced the 1940 grills with 1941 grills, and removed the chrome parts from the nose and hood. The rear fender skirts were eliminated and new rear wheel arches were created. The original V12 engine was replaced with a 1954 Cadillac 331 V8 and a dual exhaust system was added. The manual transmission operated by a shift lever on the steering-wheel column was replaced with an automatic Cadillac Hydramatic transmission operated by a chrome horizontal shift gate located below the dashboard. Lastly, Stevens added an aiming device to the hood: a 3-inch chrome ring with crosshairs, apparently used to assist with steering. When completed in 1955, the Lincoln went on display at the Milwaukee Institute of Art for several months, before being shipped back to Lake Placid.
Mr. Uihlein owned the car until his death in 1997 at age 101. W. Carter Lockwood, a long-time admirer of the car, purchased it from Uihlein’s estate in 1998. In 1999, Mr. Lockwood had the Lincoln repainted, adhering to the redesign, but changing the side stripes from gold to red and removing the aiming device from the hood. At the time Mr. Lockwood had no knowledge that Brooks Stevens was responsible for the redesign of the car as it came with no paperwork of any kind when purchased from Mr. Uihlein’s estate.
Upon Mr. Lockwood’s death in 2001, ownership of the car passed to his son Todd R. Lockwood. It was Todd who learned of the Brooks Stevens connection to the Lincoln in 2019 and identified some interesting coincidences. Both Brooks Stevens and Henry Uihlein were from Milwaukee and were born in the same year. Both attended Cornell University and Brooks Stevens’ mother-in-law was herself an Uihlein. So, it was no accident that Henry Uihlein chose Brooks Stevens to customize his Lincoln. It was bound to happen.
Note that the hood is now adorned with an ornament in the shape of a snail. It was given to W. Carter Lockwood as a joke when he finally acquired the Lincoln after decades of waiting for an opportunity to own it. No one expected him to put it on the car, but that’s exactly he did and it has brought many smiles over the years.
Current Owner:
Thomas W. Lockwood (FL/NY)
Style/ Condition:
Modified/ Excellent
Assembly Plant Record:
Not available
Owners:
Photos of the car in 2025:
W. Carter Lockwood with the Lincoln after its 1999 repaint, showing the red stripe and the standard Lincoln wheels.:
Todd R. Lockwood with the Lincoln in 2004. The vanity license plate was later changed to STORIED.
Photo of the car from 1998 showing the aiming device mounted on the hood:
The car’s front area compared to that original 1940. Brooks Stevens felt that the grill was too busy, so he replaced it with the simpler 1941 grill. He also removed the chrome trim between the grills and the trim on the hood for a cleaner look.
Photo of the car showing the sun bursts on the door panels and the horizontal shift gate below the dashboard:
Article on the car from Hemmings:
The then-owner’s story about the car in 2020:
Photos of the car from the Brooks Stevens Archive, Milwaukee Art Museum, Gift of the Brooks Stevens Family and the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. The man in the photos is Brooks Stevens.
