The Mark IV is no stranger to these digital pages, various of us have written at length about them and all y’all out there in commentary-land have added even more to the subject. Surprisingly these are not all that uncommon in the junkyard, I see several every year in various states of distress, but cannot recall the last time I actually saw one in the wild. So I figured I’d better get on it while they’re still being plucked from barns, the back forty, the side spot next to the garage or wherever one stores something this large.
I will say that nothing screams “America” like a mid-70’s Lincoln coupe, perhaps even more so than the Cadillac of the day. That gigantic bumper, the way the turn signals jut so far forward just because they can, and that runway of a hood combine to present a giant middle finger to any thoughts of conservation back in the day.
I will concede that parts of it do look magnificent, some of the details are superb. Even if I did have to use a hidden thumb to hold the headlight cover down… I love the ribbing on the light here. I can’t decide if it’s there more as decor or to protect the relatively fragile lens from minor impacts but either way, it’s pleasurable.
The grille too is quite the item, new for 1974 with this slatted design replacing the previous eggcrate it out-baroques the Mercedes as well as the Rolls. All the better to slice the traffic in front into thin wafers with.
228.1″ of length, or 5793mm for the Continental fans on the old continent. The current 2021 Lincoln Navigator L (the extended wheelbase one) is 6″ shorter (and almost exactly the same width). And it seats 8. Maybe big modern SUVs aren’t that big after all. Eh, they are of course, but this fatty from the good old days is bigger.
It’s hard to keep the front and back both in some sort of focus when it goes on and on for so long. Oh, I almost forgot, who was it popping off about the gunslit windows on today’s “modern” cars? Yeah, this Lincoln’s got the bunker look down too. I don’t think old Abe himself could fit into this, the roof’s too low. Would you believe that at 53.3″ of height, the roof of this is 4.5″ lower than that of the 2021 Mazda3 we reviewed earlier this week? It also has 1″ less headroom than the 2021 Chevy Camaro (37.5 vs 38.5)
But forgive me, the hood was already popped and I went around the side without opening it. Let me rectify that forthwith.
Four hundred and sixty cubic inches of all-American power. Well, four hundred and sixty cubic inches of displacement might be a better way of phrasing that. As far as “power” goes, it puts out 220hp so less than half a pony per cubic inch. And 335lb-ft of torque, which is a better number.
Yes, the car is slightly raised in the air here but there is zero frontal access to anything without laying on top of the fan shroud and having the hood ornament right where you definitely do not want it. Over the sides is a stretch as well. What’d this get with the 4-barrel back then? ConsumerGuide says the ’73 did about 7.5mpg. The good news is that wasn’t last place, just second to last. The bad news is that last place went to its 4-door cousin at 7.0mpg. The 2021 Navigator L referenced above averages out at around 18mpg for reference. Progress!
Anyway, hiking around to the back shows off the new for ’74 rear bumper which resulted in the lights moving up to the bodywork.
Somebody’s got a coffee can with half of the alphabet rattling around in it as the letters spelling out the name from the “spare tire” affectation are gone. What’s inside?
Hmm, it doesn’t look as large as it would appear to be, it holds 14.8 cubic feet of stuff, half a cube more than a current Nissan Sentra. And that opening is the definition of awkward. You’d have to heft your golf bags or dead bodies over about 24″ of bumper and rear chassis before dropping them down about a foot. Yeah, no thanks, that Navigator is looking better and better.
But I know you’ve all been eyeing the roof. And wondering just exactly what is going on up there with that vinyl.
Holy crap! This, my friends, is why you stay well away from the vinyl roofs! I don’t know if this car was flipped upside down for a decade in a 3″ salt bath and immersed the way Madge used to soak her fingers in the Palmolive but this is horrific.
Perhaps this angle is a bit better. Nope, it wasn’t just the lighting or me trying to make FoMoCo look bad. It is bad.
Just in case the last two pictures still left some doubt, this is from the other side. Still bad. I don’t think there’s any coming back from this without a roof transplant. But they’re probably all like this to some extent, the others maybe still have intact vinyl on top to hide it.
After that we probably need a little rest, the knees are a little shaky. Plop on down into those magnificent blue button tufted seats that the Chrysler New Yorker has nuthin’ on! Be careful though, you have to wedge your knees around the bottom of the dash there, don’t whack it. This car only has 42″of front legroom, or 2″ less than the same 2021 Nissan Sentra we just compared the trunk space to.
This is on the door sill right next to the driver’s seat. I never understood why they’d put the Ford logo there, you just signed on the dotted line for the big daddy Lincoln and then you need to get reminded that it’s a fancy Ford.
It does lounge well though. And you can flip those armrests up and slide the missus over towards you, these appear to be what Lincoln calls the “Twin Comfort Lounge Seats” in leather and vinyl (optional, Westminster knit cloth was standard) and, I kid you not, available in no less than nine hues, this one looks to be Medium Blue. It looks like you sit low though, even me with my 32″ inseam, not that I actually tried it.
The sofa in back looks even more comfy, well, maybe loveseat is a better term, it doesn’t look that roomy either actually. I’ll concede though that it does have 1.7″ more legroom back here than that same Nissan Sentra compact (36.4 vs 34.7). With 13.6″ more wheelbase of course the Lincoln should have more legroom somewhere. The back seat is also 1.3″ wider so maybe it’s not that bad for two after all.
A little room with a view. And a light! It could use it actually, it seems a bit dark in here. I’m going back up front.
The cockpit. In more ways than one; did women ever drive these? The thin rim here has been beefed up with a color matched cover, and the view through it is of, what, three gauges?
I’m not a fan of square gauges or roman numerals on them, even the clock. Why is it that everyone will bag on a VW Dasher or a Volvo wagon with a speedometer and a clock of the same size but when it says Cartier on the clock and is in a Lincoln it’s the height of fashion? It’s a good thing that fuel gauge is front and center as that’s where all the eyeballs need to be focused all the time. The tank only holds 26.5 gallons (100.3 liters) and I’m thinking that the way it reads right now is how it likely read most of the time in its younger days.
To the left of the wheel we have the light switch that looks just like a cigarette lighter, the HVAC module and a vent. I do like the slider for the automatic climate control, just slam that thing all the way to the left at the beginning of June and all the way back to the right at the beginning of November and you’re all set, it does everything. It’s a good idea it’s over here on the left too, lest the passenger get it into their head that they know better how to control this. Hopefully the driver didn’t drive around with those tetanus-spikes facing his left knee for too long though.
Note that there is fake wood (burled walnut?) SET INTO DIFFERENT FAKE WOOD! Is that other stuff supposed to be regular non-burled walnut or? I have no idea, maybe there are different classifications within the Di-Noc strata. All the way at the bottom is the lever for the “Electric Deice”, i.e the defroster.
To the right of the column we can see the mileage of 46,887, who knows if that’s original or should have a “1” in front of it, it may well be accurate as is. Then more fake wood within more fake wood and more warning lights than some small airplanes (that probably ARE smaller than this), the wipe-wash lever next to the lighter (see, those do all sort of look alike or at least they seem sized the same). There’s also another small vent. And at the bottom the Philco AM/FM Stereo!
What’s the passenger get? A divider to keep to their side of the dashboard.
And of course more wood within wood and a full description of what this conveyance is. Flanked by another small vent on either side and topping the tiniest glovebox ever seen which might hold one glove. Why it can’t extend further to the side is a mystery, surely the behind dash area can’t be that full of stuff, this is a big car.
Built in Wixom, Michigan, this looks like one of the first of the ’74s to make it out the door. The color at first seems to be white, but no, the 9C code means it’s actually “White Decor” and available by special order only, it is not mentioned in the brochure. Someone can likely enlighten us here, some of the other colors are called out as extra cost or limited availability, I’m not sure what a special order color would entail or how one would be qualified and why it’d be more special than the other 25 colors on offer. On this day to me it looked just as white as any other plain white car.
A GVWR of 6545 pounds is higher than that of many three row SUVs these days. This has two doors and seats four people smaller than me. I guess it can probably tow the boat pretty well though.
They don’t build them like this anymore, that’s for sure. Now they build other things that are smaller outside and bigger inside no matter how much space we think they take up. Godspeed, little Lincoln, perhaps you’ll come back as two others!
Related Reading:
JPC pontificates on a 1972 version
Jim Grey waxes poetic on a 1975 that may actually be a 1974
Tom Klockau of course weighs in too, but on a 1976
I see a Continental MK VI sometimes not far from where I live. They are still around.
At 10,00 miles per year, this car costs around $2,000 more to fuel than a 30 MPG car. However, sub 100K mile, decent specimens can still be bought for $3,000, or less. As absurd as it sounds, these dinosaurs could be relatively reliable, practical transportation, in 2022, even in the Biden malaise era.
Given the state of the roof, the interior is in surprisingly good shape. A vinyl roof isn’t always an issue, My so equipped ’69 Skylark has one.
Recently replaced, with rust around the windscreen & rear window fixed – a common rust spot with or without the vinyl.
The electric deice is a transparent metallic film in the windshield glass which heats up and defrosts/deices allegedly quicker than normal defrost using the coolant. Lincoln had it in the middle 70’s, but it didn’t catch on that I remember (I’m sure to be corrected here). It probably screws up EZPass, too.
Ford used the windshield film on some their cars like the Taurus and Sable in the late 80’s….Not only screwed up your EZpass, a radar detector could not be used either.
Are you referring to Instaclear™ (known as Quickclear™ in European Fords)?
If so, I wasn’t aware of Ford using it prior to the mid-‘80s; 1985 in the Scorpio, and 1986 in the Taurus.
I think the “electric de-ice” was the then-new technology of the little thin conductor grid printed on the inside of the back window. The front defroster is marked on the slider control.
My memories of adolescence aren’t all kaput!
Finally found something about it (not listed as an option in the brochure):
http://automotivemileposts.com/tbird1974quickdefrost.html
Not just metallic but GOLD!!
It does have a second alternator and works on both windshield and rear window.
Does that require a second alternator to provide enough oompah to heat up the entire windscreen?
Not only EZ-Pass but the radar detectors, too. Lot of vehicles built in 1990s and 2000s had some sort of metallic film sandwiched inside the windscreens as to reduce the UV and infrared red penetration. On some vehicles, you can see the cut-out at top or at bottom of windscreen for EZ-Pass and radar detectors like this Corvette ZR-1.
EZPass still offers a bumper or license plate mounted transponder on their EZPass Maryland website for cars equipped with that kind of windshield.
It makes me wonder though… Does any car manufacturer even do that anymore?
Wow, that roof is rough! I haven’t spent too much time thinking about it, but the Mark IV didn’t seem to do too bad with the ’74 big bumper update (I guess that happened in ’73 in the front). It’s so long already that the proportions aren’t changed much, and the smaller grille might actually work better.
I’ve always thought of these Lincolns as uselessly colossal and ponderous. When I lived in San Francisco, years ago, my neighbor across the narrow street, Mrs. Butler, had a pristine gold and white Mark IV. The Butler’s owned a home style known as a “5 Room Junior”. This is the typical 2 story, stucco home that covers most of the Sunset District and large parts of the postwar construction in many other neighborhoods. The bottom floor is a garage, a laundry room and stairs up to the second floor which consists of a living room, dining room, bathroom and 2 bedrooms. 5 tidy rooms on top of a garage. Nice homes, hers probably built around 1947. The single garages are small. Mrs Butler’s Lincoln was a very, very, tight fit. There might have been 3 inches to spare on each side of the garage opening and probably none at the rear with the garage door closed. Mrs. Butler owned her own business and every weekday morning, bright and early, she would carefully extract her Lincoln from the garage. Our street was much narrower than a regular city street, two cars could scarcely squeeze past each other. I don’t know how she managed to do it everyday but I got quite used to hearing her morning routine as she patiently and gently sawed that golden barge back and forth to turn it 90* and properly oriented with the traffic flow. This was the routine for 10 years but I was surprised one morning, about 5 years after we moved in, when Mrs. Butler knocked on my door, upset and practically in tears, to inform me that she had backed into my 69 VW Beetle. Fearing the worst I almost laughed to see that the damage was a mildly crunched rear fender from a very low speed impact. I had to really reassure her that it was okay, that her insurance would handle it and I was not in the least bit upset about it. I think she felt some sort of shame or humiliation and genuine fear because she perceived that she had screwed-up somehow and now I was going to sock it to her and take advantage of her financially. The repair was less than $400. She was a very nice lady and she was very proud of that car. I felt terrible that she had put herself through some emotional torment over this. She and her husband had worked very hard all their lives and that car was a reward that she bought for herself. I doubt it had many miles on it. That’s probably a typical ownership story. The final new car bought as a final automotive indulgence with few demands put upon it ensuring that it stays in good condition with low mileage. Makes sense, these things aren’t that good at the mobile part of being an automobile.
Loved this story – thanks for sharing it.
Wonderful story! Thank you!
Thank-you, for sharing that most-entertaining story.
Geez +1 on the interior being unexpectedly good with the roof being that bad. Maybe it was parked in a leaky garage, just enough water to keep the roof damp but not fill up the interior? I fellow I know parked a TR6 in a leaky garage for 10 years and it developed holes where it got dripped on.
That car looks positively evil with the hood and headlight doors open. I think if it had wheels it would have run you over when you walked in front of it Jim !
It DOES have a Christinesque quality in the second picture! Maybe Christine and The Car…
Fantastic write-up, as always, Jim. I’ve looked at hundreds of these over the years, and never noticed the two different kinds of fake wood. My brain must have refused to accept the incongruity.
Thanks! Now you won’t be able to NOT see it in the next few hundred!
Thanks for another great contribution! I actually don’t think I ever saw a man driving one of these, at least in my town where I grew up. The 4 door versions, maybe, those were lawyer/doctor cars. The two door 70’s Lincolns and Eldorados in my memory were predominantly driven by elderly or near-elderly women, often widowers.
My great aunt (grandad’s sister) had a 1975 triple banana yellow, two door LTD Landau, a lesser cousin to this. Bought it for herself when she retired as a bookkeeper. I was five and it made quite an impression on me in the ensuing years. So large, and yet she was no more then five feet tall. How did she drive it? I never knew. Ice cold air, power everything, but AM only. A rolling ashtray. Great memories!
TV Detective Frank Cannon drove a Mark Iv in the series “Cannon” as a private investigator. It was hilarious to watch that huge car slewing around corners, heeled as far over as it cold go without turning over; not to mention even thinking of it as competing in a high speed chase, LOL!
I had a boss who had the girth of Cannon and drove a big Lincoln. Hilarious following him down the road one day, as that car had some serious driver’s lean going on, even in a car that big.
The rolling ashtray analogy is apt, I can completely see it, a half-full pack of Virginia Slims can just about fit in the glovebox.
Perhaps the men didn’t fit into these very well? I’m sure they were around when I was a teen but I never really noticed them in Suburban SoCal, although the neighbor across the street had a blue Mercury Marquis 4door of this generation, it was massive.
At least the actual ashtrays were used back then for the most part. Now, smokers seem to keep their cigs outside the car as much as possible (arm hanging out the window) and then uncermoniously toss their butts on the ground.
Most new cars (the ones I get as testers anyway) don’t have any real ashtray or a lighter inside them anymore. Sometimes it’s available as a “smoker’s package” which, if one was a smoker, one would likely spec, but people buy a lot of used cars too which may not have had one when new.
This is true, although those aftermarket ashtrays that fit in the cupholders are available.
Small world. My wealthy aunt bought herself a new, triple-red ’75 LTD Landau. Now, Dorothy was MAYBE five feet tall. I do know her ride was pillow-soft, as she had to sit on one, when out and, about. I got to pilot it, once. Very comfortable, it was and, I didn’t feel as if I were driving a BIG car.
The linked CC by Tom Klockau on a 1976 car states that, although the original 1969 Mark III was pure Iacocca, in one of his last acts as Ford president before being cashiered by Hank the Deuce, it was Bunkie Knudson who approved the freshened 1972 Mark IV.
One of the subtle (but key) deviations from the Mark III were markedly more curved side glass. It would be interesting to compare with the 1970 Plymouth Duster which, AFAIK, had the most sharply curved side window glass of any vehicle up to that time.
I wonder if Bunkie was also responsible for the famous oval opera window, as well, since it’s usually Iacocca who gets credit for that one.
The point is, Bunkie gets a lot of grief over the ‘Bunkie Beak’ 1970 Thunderbird and the aircraft carrier-sized 1971 Mustang, but virtually no acknowledgement of his contribution to the quite successful 1972 Mark IV.
At 7 MPG, that 26 gallon tank will provide a range of what not even a couple hundred miles?? To lug around 6500 plus pounds of heft? Good gravy Batman, they could not have done worse.
Frank Gorshin on the Dean Marin show.
I’ve never understood the appeal of these cars or living with one in tight urban spaces. Might be dandy rolling down the interstate. My relatives probably say the same about my automotive choices.
As a teen of the 1980s these cars were another example to teenager me why Detroit was doing it all wrong. That vs an 80s Celica for example. The Celica won (still wins) hands down IMHO.
I drove one once up a curvy mountain road in afternoon traffic. The friend who asked me to help her move her two cars to the same destination was so proud of that car. Teenage me was not impressed – though it rode very nice. Of course I didn’t let on that it was anything but the height of automotive glamour.
I had the option to inherit one of the later Lincolns, the one with the bustle back. It had a digital dashboard (oooooh!), along with a mileage monitor. Why the heck they would put one of those on there, to constantly remind one of how lousy the mileage is on one of these things, is beyond my ken. Typically nine mpg or so, down to six on acceleration or up a slope, and double digits at times if one worked it. I passed on the car. Between the view from the rear and the fuel economy, zero for two.
To be fair, while the Mark IV might have been the worst, any big car with the biggest, big-block engine of the era would struggle to get into double-digit gas mileage during that period. Hell, it’s doubtful that a strippo compact with a six-cylinder engine would make it into much past 20 mpg back then. The fact is, if you could afford to buy a Mark IV, well, you weren’t too concerned about fuel economy.
Still, less than 200 miles on 26 gallons of gas in a five passenger car seems absurd in this day and age. Would be making a lot of stops at gas stations on a cross-country trip, that’s for sure.
My parents had a 1973 AMC Gremlin with the 258 six and automatic. It didn’t get better gas mileage than our 1976 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale hardtop sedan with the 350 Rocket V-8 and automatic.
One thing worth noting is that these came standard with the “Sure-Track Brake System,” which was rear-wheel ABS. According to the brochure for that year, this early version could cycle up to four times per second.
For its time the Mark IV was otherwise very well equipped in standard guise, with automatic climate control, power windows and seats, and AM/FM stereo radio all standard. But some things that we take for granted as standard today on even the least expensive US cars were options, such as power locks and trunk release, cruise control, tilt steering wheel, and a rear window defroster.
You are absolutely right that features considered standard today were optional on these Marks. Here is the window sticker for my Dad’s 1978 Mark V Cartier edition. Note that even with that prestige option package they still charged extra for items such as interval windshield wipers, power locks, and cruise control!
Also (and *so* typical of Detroit at the time), reclining seat is an extra-cost option. Notice I wrote “seat” and not “seats”. They usually weren’t available on the driver’s side!
I live in Warsaw, and now I have to locate the site of the former Smith Ford!
Inflation adjusted to 2020. CB Radio and Tape Deck Combo- $3500 today. Car Price = $75,000.00 – Gas at $4.20/Gallon @ 7 mpg!
That back seat looks more comfortable than my living room sofa.
Looks can be deceiving. Unless you’re a midget, you’re not going to be comfortable back there. Much tighter than it looks in the picture.
Given all the Cadillacs from this era currently with front and rear bumpers and tailights suspended about six inches out in space, it appears from this example that FMO used a better grade of plastic for the bumper space!
I have noticed that the Lincoln plastics between the body and the bumper lasts a lot longer than the Cadillac ones do. It will be brittle and maybe cracked, but it won’t have disappeared entirely.
This is true. It’s not uncommon to see an otherwise pristine GM car from this era missing its filler pieces at the Carlisle car shows. The bumper fillers used by Ford (and Chrysler) from this era have held up much better over the years.
Even within GM the Caddilacs were the worst. Buicks of the same era held up much much better for one.
As this was typically owned by older people, comfort for two in a big ol’ car was the point of the thing, and it did that rather well. Driven not far and infrequently, mileage was perhaps not too much of an issue, especially as the target market had “money to burn”.
Whether inadvertent or intentional, the design on those front turn signals apes that of the rear lights of the iconic early ’60s Continentals, when viewed at a certain angle. Never noticed it before, but there it is.
I saw a Mark III in traffic the other day, and it looked positively surreal, so low and long and wide. The proportions of these cars in modern traffic, full of CUVs and trucks, makes it look like it positively melted in the sun.
The expression “automotive dinosaur” never applied better, especially with the passing of time.
Looks like a good candidate for a ragtop sunroof.
If you’re rolling down the Interstate, you’d be stopping every 3 hours or 225 miles for a $65 fillup! (25 gallons x a generous 9 mpg @ 75 miles per hour x $2.60 a gallon)
Taking a trip? Budget $200 a day for gas!
I dread to think of a certain hapless Lincoln owner out on a leisure Sunday drive in Germany.
In Munich, the price of petrol per litre is currently at €1.49 (regular) to €1.60 (super). This translates into $6.93 to $7.44 per gallon. That will probably be a very short drive for the Lincoln owner, I’m afraid…
I know of one still makings the rounds in public.
Looks to be the same interior color
Now for a real trunk picture with the spare tire front and center.
And the bumper jack! I think that’s a ’73 as the tail lights are in the bumper. The liftover seems to have gotten worse as a result of the change for ’74.
I love the “cupholder”, just jam that 44oz’er between the armrests like between a couple of thighs as the rest of us did in less high-falutin’ cars back in the day.
Your catch has the optional cruise control which got you the two spoke steering wheel.
Wow, and in its natural habitat too, the gas station! In CA too with $4 or whatever it is gas these days. Wild, I wonder if that’s White or the White Decor special order paint.
You don’t want to know what he was thinking to do about the wheels and tires.
As a boy in the early 70s, our family would drive to Northern Michigan from Detroit in our Cadillac Sedan Deville, and even given that it was loaded full and Pops drove it 80 mph, we still had to stop for gas by Clare, which was maybe 150 miles out. I didn’t mind because we would stop for Breakfast and the local Mobil station was still giving out free State Maps.
Pops would complain about the ‘outstate’ gas prices—“It took 10 dollars to fill up that hog!”
I had an Uncle in the construction business that drove a Mark IV (at least 2 different ones) at that the time. Sometimes I rode in it to the Dairy Queen or whatnot…..it was always amusing to me that he had these nice cars but he treated it not too differently than any blue-collar-type-guy with a pickup truck.
Today, he would be in an SUV or luxury truck but they didn’t really exist back then. It was a strange, transitional era by today’s standards. No jacket or tie but he wore nice black dress slacks and a white button shirt and Italian shoes, but he was still walking through the dirt and mud sometimes, and then getting back into the Lincoln.
The trunk was all finely carpeted, but then there a couple shovels and a hardhat and some other tools with dry concrete on them, maybe some spare boots. It was completely different from how my father treated his cars.
One time Pops borrowed Uncles’ Mark IV for some reason and I remember asking him about it later on, how it was, he said at highway speed there was all kinds of wind noise, like the windows didnt close tight any more after driving around all the bumps and grass and rough job sites.
A different Uncle, (his brother) had a Continental Mark III, and I always liked that design better.
Wow. I had an uncle who did the exact same thing with Lincolns! He owned a roofing business and always had equipment, tools and even sloppy buckets of tar in the backseat and trunk.
that ad is weird in that trying to sell the car based not on its features or comfort or styling but on reselling it.
The owner of a local gas station and repair shop had two Mark IVs. The first was a 1972 model – green with a black vinyl roof.
That was traded for a 1976 model painted “aqua blue diamond fire” (with matching vinyl roof and interior) that seemed exotic at the time. Both cars seemed to have more presence than comparable Cadillacs of that era.
Ooooh, these pictures bring back a rush from my adolescence. I like the pre-big bumper version, but will confess I have always preferred the taillight placement on the later cars.
The back seat was fine as long as you situated yourself and didn’t need to move much. It was a bit claustrophobic in a dark interior color, especially with the high seat back and high front seat backs. The opera window was tilted upwards and good for looking at clouds but not much else.
There was a marked difference in the interior room from the big Continentals. Oddly, these cost more and got the same bad fuel mileage. But they sure were smooth and quiet.
“the big Continentals” – I know what you mean but I love how you consider this the small one… 🙂
Back in 1972, drove friends new 1972 Mark IV, four times round trip Miami-NYC. No effort to cruise for hours on the Interstate at 90 mph. Only issue I had with a Mark IV was over boosted power steering.
Many of you too young to remember but when these two-door luxury autos were on the streets, parking spaces larger and highway lanes wider.
I have a 1966 T-Bird. Gets a about 9 miles per gallon at best. Not a big issue when back in 1966 premium fuel was only about 29-cents per gallon.
Silly some people continue to rate 1960-1970s autos by todays standards.
What a wonderfully ridiculous car.
It represented an America that maybe existed at one time but one I’ve never been invited to.
I test drove a ’73 Thunderbird (aren’t they similar enough to compare?) in 2007 and I fit in it okay with my 6’0″/32″ inseamed self.
It was also a ridiculous car – that’s what I liked about it – but I needed a daily driver/work car and common sense prevailed.
I don’t know how it worked on Lincolns or Fords but I do have a Salesman’s Data book for Scout II that details their special paint procedures. They had 2 levels with 2 prices and within the first level two options.
Level 1 option A was any standard IH color of current or recent production. So just because they dropped the certain color you had been ordering for your fleet for years didn’t mean that your new truck wouldn’t match. It was also so all of your trucks could match from Scout to Class 8.
Level 1 option B was your choice out of the standard fleet colors. That mostly meant company colors like Coca-Cola red or Pepsi blue. There used to be a guy locally that had a Standard Oil red Scout II that had been ordered by the owner of a Standard service station.
Level 2 any color you want, either by providing a sample of a certain size for them to color match or by specifying a manufacture’s paint code.
I haven’t looked in years but I think it was $50 for option 1 and $100 for option 2.
I’m pretty sure that at least on the trucks Ford had something similar.
My brother who used to be an auto painter and then managed an auto parts store that did paint used to and may still have a late 50’s R-M fleet color book that listed the codes for all of those company colors.
In general special orders are those off menu items that needed approval from someone higher up in the food chain. GM of course is the best known as that is what the COPO cars were, special orders that required someone in the Central Office to sign off on the Production Order.
So for the Lincoln my guess is that someone really wanted that different color, was willing to pay for it and the dealer knew what it took to get the District Sales Office to approve and submit the order.
Yeah I know how that works, this one is weird in that the color and color code is listed in the replacement color guides and paint chip guides as a special order item but not in the brochure at all and by being listed is likely not just a one-off. And it’s the one and only special order color listed, a little different than knowing the guy who could get your Mark IV painted Omaha Orange or whatever. Kind of like having the menu for regular items (std paints), then an upcharge menu for better items (upper trim package option paints) and then a special order (one item on the “secret menu”) or it was some sort of special color maybe spec’d by Ford for cars used for something special like a particular sponsored event or similar. I just found it interesting.
Wonderfully ridiculous is the perfect description for these cars.
My high school journalism teacher had a pristine ‘72, white with ox blood red leather (this was in the early 80s). As one of the editors of the school newspaper, I often went to the printer to pick up our latest edition, and if we were lucky, donuts. For some unknown reason, one time Mrs. Yeager casually handed me the keys and told me to take her Lincoln. Now, I was used to big cars, having learned to drive in our ‘64 Impala, but it might have has well have been a Miata compared to the Mark IV.
I have never felt so disconnected driving a car. I had only had my license for a few months, and I wasn’t about to do anything stupid with my beloved teacher’s beloved Continental. You couldn’t feel anything, and there seemed to be an incredibly long pause between turning the steering wheel and the car actually changing direction. It was smooth, silent and most of all, unsettling. I gained new admiration for the stunt drivers on Cannon and Escape to Witch Mountain.
A beautiful car, though. And wonderfully ridiculous.
I know this is a heavy car, but 6,545 lbs. seemed a bit much. Sure enough, this figure is the GVWR, which includes the maximum amount of passengers and cargo. The actual curb weight is a still not so svelte 5,240.
That’s what I wrote (GVWR 6545) under the image of the label.
The wife of our next-door neighbor in Virginia had one of these.
The timing is what I recall. A year earlier my Dad bought a ’73 Country Sedan with the 400 2bbl. Of course at the end of the year we had our first gas shortage, which shocked everyone (since it was the first) and my Dad bought a small 2nd car with automatic so my mother could drive it (she drives standard but has never been comfortable with it). He wanted to keep the Ford for long family trips and use the small car for errands.
Not sure when this ’74 was bought, could have actually been Sept 1973 when they first came out, which would have been right before the shortage, maybe they got a good deal on it after the shortage started? I know people didn’t all migrate to smaller cars but most did talk a lot about gas mileage. It wasn’t just the cost; you might not be able to find gas or have to wait in a long line for it. So cars that got low mileage were kind of the equivalent of electric cars with short range, that you would think twice about taking on a longer trip….but these cars are made for long trips, are hardly your city runabouts, so kind of an oximoron.
We’ve had gas shortages twice in recent years where I live, due to storms mostly, but it isn’t the norm, (though they are predicting shortages this summer). But I think the original 1973 shortage probably did a lot to making these cars at least get smaller, then they went away completely. Even if you had lots of money to buy them, and lots of money to pay for gas, there still might be the chance you couldn’t find gas to put in them, even though it didn’t happen that often, you wouldn’t have known how common shortages would have been back then….so what luxury is there in a car you might not be able to drive if you couldn’t get enough fuel for it?
Is this car for sale if so call me 4054130868