The Lincoln K-Series V12, often referred to simply as “Ford’s K Series”, were a line of high end luxury cars built by Lincoln Division of the Ford Motor Company during the economic depression of the 1930′s. Specifically Lincoln K-Series vehicles were built between 1932 & 1939. It was a case of an ultra-deluxe premium product being delivered and marketing to the automotive market at the wrong time. Perhaps it could be said that there are “always people with money” and its important to have a flagship for your brand – in this case the competition was against the V12 Cadillac road cars – yet still Ford and its Lincoln division struggled valiantly to keep the sales price under the $ 4,000 mark.
The history of the Lincoln K-Series V12 model line goes as such. Mr. Henry Leland had resigned from Cadillac in 1917, just after WW1 ended, and evolved a new car for 1921 which he branded and named “Lincoln”. Lincoln was not a part of the Ford empire yet – it was its own entity. This time period in terms of the automotive industry in the US and worldwide was one of “consolidation” where smaller more entrepreneurial auto making firms where gobbled up by larger concerns with more financial, marketing and sales resources. Lincoln was one such entity being acquired by Ford in 1922.
Mr. Henry Ford himself was happy to let the Lincoln division of his company to carry on making small numbers of exclusive for over ten years before the first “Ford-Lincoln” (the Zephyr) was designed. The new management carried on building “Lincoln V8s” for ten years, but in 1932 they announced the splendid and rather exclusive K-Series cars one of which, (specifically the KB model), was given a V12 engine of 7.3 liters. Read the rest of this entry »