Roshake found this Lincoln Town Car sitting at the curb in Budapest. My eyes gravitated to its rather well-padded vinyl top, including extensions on the tops of the doors. Now that’s a bit different.
Have I seen this kind of treatment before? Probably, but I must have repressed it. Unfortunately I can’t quite make out the script on the badge.
It looks a bit less jarring from a distance.
This is probably an automotive equivalent of the shoulder pads (one of the bad fashion trends during the 1980s).
They should have completed the padding under the windows for a Packard Hawk effect.
Must be an East Coast thing, these used to be EVERYWHERE. Particularly SC/GA/FL coastal areas thick with retirees. I think the seal is a quasi Presidential seal (as in US President) and the script says “Presidential Edition”, or something to that effect. I can’t promise it was made by “E&G Classics”, but they certainly made similar versions.
In the course of writing this, I Googled E&G and was devastated to learn they have ceased operations, though their clientele has died out I guess. You can Google them and click on images and see some of their recent works.
Similar to the Town Car here, the same roof treatment was frequently applied to the Grand Marquis and for whatever reason, they usually had a sailboat or yacht looking emblem, and the script said “Regatta Edition”.
Someone is still doing things like this; I passed a newish ES350 the other day with a padded vinyl roof…….
There was also a “Congressional Town Sedan” which I thought was absurdly verbose and pretentious. They should have just been called “Blind Spot Edition.”
Here is a 1985 E&G flyer:
That Cougar would be so cool without that stupid top, it has the TRX wheels/tires!
Ahhh Yesss, E & G Classics of McGaw Ct, Columbia MD, An industrial area of both small & big warehouses. My first antique car restoration shop was located down the road. They were doing a huge business in the 1980s with sunroof installations, both the pop-up type and the full metal opening types, both electric and manuals.
Then they started to create, sell, and install those “Superfly” type accessories; chrome grills, fake continental tires [both horizontal and vertical], even chrome belts and buckles on trunk lids.
One of their salesmen actually came to visit my shop and tried to talk a couple of my restoration techs into getting me to carry a line of their accessories to sell to my antique car customers. I wasn’t there when this happened, but my guys were all to happy to tell me what happened: The guy was literally laughed right out of the shop!
From several hundred metres away it would look fine I guess
Never forget.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/junkyard/curbside-recycling-1974-lincoln-continental-mark-iv-the-littlest-big-car-in-the-world/
Sure looks like something a low-level, organized crime figure might be tooling around in.
Frankly, there was no optimum way to deal with the roofs on this generation of TC. I like the painted version, but then you had to settle for the exposed body seams that were so visibly filled with the painted plastic strips, and also that ungainly opera window in the C pillar.
These padded roof versions resolved those two things, but left you with, well, the padded roof and the goofy trim pieces on the upper doors.
Yes, I am hard to satisfy.
To me, the main question is not “Why?” so much as “Why is it in Budapest?”.
The padded door tops do look a bit strange and make the car look like it’s wearing a top several sizes too large. But we’ve certainly seen worse acts committed against cars. I’m just surprised that somebody in Europe would go to the trouble of importing this.
…and feeding it, at USD $5.60/gallon.
For the most part, these are pretty well-built cars. I have a ’96 Townie in my fleet and at 127k it still fells solid and fresh. I have seen many of these with 300, 400 and 500+ thousand miles on them. Some of them that I had seen had less than careful owners and still kept on ticking, at least in the Western/Southern US. The only places you have to watch for rot is in the doglegs and amazingly, above the front wheels. The only achilles heel these have is the plastic intake, which can be replaced by a steel lined replacement aftermarket. Even the EATC unit is easily available and plug and play, should it fail. And with the cruise, I can still get 27MPG on the open road and with a light foot about 20 in town – no kidding.
Wait, so it gets beter mpgs than my vanagon??
Probably. these surprise a lot of people with their efficiency. I’ve had 2 Townies, a Grand Marq and two Vic’s and with the exception of my 03 CV LS Sport and it’s higher numerical gearing, they’ve all gotten about the same MPG.