38 Zephyr History (the one with no Head-lights)

[Royal Kustoms]

Trying to find some history on my 38 Zephyr. This is the one that has no headlights installed on the front wings. After reading an article on Pre-war car https://www.prewarcar.com/the-esders-rolls-royce-phantom-ii-a-car-with-elegance-and-a-story-to-tell could this be one of his. Here's my thoughts below.

 

Following on from the Story about Dr Esders Phantom and Royale. I recently brought from Auction in the South of France a 1938 Lincoln Zephyr Coupe which was last registered in Paris.  Now the strange thing with this particular Zephyr Coupe is it had no front headlghts installed in the front wings to the point where the holes in the front wings to fit them had what looked like they not been cut out in the first place.   On closer inspection the holes had been filled with a panel and welded up, extremely well as you could hardly see any of the joins. And with no form of lead or filler work on this difficult panel was surely done by a craftsman of the highest order.

  At a later date it had some agricultural front brackets made to come of the front bumper irons and a pair of Marchal headlights installed with the wires pushed through the grilles. I say at a later date as to go to the expense of getting the holes welded up in the first place to such a high standard and then to crudely fit some Marchal lights surely must of been done later down the line. Now we know American headlights were not allowed to be used on the roads in France but most American cars just added extra Marchal headlights to use instead and i have nether seen any to go to the expense of completely removing the original lights.

   So to my point, i am trying to find out the history on the Zephyr and after reading the Article on Dr Esders could this be one of his later cars.  No headlights fitted the same as the Phantom and Royale, Brought new in Paris in 1938 which i believe is when he sold the Phantom and Royale so maybe this was the replacement for these, he studied in the USA so might have been partial to a bit of American iron and after he died in 1940 some else who acquired the car fit the Marcel lights.

    This is all conjecture, but just trying to join the dots and trying to find the history on this unusual Lincoln Zephyr.

 

Any-one with any info please let me know as i would love to know it's history. Cheers Jim

 

 

[Royal Kustoms]

Finally got this into it's first primer stage, with all the welding done. Slowly i'm getting there.

[Royal Kustoms]

Next job was to get the underside prepped primered and coated.