What is so rare about a Lincoln Town Car I can hear you ask? Well, there aren’t a lot with the steering wheel on the wrong (right!) side here in Australia!
Lincoln Limousine in Melbourne’s Docklands
And I expect there are fewer that don’t have five extra feet of bodywork inserted in the middle, as the 1990s Lincolns were popular as limousines and a decent number made their way downunder. On the other hand, they are almost unknown as a private car.
This is the equivalent Australian Ford, the 1996-97 LTD which was available with a 4.0L I6 or the good old 5.0 V8, 4-speed automatic, self-leveling rear suspension and all the gear Ford could stuff inside. With a length of 5122 mm/201.7 in, it was a whopping 436 mm/17.2 in shorter than the Lincoln, and while the wheelbase was much closer (63 mm/2.5 in shorter) at 2919 mm/114.5 in, legroom was actually the same for the driver and 40 mm/1.6 in greater for those in the rear seat. The LTD has a smaller trunk (492 L/17.4 cu ft vs 631 L/22.3 cu ft) and is 104 kg/227 lb lighter, making it a good bit faster.
The earlier 1988-94 bodystyle looked much more like a Lincoln, in part helped by being 98 mm/3.9 in longer. The earlier cars also sold better, because from 1995 the front sheetmetal of the LTD was shared with lower model Fairmonts and sales suffered with the less distinctive, not to mention less formal, appearance.
Here is the same car 7 months prior to the opening photo. An interesting trivia item is that the Burwood East store where this shot was taken was the first Kmart opened in Australia back in April 1969, and was also the first Kmart store to open 24-7 in 1997. I believe that the original store is still standing, although renovations, extensions and the addition of external stores along the frontage.
Kmart Burwood, 1970 – Museum Victoria photo
Further reading:
My Curbside Classic: 1997 Lincoln Town Car Signature Series – What A Luxury Car Should Be!
Large and in Charge: A Visual History of the Aussie Ford Fairlane and LTD
The thing is that with CUVs a world wide affliction, big traditional full frame American cars do not look so out of place on far off roads. Think of a early seventies Town Car around what VW thought of as large luxury the 411, as in the post below. This really is a change.
Now that Kmart I must admit looks a little out of place.
The Australian LTD is similar in size to the Crown Victoria that the U.S. had from 1992-2010, though we never had a 6 cylinder engine.
Mechanically and stylistically I would love to be able to trade my 09 CV for a 90s LTD. Though I prefer the “jelly bean” looking LTD over the sharper edged model.
K-Mart isn’t doing too well in the U.S. There used to be 5 or 6 within an hours drive of my home, now there are 2 or 3. Target and Wal-Mart have put the squeeze on both Sears and it’s “companion” company: K-Mart.
I haven’t heard anybody say “lets go to Sears” since 1977. I will admit being a loyal Craftsman tool buyer into the mid 1990s, as well as their paint. They pretty much gave up on the paint market and their tools are nothing special anymore. Lowe’s Kobalt brand and DeWalt power tools seem to be replacing my Craftsman stuff. Selling Craftsman at K-Mart further diluted the brand.
One of the two remaining Sears stores in my area has never really been remodeled since opening in 1960! I wish I could say it was nostalgic visiting it about a dozen years ago, but it was a complete dump. It can’t be any better now.
Even their website is a disaster. Sears Holdings is a real estate company with dying retails stores on their properties.
Salesmen at Sears work on commission. Their pushy hard sell drove me out of their stores 25 years ago. Not on my radar anymore.
The last two times I went to Sears I had very knowledgeable salespeople that weren’t the least bit pushy with me at all. Once was for a snowblower and the other was for a flat screen TV. I actually got both for a lot less than the big box stores were offering. The problem with Sears is that it has the stigma of having pushy salespeople which they did have years ago. Most of their stores are still old-fashioned, but I don’t care if the price is right. I don’t live in the store, I only shop there for a few minutes, get what I want and leave.
As far as the right-hand drive Lincoln, that is a VERY cool car. Looks to be in very good shape for a 19 year old car. I remember the first time I rode in one of them was in 1990. Dad rented one in Florida. I remember it being ultra smooth and roomy. My Dad loved it.
I never realized that Kmart was in other countries as well. Very interesting read.
Sales at Kmart didn’t dilute the brand. Manufacturing in China killed the brand. It was the last easy to get mainstream brand that was US made for most of the hand tools, but the last 15 years did away with that. They held out 10 years longer than anyone else, but they could’ve gone on longer. USA manufacturing would justify their prices like nothing else does, and I bet their sales since would back that up.
Reinventing a retail company, esp. with a century-old business model, must be very difficult.
The young boy in the 1970 K-Mart photo could easily be me in the United States at our local K-Mart in 1970. It takes a careful look at the parking lot to start wondering where this is. The VW’s and the Falcon work perfectly in an American photo, the complete absence of some heavy U.S. iron is the point of suspicion.
Ahh, the ’90-’97 Town Car. This should have been America’s Toyota Century. It’s worldwide acceptance is another comment in favor of this. The ’98 restyle killed the franchise.
The Century is more like the Mercedes 600, a cost-no-object halo model for VIPs. Not since the Conti Mk. II, or better, the Cadillac Model 90, have domestics attempted anything besides a more mainstream, accessible form of luxury car.
Yes, the ’90-97 TC would be more analogous to the luxury-bedecked version of the Crown that used the same body as the Crown taxi.
I’ve read up on the Toyota Century more than once, and it’s penchant for cloth interiors and dash set ups that are 15 years behind the times don’t strike me as cost-no-object. I’m not even sure that the particularly wealthy go for it. It seems more like what a Buick once was for Americans – comfortable luxury without excessive flash. Something that appeals to the conservative and financially comfortable.
I think Buick is more analogous to lesser Toyota Crown models; the Century & Nissan President are for boss guys, shoguns; there’s a stretch limo version for the Emperor.
The White House & Buckingham Palace have dated trim, too.
As I understand the Century, it’s luxury in a *very* traditional Japanese sense. It eschews anything new or flashy, and focuses on being an understated mode of transport that provides anonymity (most of them have curtains in back to hide the occupants from passers-by) and a whispered suggestion of wealth instead of the spoken fact of a Mercedes or the shout of a Rolls/Bentley/etc.
I’ve also heard that for these traditional buyers, very soft, very high quality cloth is seen as more luxurious than leather.
+1 on the old K-mart of the Seventies. Mom shopped there frequently, but she never bought the “five ham sandwiches for two bucks” blue light special. Thanks for the memory.
The ’95-’97 models like the featured one are my favorite “modern era” Town Cars. The styling is squared-off without being dated, just enough aero touches like the shape of the lamps. Of course, I’ve never ridden in one that I can recall, so I’d have to see whether or not they did enough to differentiate the interior from the Crown Vic/Grand Marquis.
That earlier ’88-’94 LTD in the black & white photo *really* looks like the offspring of an ’88-’94 Lincoln Continental and a ’92-’97 Crown Vic!
The Town Car interior was completely unique to the Lincoln and shared essentially nothing with the Ford / Mercury Panthers.
I have both wheel time and back seat ride time in these Town Cars. They are very nice cars. I still regularly see very nice ones on the road.
The 1996-97 LTD resembles the USA first and second generation Ford Taurus…look at the driver’s door, which appears identical. Did Ford ship the tooling for those Down Under when the factories were changed over to the third generation Taurus, or was this an example of parallel development, a few years delayed?
It would make little sense not to re-use drawings, if not tooling, so that, along with a corporate desire for a consistent design “language” (whatever that is) might explain it.
Considering how often corporations are divided into competing fiefdoms, I’d be impressed at any degree of inter-divisional cooperation!
I think the design language would be all that was shared.
The funny thing is that since deciding to write this car up I realised I didn’t have any photos of the Aussie cars (these are old publicity photos), and do you think I could find any to photograph?
Still no interior photo? Would it be too much trouble to take the interior photos?
Seems to be common omission with Curbside Classic articles of right-hooker Lincolns in Australia…
No interior shots here: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/curbside-classic-1977-79-lincoln-continental-mark-v-a-formative-influence/
Fair comment Oliver, I will make an effort to get interior shots of rhd American cars to see the results of the conversion. I expect that will be hugely variable, eg the rhd Suburban that Holden sold here used a Trailblazer dashboard because that had already been developed!
Dude, it’s hard enough getting interior photos of parked cars let alone ones in motion like this one John is found.
But for the odd example like the Suburban John mentioned, most RHD conversions are just mirror flips. So, grab a Town Car photo, invert it in Photoshop and bam, your curiosity will be satiated.
William,
If Paul and others can manage to grab the interior shots of the vehicles, the fellas and sheilas in Australia can do likewise.
Not everything is mirror flip, namely the ignition switch and gearbox selector on the steering column, HVAC control panel, and so forth. Not to mention whether they use the foot pedal or umbrella handle for parking brake. Sometimes, the windscreen wipers and mechanism aren’t changed over for the right-hand-drive: they add longer wiper to the ‘passenger’ side so the driver can see ‘better’ (legal but not encouraged).
As John mentioned about Holden Suburban, it’s cheaper and quicker to use different dashboard from other vehicles within the model range.
What I wanted to see how good quality the conversion was done. I have seen some botched jobs where the conversion specialist don’t always do everything. Like Cadillac Fleetwood with speedometer bezel that didn’t line up right since it’s curved slightly to the left in the left-hand-drive. (Scroll down the comment section to see where the photo of speedometer bezel is).
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/cars-of-a-lifetime/coal-1981-cadillac-fleetwood-brougham-delegance-exceptional-what-with-rhd-and-500-cubic-inches/
In this specific case I think the carpark photo was a ‘drive-by’ taken when I was driving past, also it was getting dark in the evening so I’m not sure a phone camera shot would have been great.
Not to mention that touching a car in a public carpark to take an interior shot is a fairly suspicious-looking action, unless the owner is there to speak to.
+1
I’m wary of peering into cars with a camera. Some people don’t take too kindly to it.
The Stinkoln Clown Car* was/is popular in Japan. The final generation of them had bizarre-lookin’ projector headlamps along with the amber rear turn signals required almost everywhere outside North America. The car featured in this article also has them, just inboard of each tail light where they look like reversing lamps, but those are actually in the centre portion of that full-width horizontal strip. Continentals got ’em, too, in Japan.
*You’ll excuse me for that or you won’t; my folks got bitten hard and badly by a halfassedly-engineered, sloppily-built pathetic excuse for an ’80 model and I’ve never liked the damn things, so it’s just as well I’m not eligible to drive one because I’m not a registered Republican.
My father got an 80 Town Coupe that soured me on Lincolns for YEARS. Only in the early 90s when they switched to the 4.6 and the AODe powertrain did I really become a fan again.
Rare certainly there are a few town cars here even a couple not stretched but theres no requirement for RHD conversion here, one reason why late model Mustangs are nearly as common as Corollas here yet rare in OZ. I’d prefer the regular Aussie LTD.
Very nice article and find. I did not know Ford made any right-hand drive Lincolns in this era. We need to invite this gentleman (or lady) to join the Lincoln Continental Owners Club (LCOC)…..
Lincolnman,
To my knowledge, Ford hasn’t built its right-hand-drive Lincolns (be it factory or CKD kits for local assembly) for decades. What you see are done by the conversion specialists in Australia, New Zealand, and United Kingdom.
Likely A chappel chain drive conversion with a fibreglass mirror image dash board thats the easiest conversion system to RHD.
It was going on much earlier than this.