Ford's First Design Chief Dies at 94

DETROIT December 2, 2002 John Porretto writing for the AP reported that Eugene T. "Bob" Gregorie, Ford Motor Co.'s first design chief and creator of the Lincoln Continental, has died at age 94.

He died Sunday in St. Augustine, Fla.

Gregorie also designed what would become the 1949 Mercury, which was driven by James Dean in the classic movie "Rebel Without a Cause," and the 1936 Lincoln-Zephyr, which the Museum of Modern Art in New York called "the first successfully streamlined car in America."

A former boat designer from Long Island, New York, Gregorie moved to Detroit in 1929 to work in the automotive field. He was immediately hired by General Motors Corp. but lost his job a few months later at the start of the Great Depression.

In 1931, at age 22, he was hired by Edsel Ford, president of Ford Motor Co. and son of founder Henry Ford. The two became an inseparable design duo.

"The designs of Gregorie are timeless," said Henry Dominguez, a GM engineer and author of "Edsel Ford & E.T. Gregorie." "They're well-proportioned, clean."

Gregorie, with Edsel's guidance, designed every Ford, Mercury, Lincoln-Zephyr, Lincoln and Ford truck and tractor produced between 1935 and 1945, said Dominguez, of Danville, Calif.

"Gregorie's primary attribute was he could translate what Edsel Ford wanted into three-dimensional designs," said Jim Farrell, an attorney in Roseburg, Ore., who has written extensively about the history of Ford designs. "He could sit and sketch while Edsel talked in his office."

But Gregorie lost his protector when Edsel Ford died of cancer in May 1943. Gregorie left the company soon after, returned at Henry Ford II's request in 1944 but left again two years later when he found himself frequently at odds with top management.

"Gregorie was no longer answerable to a Ford only," Farrell said. "When he couldn't have that, he felt he had lost the magic that had been there when he worked for Edsel."

At 38, Gregorie moved to St. Augustine and spent much of the next two decades sailing and designing yachts. He never returned to automobile design.

Gregorie is survived by his wife, Evelyn.