How did this slip by me at the time? But here it is, a chance to relive 1975, and if you can’t wait to see what Lincoln is going to dish up in a couple more years for their Mark V, here’s your chance to anticipate it. Too bad the real Mark V wasn’t nearly as handsome and distinguished as the Mark Five.
Don’t rub any curbs.
That eliminates my wife which is why no expensive alloy wheels on her car especially passenger front.
That’s what curb feelers are for
Well…. There’s one “classic” feature. The headlights are missing a bezel or ‘door’, just like the ’52 to ’54 Lincolns. Looks like a mechanic removed a piece and forgot to replace it.
For a second there I thought I was seeing double and stopped to check my glasses.
“The color is called Rolls-Royce Silver.” I’ll bet Rolls-Royce would beg to differ.
Harry Bradley was one of the original designers of Hot Wheels cars. This looks like a Hot Wheels version of the Mark IV. Interestingly, Hot Wheels did produce a stock version of the Continental Mark III.
Eye-popping excess.
Yea, it’s pretty bad, but by the standards of pimpmobiles it is actually fairly restrained. No side pipes, no fake side-mounted spare tires, no wire wheels. Heck, not even a stand-up hood ornament. Just sayin’ it could have been worse.
The front fenders look like they came off a Stuz pimp mobile, the last thing conservative buyers would want.
I liked that the twin rectangular headlamp housings seemed intended to emulate the actual rectangular sealed-beams that were newly introduced on some GM cars for ’75. This isn’t the worst looking such car I’ve ever seen, but the blending of the old and the new doesn’t work as well as I would have wanted for what I assume was a lot of coin in 1975.
I see in all of these ’70s neo-classical revivals that have been featured here lately a common thread–a strong, deep desire to return to the classic elegance of the ’20s & early ’30s. The 1970s was a alienating, aesthetically impoverished time, often called “malaise” (sort of like right now). Designers and customers yearned for the beauty of things past.
The problem is, like post-modern architecture (applying classical forms to modern surfaces), it doesn’t work. It comes off as fake and contrived.
Loewy in yesterday’s film: Design should be clean and neat and functional, but without dryness. I agree, although a lot of things I consider beautiful are not strictly clean and functional. Also some of Loewy’s designs aren’t that attractive to me.
Gilding the Lily, a way to alter the looks superficially, but not usually for the better.
When the styling of the base vehicle is fairly clean and free of geegaws like fins, fender skirts, excessive badges and chrome ornamentation,( think ’58 Buick! )ornate multi layer grilles and bumpers all you can do is add stuff. Think of the sleek ’66 Riviera, adding extra crap to it’s simple fluid lines could only ruin it.
A lot of these modifications were borrowed from actual production vehicles. The additional front fender “enhancement” is similar to the 1960 thru ’66 Ford pick up. The free standing headlights recall Exner’s early 60’s Imperials, the sweeping simulated fender line was seen on the ’71 thru ’73 Buick Riviera. Removing the 5 mph. bumpers and replacing them with earlier Mk IV units cleaned up the design and probably did save some weight. Were these changes successful? That’s a decision that the patron had to make. It certainly would make it stand out from the other Lincolns in the parking lot. Bradley eventually got his wish, running boards have made a strong comeback on trucks and SUVs.
Some designers have a wild imagination, but really need to work under a manager with an eye for taste and a strong restraining hand to filter some of these excesses from the public eye. We need imagination in design, but we also need taste.
The Mark v looks better
The twin-squircular headlamp assemblies were grafted in off something with frontal design much curvier than that of the Lincoln, so there’s pretty extreme horizontal rake to the twin-lamp assembly, (poorly) hidden behind the glass cover lenses. Not even the red pinstriping around the perimeter of the cover lens hides it; these lamps would look okeh from a distance off, but up close the illusion doesn’t hold up (as a bigger blow-up reveals).
It looks to me as if it would have gone better to keep the 5¾” round lamps and set them into square bezels, with or without that rectangular cover lens. Or since Mr. Bradley evidently had no qualm about using non-DOT lamps (as evidenced by this what he put together), a tidier result could have been had with single wide oblong headlamps (Renault 12/Ford GT40/Saab 99 items, 9½” wide × 5⅛” tall).
I realize that America is a foreign (to me) country.
A different culture.
I realize they do things differently there.
I realize it was the seventies – yes, I was there; I know what it was like.
And yes, I’ll even grant that I have cataracts.
But I just cannot conceive that anyone could possibly think this was an improvement.
There was a lot of that going around at the time, all up and down the scale from whole cars like this Mark Five down to…well…lookit this deface-your-Cadillac kit:
that’s the American Cheese Edition,
especially when it comes in orange
That’s not the only thing about that car that makes my brain hurt. The NO TIME license plate isn’t it, either. No, look closely at the windshield and top. That looks like a B Body convertible (Impala, Delta 88 etc.) No C body (DeVille) ragtops were built in the 1971-up generation.
I think this is a Caddy front clip, with their headlight kit, on a lesser GM ragtop.
Further thought.
Is it unkind to say “It’s from Motor Trend; there’s your problem.”
Better looking than the original but that isnt saying much