Holden 'Bob' Koto worked for Briggs Manufacturing from 1933 to 1939, during which time he contributed to the 1936 Ford V8, the Lincoln Zephyr and Lincoln V12. From 1939-43 Koto worked for Hudson, and then in 1943 was taken on by Raymond Loewy for their Studebaker contract. Koto also contributed to the design of the 1949 Ford 'in his spare time'. There is much controversy over this design, which may indeed have been 'borrowed' from a rejected Studebaker design and worked up by several different designers. Koto claims that the shape was his, others claim ownership of various bits of it. Then Holden Koto went to England to take on a Loewy assignment to design a new Austin Seven out of an advanced Duncan Dragonfly prototype. In the end Leonard Lord had his own designer Dick Burzi radically change the Loewy concept into the Austin A30. Another English assignment resulted in Koto and Clare Hodgeman designing the Rootes Audax cars from 1953. The Packard takeover of Studebaker ended the Loewy contract, and in 1955 Koto went to Ford and headed up design for Mercury. A design for a 1966 Mercury Comet was instead taken on as a Ford Falcon. The Koto team also designed Lincolns and other cars in the 1960s.