Quoting a Concours Media Release:
Edsel Ford's continental car, a custom boattail speedster was the genesis of Ford's legendary design department.
Edsel Ford was hardly "a chip off the old block". The acorn fell well away from the mighty oak that was Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company. Edsel was not just the President of Ford, he was a car guy to his core. His tastes and passions still resonate in the lines of Ford's contemporary cars. Edsel was enchanted by European sports cars. His trips to Europe, he called it "the continent", triggered visions of Fords with "continental" styling. In 1934 what would become Ford's in-house design department created his first "long, low and rakish continental car" (as Edsel described it to his designer and confederate E.T "Bob" Gregorie) on a '32 Ford chassis.
His boattail speedster had Ford V-8 power and running gear wrapped in a sleek, all-aluminum boattail body made by Ford's aircraft division. It was just what Edsel Ford wanted and had described. No running boards and a steeply raked split windshield that disguised Edsel's continental car's humble assembly line origins.
The Continental name stuck. Within the decade, the radical new Lincoln Continental was a stylish world class luxury contender. When the 1939 Lincoln Continental debuted, the world famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright called it "the most beautiful car in the world". All because Edsel Ford wanted a sports car when he came home from Europe.
When Edsel's boattail speedster was resurrected and restored more than seven decades later, the new owners, Jim and Bonnie Gombos, spent five years returning it to Edsel's original specifications. They even painted it "gunmetal gray", Edsel's favorite color.
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