1977 Lincoln Continental Mark V: Bigger Than Ever, This Defiant Dinosaur Was Rolling In Green

Huge, thirsty, and extroverted, the 1977–1979 Lincoln Mark V was a smash hit, but it was already a dinosaur even when it debuted. The Mark V flew in the face of the trends of its time as much as it epitomized them, which might have been the secret of its enormous but short-lived success.

Dark Jade Metallic wasn’t the most common Mark V color in 1977, but it seems an eminently appropriate shade, because during most of the run of this car, Ford Motor Company and Lincoln-Mercury dealers were seeing green: Model year production for the Mark V totaled 80,321 cars for 1977, 72,602 for 1978, and 75,939 for 1979.

Those totals might not sound spectacular until you recall that few of these cars were sold for less than $13,000 (a relative worth of around $77,500 in 2025 dollars). I don’t have any per-car profit margin figures for the Mark V, but I would be startled if it were much under $2,000 per car, and it was probably even higher than that for the posh Designer Editions. At those rates, 228,862 cars in three years would have been worth around $500 million in profit in 1977 dollars, over $2.5 billion today. Serious money.

The development and production life of the Mark V was bookended by two major oil crises: Much of the work on what became the production design took place during and immediately after the 1973–1974 OPEC embargo, and the production run of the Mark V concluded during the second oil crisis that followed the 1979 Iranian revolution. Nonetheless, the Mark V was an enormous car, more than 8 inches longer and over 800 lb heavier than the newly downsized Cadillac Sedan de Ville that arrived at about the same time. Lincoln-Mercury had managed to trim up to 400 lb off the Mark’s curb weight compared to the Mark IV, but the Mark V still tipped the scales at around 5,000 lb.

Ford Motor Company had actually given very serious consideration to downsizing the Mark V by moving it to the 114-inch wheelbase of the intermediate Torino/Montego, like the 1977 Thunderbird. There were several design iterations of this, some of which looked like a cross between the Mustang and the 1969 Pontiac Grand Prix. (Surprisingly, this was conceived after the 1968 departure of former Pontiac chief Semon “Bunkie” Knudsen.)

The idea of an intermediate-size Mark was dropped months before the start of the OPEC embargo because the additional cost of refitting all the equipment at the Wixom assembly plant for the smaller size was deemed prohibitive. A proposal to resize the Mark for the forthcoming Fox platform also went nowhere. Finally, Allen Ornes, John Aiken, Bud Magaldi, and Dave Turner in the Corporate Advanced Studio came up with a new version of the bigger platform. Don DeLaRossa, the previous manager of that studio (who had departed to run Ghia in Italy) believed that the new design owed a lot to the alternate Mark IV proposal that he’d had Steve Sherer and Ron Perry develop in late 1968/early 1969, although the Mark V had the flatter sides Ford Design VP Gene Bordinat preferred.

The flared wheel arches adopted for the January 1974 full-size model were originally adopted to accommodate a new lower-profile extra-wide radial tire Michelin was working on, which didn’t actually reach production on these cars.

In the end, rather than being downsized, the Mark V ended up a bit bigger than the Mark IV, now stretching a whopping 230.3 inches overall on an unchanged 120.4-inch wheelbase, with truly monstrous front overhang.

The Mark V had a well-located live rear axle and front and rear anti-roll bars, but on the road, it was if anything even clumsier than the Mark IV, hardly a nimble car.

Car and Driver, whose editors reacted to the Mark V with a certain incredulous horror, described the new model’s road manners like this:

There is perhaps no automobile in the world that is as unsettling to a serious driver, or one that recalls those awful days of the Fifties and Sixties when all large American cars handled like runaway motor yachts. Much of this is traceable to the Mark’s prodigious 5020-pound weight, but the vague power steering, flaccid shock absorbers and limited suspension travel all contribute to handling that makes other large GM, Ford and Chrysler models seem like Formula Two cars by comparison. Of course it behaves perfectly on straight, smooth stretches of highway, but bumps in the surface create harsh noises in the suspension. Undulations of any substance generate a nasty pitching motion that is climaxed by a weird corkscrewing in the front suspension as the giant machine seeks equilibrium. Surprisingly, it seems able to negotiate corners at considerably higher rates of speed than one might expect, provided the attendant body lean and tire squeal can be overlooked. On several occasions, we lumbered into corners at imprudent speeds and felt our world tilt sideways, only to discover we were traveling fifteen to twenty mph faster than all the commotion indicated.

Their test car also had horrifying braking performance, for reasons the editors didn’t attempt to explain. Since the Mark V had big ventilated discs all around and tires of generous section width (LR78-15), I assume the issue was lockup and front/rear proportioning. (The Mark V was still offered with Sure-Track rear ABS, but the C/D tester was a California car, and the Sure-Track system wasn’t available in California.)

In a vague gesture towards fuel economy, the standard 1977 Mark V engine was now the 400 cu. in. (6,590 cc) two-barrel, rated at 179 net hp (or 181 hp in California). On 49-state cars, the 460 cu. in. (7,536 cc) four-barrel engine was still available for $133 extra, giving a healthier 208 hp, but the bigger engine couldn’t meet the tougher 1977 California emissions standards. (Even the 400 was apparently marginal on that score, as it couldn’t be ordered with the optional 3.00 towing package axle in California.)

Car and Driver found that the California-spec Mark V, with 181 hp and the standard 2.75 axle, needed almost 12 seconds to hit 60 mph and had an absolute top speed of only 102 mph. The EPA 1977 Gas Mileage Guide credited the Mark V at 15 mpg with the 400 engine, but C/D couldn’t manage more than 12.5 mpg on the highway. The 460 was probably bit quicker, but even thirstier; the EPA quoted just 13 mpg in 1977.

Affluent buyers weren’t terribly concerned with gas mileage — fuel shortages during the OPEC embargo had given well-heeled owners some pause, but so long as fuel was available, they didn’t seem terribly concerned with the cost — but Ford now had to be. Less than a year earlier, the federal Environmental Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) had mandated that cars sold in the U.S. achieve a weighted corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) of 18 mpg for 1978, 19 mpg for 1979, and 20 mpg for 1980. There was no requirement for 1977, but starting in 1978, Lincoln-Mercury would sell an awful lot of four-cylinder Bobcats to offset the Mark V, whose 1978 EPA ratings were 15 mpg with the 400 and 14 mpg with the 460. Failing to achieve the required average risked very stiff penalties: $5 for each tenth of an mpg, times total model year production!

Emissions standards were also going to get tougher. California had tightened its hydrocarbon (HC) and oxides of nitrogen (NOx) standards to 0.41 grams per mile and 1.5 grams per mile for 1977, and while federal standards were still laxer, they were inching towards the even more stringent targets mandated by the 1970 Clean Air Amendments. Unlike the pre-1970 standards, which were measured as an exhaust fraction and potentially gave bigger engines an edge over smaller ones, ’70s standards were in total emissions weight per mile, so bigger engines and more weight made it harder to stay under the limits.

In other words, the Mark V was a popular, extremely profitable product that was set to become a serious liability in the very near future.

Buyers, of course, didn’t immediately care, any more than they cared about the Mark’s nautical ride and handling. Sure, filling the tank might cost close to $20 (almost $120 in 2025 dollars), but what was that to a real high roller?

For a while, I suspect the profligacy of the Mark V actually added to its appeal: Driving a Mark, or the similarly Brobdingnagian 1977–1978 Cadillac Eldorado, was a way to signal that you were too rich to have to worry about energy crises or price per gallon. I’m reminded of when a friend of mine bought a Toyota Prius after U.S. gas prices hit $5 a gallon for a while some years back; their ex, an affluent boor, remarked blandly, “I guess gas mileage is important if you can’t afford it.”

As I’ve remarked before, the exterior styling of the Mark V was supremely insouciant. It was a car that seemed perfectly aware of — and perfectly comfortable with — how much space it took up, and that seemed to invite staring, without particularly caring if the stares were admiring or disdainful. You didn’t buy a car like this for subtlety or to keep a low profile. As Car and Driver observed:

The good stuff isn’t underneath, tucked up inside the wheels or wedged into the engine compartment, but rather right out there where everybody can see it—hung across the frame rails in the form of vast, sculptured acres of steel, and inside, with bolts of velours and yards of leather. That’s what counts in the nouveau car league, and that’s where the Mark blows the competition into the cheap seats.

Given its value as a fashion statement and status symbol, the Mark V wasn’t even THAT expensive. The C/D test car, a well-equipped Givenchy Edition, listed for $14,746, a relative worth of almost $88,000 in 2025 dollars, but in 1977, a BMW 630CSi automatic started at around $24,000, while a Mercedes-Benz 450SLC listed for over $27,000. Lincoln-Mercury was also heavily promoting its “Snarl-Free Leasing” program, which was especially attractive to people who could write off the lease payments as a business expense.

 

Car and Driver concluded, presciently:

We recommended the full shot—the $2100 Givenchy, which includes the $56 glowing door locks and $84 power vent windows, personalized 24-carat gold-finish instrument-panel nameplate and double-G logos. After all, we may be witnessing the end of an era here, and five years down the road when they’re building the Mark VII on the Pinto chassis, you will despise yourself for not having gone all-out when the real thing was still available. So we urge you, conspicuous consumption addicts, act while you can.

I don’t think a lot of Mark fanciers were reading Car and Driver in those days, but buyers did continue to go all out for as long as they could, and Lincoln-Mercury kept on raking in the cash.

 

Although the 460 was dropped after 1978 in the interests of fuel economy, Mark V sales remained strong through early 1979. In its final months, however, the big Mark abruptly faltered: As the luxury market started to feel the pinch from the latest oil crisis, Lincoln dealers ended up with an enormous surplus of unsold cars. Ford temporarily shut down the Wixom assembly plant in November to clear excess inventory, but some 1979 Marks languished on dealer lots past the end of the year, having gone from hot product to barely salable in a matter of months. It was the end of an era, even sooner than anticipated.

The Mark never descended all the way to the Pinto platform, but the somewhat smaller Panther-platform Mark VI of 1980–1983 didn’t do nearly as well as its predecessor. The inventory situation made its launch a difficult and somewhat gloomy affair, and even with most of the same styling cues, the Mark VI looked too upright and self-conscious to have the same appeal as the Mark V. A weak economy took the wind out of its sails, and its commercial performance was unimpressive. The smaller, sleeker Fox platform Mark VII then tried very hard to bridge the gap between fans of traditional American luxury coupes and BMW-loving Baby Boomer yuppies, but it seemed to fall between two stools, while the swoopy FN10-platform Mark VIII of the ’90s didn’t arrive until the big coupe segment had mostly collapsed.

The Mark IV was actually sold in greater numbers than the Mark V, if only because it lasted five years rather than three; total Mark IV production for 1972–1976 was 278,599 cars. However, it seems to be the Mark V (and the earlier Mark III) that people most like today, whether for what it was or what it represented. The Mark V was the last gasp of traditional American luxury cars that were far too big, far too thirsty, far too glitzy, and entirely too proud of themselves for it — a role that’s now been assumed almost entirely by SUVs and similarly gigantic pickup trucks.

Related Reading

Automotive History: 1972 Lincoln Continental Mark IV – Bunkie Knudsen Leaves His Mark (by me)

Curbside Classic: 1977 to 1979 Lincoln Continental – A Bit Of Sunshine Defies The Gloomy Days (by Jason Shafer)

Curbside Musings: 1977 Lincoln Continental Mark V – Keeping It Classy (by Joseph Dennis)

Curbside Classic: 1977 Lincoln Continental Mark V – Navigating Big City Streets (by Joseph Dennis)

1978 Lincoln Continental Mark V: Old School’s Last Graduate (by J P Cavanaugh)

1978 Lincoln Continental Mark V Diamond Jubilee Edition: A Grandiose Name For A Car Of Grandiose Proportions (by Brendan Saur)