All aboooooard! The final port of call for this ‘70s Detroit Barge Week will take place on the vast deck of the good ship Continental. Look, it even has a porthole on the side! Hope you don’t get seasick too easily, as this vessel is known to be a bit on the wallowy side. Anyway, sound the foghorn, anchors away and let’s see if this Lincoln floats your boat.
A late ‘70s Lincoln really sticks out like a sore thumb in present-day Tokyo traffic. Actually, it sticks out mostly on the sides. I had just enough time to grab my phone a snap a couple of pics as this two-ton slab of butter rolled by.
This is Ginza, Tokyo’s most exclusive shopping district. The main street is uncommonly broad because, up to the early ‘70s, there used to be a tram line in the middle. Now, it’s just wide enough to accommodate what became the last American land yacht. Is that an amber turn signal on the bumper? Hmm…
Stroke of luck: after going full left rudder and over the horizon, the majestic cruiser disappeared from view, but I found it again a few minutes later, docked in a side street.
Lincoln stylists really stuck to their guns with the linear look pioneered by Engel’s revolutionary 1961 Continental. Those were already pretty massive (though they were a bit smaller than the 1958-60 cars), and only seemed to grow as the ‘60s wore on. When the Lincoln got a completely new Mercury-based body-on-frame architecture for 1970, the extra inches (and pounds) kept piling on.
Actually, the 1970-74 Lincolns were not as blocky and linear as all that – the 1975 redesign eliminated any hint of curves. By the time the 1977 facelift came around, the Continental was the biggest production car in Detroit – and the largest Ford product ever made. Perfect car to own in notoriously narrow Tokyo, right?
Apparently so. These tacked-on turn signals are a dead give-away: this car was sold new here, just like the equally outsized 1973 Eldorado we looked at yesterday, when all my troubles in the mirror were closer than they appear.
Speaking of which, those mirrors look wrong. I’ve trawled Google Images for ’77 Lincolns, and not a single one had those. Another one of those Japanese market oddities, perhaps? Also while we’re here, what is the deal with that weird little side vent? Or is that just a piece of chrome on added to the window? I’d never noticed it before, but it seems to have appeared on the 1974 Continentals.
The interior didn’t really come out right, sorry. Looks nice and comfy, of course. And blurry. But also original. All in all, a great place to sit in and enjoy the cruise. Or get sea-sick in.
Behind this mock Rolls grille is either a massive 402.2ci (6670cc) V8 providing a measly 179hp – which, for a 2.3-ton car, is not exactly a generous, or an even more massive 460ci (7538cc) mill, good for a (slightly better) 208hp. The 400 was apparently destined mainly for California, but perhaps the famously frugal Japanese buyer could specify one of those as well.
Nineteen seventy-seven was the big Conti’s best vintage, sales-wise. Over 95k were made that year, of which 68k were sedans. The coupes were always sort of second-fiddle to the four-doors, given that most folks who wanted a two-door Lincoln usually went for the more exclusive Marks (and Lincoln did sell 80k Mark Vs in 1977).
Add a pinch of Versailles (if you must), and the Lincoln division tallied up just over 191,000 cars for ’77 – the marque’s best-ever result to that point. That record lasted until 1988, but by that time, true XXL-size Lincolns like this Town Car were long gone, having been substantially downsized for MY 1980.
As much as the Eldorado we saw yesterday is not really my cup of tea, it’s impossible to hate the equally barge-like and underpowered Continental. I can’t quite put my finger on why – maybe it’s that they’re so brazenly in-your-face, with the kooky grille, the caricatural squarish shape and the pillowy leather bench seats.
Heck, even the 5mph bumpers fail to ruin the design, chiefly due to the car’s massive size. Whoever said that didn’t matter was dead wrong. I’m sure we all knew that, deep down.
Sail on, USS Lincoln. May you continue navigating the asphalt rivers of Japan while taking the space of two kei cars for many more decades. And of course, this post is dedicated to Jim Brophy, CC’s original Man in Japan and Lincoln aficionado. Wish you could have been with me the day I found this one. Let’s meet up at Jingu Gaien one of these Sundays. You never know what the tide might bring in.
Related posts:
Curbside Classic: 1978 Lincoln Continental Town Car – Best Prom Car Ever, by JPC
Curbside Classic: 1978-’79 Lincoln Town Car – The Lincoln Sleeps Tonight, by Daniel Stern
CC Outtake: 1977 or 1978 Lincoln Continental – Driving to the Hockey Game in Style, by GarryM
CC Capsule: 1978 Lincoln Continental Town Car – Vast, by Joseph Dennis
CC Capsule: 1979 Lincoln Continental Town Car – Built To Last, by Joseph Dennis
I thought the Japanese government swore off aircraft carriers after the war!
This must have been a delightful find. An old roommate had a ‘79 model in, iirc, a sort of metallic apricot colour with a maroon vinyl top. It felt absolutely gigantic driving around a US college town in the early aughts – I aspire one day to have the confidence it would take to pilot such a beastie on the streets of Tokyo.
I am always up for one of these, based on my memories of my father’s 78 Town Coupe. This car appears to have the same “cordovan” colored interior that Dad’s white car had.
The front window thing you mention was a FoMoCo feature for a short time in the 70s – power vent windows. When you pushed the power window button to lower the window, the front pane lowered first, then the rest of the window. Lots of people were smokers back then, and smokers loved their vent windows!
A really nice looking Town Coupe of this era showed up at a local dealership recently. I resisted the urge to pull in and look at it. “Hey honeeee, look what I just bought to replace the Honda Fit!” Maybe not.
When I was growing up my grandfather briefly owned a Mercury wagon with those dual-pane power vent windows, and I thought they were just about the coolest thing ever.
As I recall, they weren’t all that effective at drawing air into or out of the car (not like actual wing windows). Also, as the rubber seals between the two panes aged, they would leak and bind, causing the window operation to slow down.
No wonder it was a short lived feature.
Fab fact: these roll-down front vent windows were intended to be offered on the 1986 Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable, but didn’t make it to production. They are listed as an available option in the 1986 brochures for both cars though.
I never knew the vent windows and main front windows were operated by a single switch. I always assumed the vent windows had their own switch, as power swinging vent windows did on some cars.
Wow, this was very amateurishly written. The nautical references were getting a little heavy handed. I couldn’t get through it. The writer of a site dedicated to older vehicles doesn’t know what a vent window is?
Looking at the photos, the car is wider that the outline of the parking spot. A true land yacht.
I would image the standard for parking spaces in Japan is in the Camry category.
Great find!! 😉
Noticed that too!
The USS Abraham Lincoln contemporary with this car was a submarine. The aircraft carrier was not commissioned until 1989.
The sedan (4 doors, 3-box) has since the 1970s evolved size wise in disparate directions:
1. 3-4 feet shorter in overall length
2. 6-12 inches narrower abeam
BUT……
3. 3-6 inches TALLER
It was kind of amusing seeing my wife’s 2004 Corolla parked near a land yacht similar to this Lincoln, smaller in every dimension, yet ‘towering’ over it in overall height, a few years ago.
My two theories as to why the trend in #3:
Grown adults are taller than they were 40-50 years ago, and/or a taller vehicle better facilitates entry and exit.
Your thoughts?
It is no secret why today’s sedans are taller than their ’70s counterparts.
1. While low cars look cool, they are difficult to get into and out of (ditto for tall vehicles). As an aging adult, I find the easiest vehicles to enter and exit have a seat cushion at roughly the height of my hips (actually just a little below, so I can “drop” in). Taller sedans are simply easier for an aging population to use.
2. Compact cars can’t really get much bigger in length or width and still be considered compact, but raising the roof can make small cars seem a little less cramped and more spacious inside.
3. Everyone seems to like the increased visibility of the higher seating positions of modern SUV and CUV vehicles, a sentiment I can’t entirely disagree with – it can be disconcerting riding around in my SLK being at eye level with everyone’s door handles and wheel hubs, wondering if they see me or not. Modern sedans have crept up their seat height over the years to impart at least some of that SUV-like visibility to them.
Well, traditional sedans and remaining wagons have grown taller for sure, but not so much the greenhouse(the glass area).
While my 2010 Honda Accord might not be so bad in this regard, many other sedans have slits for windows, atop a belt line so high I need to raise the drivers seat up all the way to have the same amount of downward view over it as I did in older cars from the 1980s.
Auto mfgs have made up for this with cameras, and “blindspot sensors”. This to me lacks basic sense. Do the rising beltlines make people really feel safe in such cars?
Those little front door vent windows were power operated and slid down into the door, before the entire window then slid down. They were available on Lincoln until 1989.
Wasn’t ’77 the last year for fender skirts on Lincolns? 1976 was for the standard Cadillac until they put them on late 80s FWD Fleetwoods and the mid 90s whale Broughams. A fashion I don’t miss.
Yes, sort of. The 1978-79 Continentals actually did have tiny fender skirts, but they were really just there to provide a lip in the wheel cutout that matched those in the front fenders, without having to tool up for new rear fenders.
This reminds me of the big Mercury sedan of about the same vintage and color that dimwitted, US-centric, ex-CIA operative Kevin Kline careened around London in A Fish Called Wanda, screaming, “A$$hole!” at whatever local motorist he’d cut-off and/or sideswiped with his land yacht.
One of my high school buddies’ parents purchased a lovingly used 1977 just like this but for two things. Theirs had the Lincoln wire wheel covers that I think looked a little nicer than these. The other thing was their car had the velour seats instead of leather. But the outside and inside colors were the same. I can’t recall if their car had the half top or full top like this one. Either way, I always found that creamy yellow with the dark maroon top and seats to be stunning.
Great find and thanks for the pictures. Glad to see some in Japan love big American classics too.
These Continentals were considered massive land yachts even in America, the floatiest of the Detroit big luxury cars. I can’t imagine what they feel like being seen and driven in Japan.
1977 was the last year for the real Lincoln dashboard in these; in 1978 they were replaced with the same dash used in the cheaper Mercury Marquis. While not unattractive, they had a generic big-Ford look that cheapened the look of the interior IMO.
If that beastie doesn’t have the full 460 CID motor, I’d be disappointed.
Why have the yacht and put an outboard motor on it?
I love the way you snuck in so many nautical references. 🙂
While I’m not particularly a fan of these Lincolns, you can see the relationship to the sixties classics. While it says “I’m not for the likes of you” in much the same manner as yesterdays Caddy does, it comes across as a much more cohesive, usable design. I think that’s down to the straighter lines and flatter sides. I suspect the doors are just as thick as the Cadillac’s, but the way they’re styled they look lighter, as though the car will be roomier. Very conservative. Big but not brash. The only thing I would alter would be to put a little more crown in the roof; it looks a little too flat when viewed the three-quarter rear. Ford seemed to have troubles in this regard in the seventies.
Kudos to somebody who can captain this through Tokyo though! And I love the colour.
This Love Boat is so big it would even stand out here in the US Midwest. Now if the owner really wanted to get a chuckle out of Tokyoites, or Edokko all they need to do is stick a picture of Captain Stubing or “Schtupping” in each of those funky porthole windows.
Great find – Meiji Jingu Gaien in certainly the place to be on Sunday.
Looking forward to meeting up soon and taking in all the gems.
Have a great Golden Week.
It’s funny that this massive car had such tiny emblems. Not that you needed to read the emblem to know what kind of car it was. From a block away you knew it was a Lincoln.
My favorite Town Car was always the 1974. It had the complete set of gauges and the dash seemed to be made to look more luxurious imo.
A friends dad used to lease all his cars. He had a 1978 white with a white interior and black carpet. The first time my friend took me out in it he explained that his dad was a heavy smoker. As I opened the door, smoke billowed out! Jk but oh the smell was horrible!
Anyway my friend Donnie asked me to help him clean it up as he was driving it to his prom!!
About one and a half years go by and his dad pulls up in there then new small four door Continental!
I asked Donnie why he traded so often, and he told me that the leasing company refused to lease for any longer period due to his mistreatment of their cars!!! Smart people!!
Thanks for the memories
These are a lot of car even the two door version is barge like, Somebody came in the Wiri transfer one day in a Lincoln Continental, no big deal people do it every day the guy in it wheeled it around in the big area the trucks turn in and it didnt like it, it was being complied for NZ roads and needed to weigh it on the out lane, not the car for autocross.
I’m guessing that odd looking right hand side mirror was a practical necessity for driving a (very large) LHD vehicle in Japan.
The mirror is definitely not a stock part. The factory mirrors were a sideways rectangle shape with the mount attached to the front of the mirror body. I owned two glorious Lincolns, a 1973 Continental coupe in metallic split pea green with an evergreen vinyl top and matching evergreen leather interior. My second one was a 1995 Towncar signature Spinnaker edition-white with navy blue leather interior. I completely loved both of them, but as the article mentioned, getting in and out of them as I’ve aged, made it so I couldn’t keep them. An absolute joy to drive, and roadtrip in, nothing can match the luxurious ride they gave on the interstate. Smooth quiet power on tap.