Usually when I check out the cars for sale on eBay, I gravitate to Volvo 200, 700 and 900 Series, Cadillacs, Lincolns, Buick Electras, Olds Ninety-Eights and Imperials. This weird Lincoln-Cadillac custom was something else entirely.
Cars like the black 1988 Lincoln Signature Edition above was what I was looking for when this, um, creation? (yeah, creation) came up. Prepare to be shocked.
The body of this 1947 Lincoln club coupe has been attached to a 1989 Cadillac base. My first thought was that some waylaid Sedan de Ville was the donor. Oh no. Think bigger…or odder, as the case may be.
Yes, that’s right, this car has been merged with an Allanté! Including the entire instrument panel, steering wheel, and console.
It is so bizarre to look inside this classy postwar luxury car and see the oh-so-modern techy ’80s dash! And could this be the first instance of a Pininfarina logo on a Lincoln?
But not half as odd as popping the hood and seeing a FWD Cadillac 4.5L V8! The 4.5 was newly added to the Allanté for 1989, and had 200 hp–not bad at all for the time.
For those of you still with me, here is what a factory Allanté looks like, found at a little car lot last weekend. Quite nice, but its genesis was one of GM’s most convoluted, and at nearly $60K in the late ’80s, was priced too high to really get any traction. But they were beautiful cars in my opinion. Jason Shafer’s CC on how the Allanté could have come to be can be read here.
So too, were the 1946-48 Lincolns handsome cars, with their “Wurlitzer” grille and instrument panel–if not quite as handsome as the 1940-41 models. But still a true Classic.
I’ll withhold judgment on this concoction, but I can tell you, I never would have thought a Cadillac Allanté and a late ’40s Lincoln coupe could have been combined like this. One thing is certain, it is not another resale-red bellybutton 350 street rod!
Note: an updated rerun of an older post.
I just barfed. What a waste of a ’47 Lincoln!
Ouch, my eyes
At least I would shoot a second glance at this over any ‘molested’ Camaro or Firebird at any car show even though its not exactly my cup of tea.
Only in Washington.
I admire the spirit of it, if not necessarily the outcome.
Yeah, Boyd Cuddington would have made a better Zephyr in the same way as “Cadzilla” he did for ZZ Top. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CadZZilla
Japan has Mitsuoka. America has whoever made this.
Sorry. The 4 eyed look did me in right there. Didn’t want to go further.
This makes the baby Jesus cry. Big part of the appeal for me of old 1940s/50s cars are the interiors, and keeping them stock. The Allante had an ugly, brutalist dash.
And I want to scold GM designers like a bad dog, whack them with a rolled up newspaper. More buttons DOES NOT equal more luxury, BAADDD DOGGG!!
If I can say one thing nice, I do dig the two tone brown/gold. I could MAYBE forgive the interior if they hadn’t put in those awful square headlights
Well, it would look okay to me without the modern headlamps grafted on. After all you can’t see the interior or the drivetrain, from the outside!
This, 100%.
Whomever invented “futuristic” rectangle headlights should be jailed (maybe worse).
Round Light versions look better on just about every car (that went from round to square). The “Colonnades” for instance.
But THIS featured .. thing, is just ‘beyond the pale’, as they say. I could ‘live’ with the interior, but Holy Jesus, who thought this looked good? EVERYTHING on the outside is curvy, roundy, flowy and then BANG! Square headlights.
The car in the original article comments at least looks the part even with the rectangular headlights. Everything else in that car looks good.
On this, not only do the rectangular headlights look out of place, they look like they don’t even fit right. Like they were just wedged into openings for pictures. I can understand wanting (somewhat) modern headlights for safety, but why not use round LED or halogen housings?
The different color of the fenders, especially in side view, makes them look tacked on as an afterthought. Helped by the stock Allante wheels and tires that really look like they don’t belong. Some black stock FWD steelies with baby moon hubcaps would at least look closer to the part.
It looks like they used a complete Allante rolling chassis, drivetrain, firewall, dash, and full electrical system, hence the switches on the doors. And dropped the Lincoln body on and connected the dots. And the headlight mod. Still a lot of work, which I can appreciate. Just not my cup of tea.
Wonder what engine access is like?
I never cared much for that era of Lincoln, they always looked to ponderous to me, but I could see how others could find them very attractive. There’s no accounting for taste- especially mine. But this, this is just wrong on so many counts. What really gets me is that except for the headlights, it looks like a quality job, great color combination, no sawzall marks, but no class.
This just ain’t right.
Yeah ;
This Resto – Rod is a hard pass .
I’m sure there’s a Geezer out there who’ll love it .
-Nate
I didn’t realize how similar in appearance to ’47 Cad torpedo backs they were. The era I guess. I’m really only familiar with them because a cousin had on back in the early ’70s. Outside doesn’t look bad, except for those gawdawful headlights, I mean they are not just bad, but spectacularly bad. The drivetrain is odd, but isn’t offensive, at least to me, but that interior/dash. That hurts the eyes. Not just a modern dash, but a truly awful one. I mean you’d have to work to find one that ugly. The designer should be sentenced to drive it, and only it, for the next 10 years.
Reminds me of this car I used to see at the Louisville Street Rod Nationals.
The workmanship looks good but the rear view is the best view …
Has any vehicle ever been improved by rectangular headlights? I cannot think of one.
A very odd donor as presumably a non-wreaked Allanté is worth a few bucks. The too short wheelbase makes it look ever more nose heavy. Something like the 1988 Lincoln Signature Edition would have made a better donor.
I attended a presentation by a Cadillac Rep many years ago. One comment from that presentation still sticks with me. The Rep said their market research showed that the styling feature most important to Cadillac buyers was a distinctive appearance. It was more important for the car to stand out from other cars than to win styling awards.
This Lincoln/Cadillac (or Cadillac/Lincoln) tests the limits of that theory. It might not be pretty, but no one can deny it does stand out!
Lincillac? Caddoln? Whatever.
There’s a lot of quality metalwork merging two such disparate vehicles, but it’s let down by those awful headlights (would have looked better with quad rounds), and the ugly cubist GM dash which screams at the roundness to be seen everywhere else (perhaps might have looked passable if it was recoloured to suit the rest of the interior).