The 1979 Lincoln Continental and the Continental Mark V were the last of the true, uncompromising land yachts. If you wanted one, this was it! When I first saw this picture of the ’79 Continental sedan in the factory brochure, however, my first thought was the classic Billy Joel song, despite the fact that the original color was called Wedgewood Blue.
I rather like this one, with full vinyl roof and no opera window. Pretty uncommon, as most of these were loaded with the Town Car package, coach roof, opera lamps, and turbine or chrome forged wheels! But there’s something about the standard models, with a bit less gingerbread too!
Hot punk, cool funk, even if it’s old junk…It’s Still Rock & Roll to me…
+1
For some reason, when I heard that line, I always thought of a Continental convertible or even a Mark II, despite knowing the approximate time frame of the song (and it immediately being preceded by “you can’t be too sentimental”). Yet I’m not surprised at all to see that you could get a “true baby blue” Continental in ’79. It somehow even still looks dignified. Nice find.
A nice counterpoint to the 76 Fleetwood from earlier today. I wonder if the 71 Fleetwood with its unique B pillar design served as the inspiration when Lincoln re-did the greenhouse of these cars for 1975, getting away from the older hardtop-like styling. Probably so.
I remember really liking that Wedgewood Blue in 1979. Not so sure it would top my list today. I think it was either 1977 or 78 that I scored the dealer Lincoln color and trim book after the model year was over. The vinyl cover of the binder had separated from the rest, which I attributed to heavy use in a high sales year. The Mercury book, which I also got, was intact. These are the only two of those I ever got.
I never get tired of the Wedgewood Blue on my ’79.
Incidentally, I could’ve also bought a coupe in that shade of maroon but decided his price was out to lunch.
I really like the full vinyl roof and prefer it to the coach style roof. I also like it with or without the oval opera windows. But the turbine or forged wheels – must have. I wish we would see wheels like those today. I don’t think they’d look dated, and I’m so sick of every car having 5 or so spokes.
Agreed–it isn’t the roof or the windows, it’s the turbine wheels that makes a Continental stand out!
Some of my favorite stock wheels of all time, and I’m mostly a GM guy.
Never liked these Ben Hur-style alloys with several spokes that leave the brake disks and calipers bare, too. Ford offers 24-spoke wheels in Europe, but that’s just a pale shadow of the classic Turbines (photo).
The problem with turbine-style wheels is, however – older cars tend to have deeply recessed wheel hubs, and, therefore, zero or negative wheel offset. That is no longer the case – designers are pushing wheel track to the maximum, requiring large positive offset. Classic Lincoln turbine-style wheels seem to have large negative offset, they can not be made with large positive offset without ruining their recessed-hub look which is a significant part of their charm.
Ford actually got their version of a Colonnade right! Rather stately, wouldn’t you say?
As for all those old land yachts, I would never have owned one. In those days, I was driving a Gremlin and other much smaller cars except for a brief ownership of a 1980 Dodge pickup.
When I think of that line in the song, the car that comes to mind is a metallic blue Mark IV or Mark V Lincoln.
Something like this…
That would work too, especially a DJE like the one you pictured. Even the spokes on the Turbines were blue.
The most comfortable, the quietest and best riding american car ever?
Bright orange pants are back in style but I think I’ll skip those and get myself a Continental. It’s the next phase. For me it was always the Mk iv that came to mind while listening to Bill Joel’s song.
The 1979 Lincoln Continental and the Continental Mark V were the last of the true, uncompromising land yachts.
False: the 460 would have continued as an engine offering if they had been truly uncompromising.
Then you’d need a ’78–last call for the 460.
Was the 400 really that bad? Seems like an Olds 307 in the downsized GM models, but with more torque.
Plus, even though they cheaped out the dash for ’78-’79 I submit that the ’79 dash is at least not all silver.
The 400 was pretty bad. 2bbl. carburetor only, horsepower dithered around 150-160. It was pretty smooth and quiet though. Probably the best ‘fake big block’ of the era was the Olds 403. Regardless, I liked the look of these last really large Lincolns.
The 400 was rated as low as 144, in 1975 Gran Torino-Montegos, to as high as 180 in 1976-78 large cars. In between was 158 in ’75 large cars ( a bad year for Ford). Strangely, the 330 foot pounds of torque on the ’76 & later ones was only 20 units less than the 460 (352@1600 in ’76).
Still, not great, and you were likely to crack the block or drop a valve before 40,000 miles. The cracking problem also affected 351Ms.
Rode in a coworker’s Lincoln like this once. It was green, real green, including the interior. Never saw anything like it. (Thank goodness!)
Beautiful. I prefer that slightly darker (but still light) sky blue shade.
I am actually looking for one of these now. 10 years of ’77-’96 RWD bodies has me hankering for a new dreadnaught experience. There was a sky blue ’77 Coupe for sale around here recently, but I would prefer the versatility of the 4-door.
Sadly, there was a 4-Door baby blue Continental – I think a 1978, with a gray interior and no opera windows, for sale on Seattle’s Craigslist last month. It supposedly had a new engine and transmission, and had been listed for several months. The owner had written that if not sold, he was going to part it out. Hopefully someone finally bought it before that happened : (
I was not a fan of the Wedgewood Blue but these cars had far more curb appeal than my family’s choice of Cadillac at the time. Very, very handsome cars.
I have this brochure. I love it and the corresponding picture with the matching blue interior. I like the cloth upholstery in these base models, as opposed to the pillowed leather or velour. I feel like I’d slide right off of those seats.
I love this shade of blue and would be happy to have it on a modern car (with matching blue or contrasting white interior), but it just doesn’t look quite right on such a huge car.
Where have all the exciting colors gone on modern cars? I miss the all red interiors and the color you mention.
Bob B.,
I agree on the 400. I have a Collector’s ’79 Mk V and a ’70 Mk III with the unchoked 460. The ’70 was advertised at 365 gross HP, the ’79 at 158 net! The ’79 is smooth and quiet (hey, you barely know it’s there!), 0-60 timed with an hourglass, but…the two cars get almost exactly the same mileage! It was really too bad, the ’79 deserved at least the option of the 460, but Ford’s CAFE issues were so bad that another 1/10th of an overall fleet MPG average would have triggered millions in fines, thus the 400, which tested out at about 1 mpg better than the 460. Again, like the tacky interiors in the ’70s Cadillacs that we discussed earlier, it was just another example of “penny wise, pound foolish” that eventually destroyed the reputations and marketing positions of the preeminent American luxury cars.