E.T. Gregorie was hired by Edsel Ford in 1932 and initially worked under Lincoln’s Chief Body Engineer, Henry Crecelius, at the Dearborn Engineering Laboratory designing Lincoln cars and custom bodies. In 1935, Gregorie was appointed head of the company’s new Design Department. Gregorie worked closely with Edsel Ford on vehicle design, with his most noted cars being the 1936 Lincoln Zephyr and 1939 Lincoln Continental. Gregorie built up the Design Department and introduced a number of innovations to vehicle design including the styling bridge for creating patterns from models. In addition to company cars, Gregorie designed a few personal cars for Edsel Ford including a 1932 boat tail speedster, as well as Henry Ford II’s beach wagon. Gregorie continued to work with Edsel Ford throughout WWII working on some war work but also beginning post war styling designs. After Edsel Ford passed away, Gregorie left the company, but returned for a few years during which time he designed the 1949 Mercury. Gregorie left Ford Motor Company in 1947. Gregorie begins his oral history discussing his first job in marine design, which influenced his styling eye for his whole career. He then talks about his brief stints at Brewster & Co. and General Motors, before joining Ford in 1932. Gregorie talks about what it was like working in design at Ford in the time before there was a full design department and some of the challenges of working in an engineering focused company. He goes into detail discussing his relationship with Edsel Ford and their design process together. He talks about how Edsel didn’t sketch himself but was able to develop designs with Gregorie through a critical eye and guiding the design in the direction he wanted. Gregorie speaks in detail about his designs for the Ford Model Y, Edsel’s boat tail speedster, and the Jensen-Ford. He discusses the whole concept-to-final design of the Continental and also the Mercury line. He talks about many of the personalities at Ford during his time and some of the pushback he received from some of the executives. He goes on to talk about the major changes to his job when Edsel Ford passed away and when the new management under Henry Ford II took over, which led to his leaving the company in the late 1940s. He wraps up his oral history discussing his design philosophy and critiquing modern car design.

Collection contains 13 cassettes, 1 compact disc, 10 WAV files, 10 MP3 files, 1 diskette, 2 loose transcripts, 1 bound transcript, 1 Word transcript, and 1 PDF transcript. Uploaded July 23, 2021 and December 5, 2024.

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Creator Name: Gregorie, E. T., 1908-2002 in Digital Collections

Edsel Ford and E.T. Gregorie: The Remarkable Design Team and their Classic Fords of the 1930s and 1940s. by Henry L. Dominguez