(first posted 8/2/2016) As we saw in Eric703’s post on the 1979 Lincoln Continental, the wondrous whoppers were quite successful in their final years and would be hard to replace. Without a doubt, downsizing and rethinking FoMoCo’s flagship line was a monumental challenge. In their Q4 1979 release, Automobile Quarterly took an early behind-the-scenes look at the development of the new 1980 Lincolns, as designers, engineers and marketers struggled to transform “extra-large size, presence and luxury” into “still familiar but newly relevant.”
The problem was that the Lincoln “look” had been the epitome of longer, lower and wider for years, and the massive dimensions were required to ensure that the formal, baroque styling appeared proportional. Pasting the angular design cues on the smaller platform wreaked havoc on the visual impact, transforming it from “stately” to “square and stumpy.”
A trip inside the styling studios revealed some of the early design concepts, both for the Continental and the Mark VI. As is often the case with renderings, the sketches are sleeker and more stylish than the products that eventually emerged: the rooflines in particular looked less clunky, and the bumpers seemed more contemporary and better integrated.
Also clearly evident in the early clay model from November 23, 1976 were the extremely long overhangs (especially jarring in front) that Paul chronicled in his design analysis of the Lincoln Mark VI. Sadly, the model’s cleaner roofline with limousine-style wrap-over doors did not make it to production.
The Head of Design for the 1980 Lincolns, Gail Halderman (who was a key designer on the original Mustang), noted that there were styling proposals with more “flowing lines” but unfortunately those concepts did not move forward. Did the top Ford brass fear that these were too much of a departure? The downsized Lincolns were a program Lee Iacocca would have signed off on, so did his creeping conservatism and love of styling clichés come into play?
Personally I’ve never been a fan of the “half-vinyl” tops on 4-door sedans, and the designers were rightly concerned about how this feature would look on the blockier, downsized cars. However, the powers-that-be felt it was necessary as a unique “premium” Lincoln option–though ironically it also became available on the top-of-the-line Panther 4-doors at Ford and Mercury for 1980 as well.
With or without the half-vinyl top, the roofline on the new Lincolns was a discordant mix of thick pillars and vertical lines. The taller roofline, more vertical windshield angle, framed door glass, rear quarter window cut-outs, vent window cut-outs, opera windows, opera lights and puffy padded vinyl all conspired to make the car look bulkier and more top-heavy than the previous generation Continentals. The Continental Coupe, though far from a raving beauty, at least had a simpler greenhouse.
While the main focus of Lincoln’s new offerings was t-square styling and traditional Detroit interior opulence combined with improved efficiency, Dearborn also wanted to emphasize extra-cost options for its flagship cars. In particular, the Digital Age was getting into full swing in the late 1970s, and Lincoln wanted to be a leader in offering fancy electronic gizmos on the new 1980 car. The “space age” digital instrument cluster was standard on the Mark VI (and a pricey option for the Continental at around $1,000, or $2,925 adjusted), and “futuristic” options like electronic door and trunk locks (aka “keyless entry”) were offered to tempt luxury buyers.
Who would those Lincoln buyers be? Well, they looked a lot like Cadillac buyers for starters. For their core product lines (Continental and DeVille/Fleetwood), both domestic luxury brands found 75% of their sales going to buyers aged 45 and older, with median household income ranging from $36,000 ($119,523 adjusted) to $37,000 ($122,843 adjusted). Mark V and Eldorado buyers tended to be younger, wealthier and more style conscious. That last point would prove lethal for the Mark VI 2-doors…
Ford Motor Company Marketers were gearing up valiantly for battle, trying to focus on functional benefits of the new Lincolns such as fuel economy (no mileage miser, but better than before) and roominess. However, the magic marketing elixir of indulgence and prestige, previously so vital for American luxury cars, seemed to have vanished. Likewise, the new emphasis on engineering efficiency was at odds with the extremely formal, ponderous 1980 Lincoln styling.
This marketing confusion likely resulted from internal struggles during the development of the car. Automobile Quarterly offered some glimpses into the machinations of Ford’s senior management at the time. These were the last days of Lido: Iacocca would be out just a year before these Lincolns started production, and the write-up hinted at the disagreement between Henry Ford II and his underling on the direction of the downsized cars. “Hank The Deuce” was coming around to the notion of smaller cars with more international flair, while for Lee Iacocca it was “baroque or bust.” Lido wound up getting his preferred car design…and the boot right out of Ford Motor Company.
Not explicitly noted in the article, but nonetheless a huge event in Detroit and New York at the time, was the massive shake-up in Ad Agencies that resulted from Iacocca’s move to Chrysler. Kenyon & Eckhardt had been a key Ford Motor Company Advertising Agency since 1948, including having responsibility for Lincoln-Mercury campaigns in the 1970s. The Agency was also very close to Lee Iacocca. Shortly after his arrival at the ailing Pentastar, Iacocca dismissed all of Chrysler’s key Ad Agencies including Young & Rubicam, BBDO and Ross Roy, consolidating the business with–you guessed it–Kenyon & Eckhardt. Ford was left without a key marketing partner, and the Agency musical chairs that followed resulted in Young & Rubicam winning the Lincoln-Mercury business just before the launch of the downsized 1980 cars. The new Agency had to scramble to launch the new cars, no doubt with plenty of added pressure from FoMoCo demanding big sales gains for the smaller Lincolns.
Unfortunately for Ford Motor Company, the plan to increase production capacity for the new Lincolns at the Wixom, Michigan plant was for naught: sales of the downsized 1980 Lincolns were a disaster! Much of that could be attributed to the second Oil Shock and the dismal economy, along with an extreme shift in buyer preferences to smaller cars. Even mighty Cadillac took it on the chin, with total brand sales dropping 39%, while the core DeVille/Fleetwood lines saw sales tumble 47%, dropping to 136,637 for the model year.
But the damage was far worse at Lincoln. Total brand sales for FoMoCo’s flagship sank 61% to just 74,908 cars. Sales of the Continental Sedan and Coupe plunged 66% to 31,233. Sales of the Mark IV dropped almost as alarmingly, declining 49% to 38,891. However, peel away at those Mark VI numbers and the story actually got even worse. 1980 saw the arrival of a 4-door Mark VI, nothing more than a fancy Continental that captured 18,244 traditional sedan buyers, and thus should really be counted as part of the Continental total.
As for the high-end personal luxury coupe market, buyers stayed away from the Mark VI 2-door in droves: a mere 20,647 were sold for 1980, representing a catastrophic 73% drop versus the 1979 Mark V. Arch rival Eldorado easily regained its sales lead, besting the Mark VI 2-door by 32,036 units, and would significantly outsell the Lincoln Mark through 1985. Obviously an awkward “Mini-Me” Mark V with a base price almost 20% higher–equating to a cost increase of $2,720 ($9,031 adjusted)–was not what the marked wanted. And the agony just continued for the Mark VI 2-door, with sales of 18,740 in 1981, 11,532 in 1982 and 12,743 for 1983–in fact, at 63,662 units, all production for the 2-door Mark VI didn’t even equal the weakest single year for the Mark V (1978 with 72,602 sold).
The only silver lining in this dark cloud was that the horrific sales shocked Ford management out of their styling stupor (and the departure of Iacocca probably helped in that regard). The designers furiously went to work on restyling some of FoMoCo’s biggest 1980 bombs, like the Ford Thunderbird (-44% year-over-year), the Mercury Cougar XR-7 (-65% versus 1979) and of course the Mark VI coupe. The new aero look for the Ford and Mercury personal luxury coupes that arrived for 1983, along with the sleek 1984 Lincoln Mark VII, ushered in a bold and successful design ethos that would serve FoMoCo very well in the coming decade.
While the personal luxury coupe market was still too big to dismiss (thus the hasty redesign to mitigate the Mark VI 2-door disaster), Lincoln simply gave up on the traditional large luxury coupe. The 2-door Continental was rechristened Town Car Coupe for 1981, along with Town Car for sedans–the Continental name would migrate to the bustle-backed Fox-based “baby” Lincoln. But that was about the extent of the changes for the big Lincoln 2-door’s short life: it would be gone for 1982, after selling only 7,177 in 1980 and a mere 4,935 for 1981. This minty green example, found by Tom Klockau on eBay a few years back, is indeed a very rare car–hopefully it found a nice home.
However, plenty of Town Car sedans found homes in the 1980s, and Lincoln wound up having the last laugh in the quest for old-school American car buyers. After a dreadful start to the decade, Town Car sales started to climb in 1983. Styling revisions in 1985 smoothed out the blocky lines a bit and prompted another sales spurt.
Ultimately, the same old-school look and feel that had powered the super-sized Continentals to their best sales years at the end of their production run also applied to the downsized Continentals/Town Cars of the 1980s. An unbelievable high point was reached for 1988, when 201,113 were sold. In fact, sales for this 10-year generation of big Lincolns beat the milestone set by the previous 10-year generation: 886,916 Continentals/Town Cars were sold from 1980 through 1989, topping the 615,151 Continentals sold from 1970 through 1979. Missteps by Cadillac undoubtedly helped, but no matter the cause, Lincoln happily mopped-up the market for ultra-traditional luxury buyers and big city livery fleets.
Lee Iacocca must have been fuming! After all, this was his boxy baby that was generating enormous, chrome-dipped, pillow-tufted profits for the Ford Motor Company. Well, he’d show them who was the real king of the luxury car world! Lee’s newest brainchild, this time bestowed upon Chrysler, was readied to capture the coveted luxury car crown for the 1990s!
Or not.
The problem for conventional “Detroit Think” was that consumer tastes in luxury cars changed dramatically during the 1980s. Upscale buyers had discovered prestige in subtly styled cars with engaging performance, while falling in love with brands that deployed cutting-edge engineering and first-rate materials. So while the unexpected success of the backward-looking Lincolns wound-up contributing handsomely to Ford Motor Company’s bottom line, these volume sales actually inflicted long lasting brand damage. After all, discerning car buyers, young or old, didn’t want a brand that was the rolling showcase for yesterday’s tastes. Lexus, not Lincoln, would soon become synonymous with modern, desirable, cosseting luxury cars.
Personally, I wish that the same urgency that prompted Dearborn to rapidly reinvent the Mark VI with a fresh, relevant new look had also been applied to rapidly revamping the Town Car. Imagine if we had seen the handsome, aero-inspired-but-still-obviously-a-Lincoln Town Car design that appeared for 1990 come out in 1985 instead…
Or imagine if Lincoln had developed a flagship sedan based on a stretched-wheelbase version of the sophisticated MN12 platform that underpinned the 1989 Thunderbird and Cougar. Such a move would have given Lincoln a capable, comfortable, right-sized RWD V8 competitor to attract upscale customers just as the luxury market saw enormous transformation and growth. Now that would have been what a luxury car should be!
Additional reading:
eBay Find: 1981 Continental Mark VI – Pine Opalescent Panther by Tom Klockau
Car Show Classic: 1982 Lincoln Town Car – Honey, I Shrank The Lincoln by Jason Shafer
Curbside Classic: 1983 Lincoln Continental Mark VI – Missing The Mark by JPCavanaugh
Car Show Outtake: 1983 Lincoln Continental Mark VI – Mark Of Indistinction by Brendan Saur
I like the 1980s Panther Town Cars although I wish they had been available with a “naked” roof. Once they got true fuel injection it was clear to me that they were a compelling choice over the still carbureted Cadillacs of the era.
Yes Iacocca loved his styling cliches but in many ways the demographics of the groups who had the income to buy a Lincoln were still on his side when it came to those cliches.
Some of you might know that Jeff Teague, the son of AMC’s VP of Styling, Richard “Dick” Teague, passed away unexpected over the weekend. He wasn’t quite 60. A designer in his own right (check out his Wikipedia page. What you might not know is that Jeff was the primary designer for the Lincoln Mark VII, which is in my opinion, a landmark design for Lincoln. I’m fortunate enough to own a 1990 Bill Blass Mark VII. Jeff sent me some design sketches of the Mark VII, which I am trying to locate. But in the meantime, here’s a photo of my Mark VII.
Thanks for the note on Jeff Teague, and the photo of your car is brochure worthy. Beautiful car!
+1
Sorry to hear about Jeff Teague. Your car truly captures the beauty of his design and this shot is a great tribute.
Wiki claims he did the ’84 Fox Continental (“also” or “instead”?). They also credit him with the Taurus & Sable wagons. Thanks for the info!
I’d be curious to see a full list of designs he did/contributed. If he did the 84 Fox Continental he would have only penned the “aero” facelift(which I admittedly am not a fan of), since the rest of the car dates back to 1982.
Wow, I had no idea on both points. The Mark VII is in my top 10 favorite designs, and the first gen Taurus/Sable wagons were, IMO, the last truly great looking wagons, which funnily enough the other great looking wagons prior being the Hornet/Concord. Sad, he died very young.
I find most of the design studies more interesting than what Lincoln actually produced for 1980. Tight budgets and fear seemed to rule the final downsizing styling decisions of most Ford products – they ended up simply shrinking and squaring out most of the prior larger car’s design cues – to generally disastrous results.
But, those disasters did cause Ford to wake up, and the 1983 Thunderbird was a bellwether of Better Ideas From Ford.
I still find the 1990 Town Car to be timeless, and wish it were still in production. While I’ve been criticized for this comment before – I still see this as having potentially been the United States’ Toyota Century.
Agree, that was the best TC of all the Panthers, which managed to be both sleek & formal.
Agree, I loved those (and hated the cheapened up ‘Town Marquis’ that Jac Nasser cooked up to replace it).
Interesting that the old school look of the late eighties Town Car was doing a lot more to keep Lincoln going than the aero Mark VII or Taurus based Continental. Given that, I am not sure aiming younger with the whole Lincoln line would have had better results The older folks are almost always the ones with the money. Some younger folks may have admired some of the LSCs, but they either were not in the market or would rather send their money overseas.
I owned an ’81 and ’87 Town Car; loved them both. In some ways I liked them even more than my current driver, an ’05 Town Car.
I find the downsized panther Town Cars MUCH more manageable in “Real World” driving than the oversized, bloated parade floats of the late 1970’s.
The ’81 was the best built model, easily the highest quality control.
The ’87 was the fastest of the three.
The ’05 has the most responsive transmission and tightest handling; but still not quite the “not even slowing down for railroad tracks” smooth ride of the ’81 model.
There is NOTHING in a current Lincoln showroom to entice me inside. No tarted up Ford Fusion or Ford F-100 pick up truck chassis based “Luxury SUV” for ME! I’m just old enough to recall when a pick up truck was considered “commercial” or what farmers drove to town.
+1 on the pickups
I am just glad there was never a Mercury version of the Ranger. The Mountaineer was bad enough, but at least they came standard with the 302, a package easily swapped into early Ranger/Bronco II’s
Every time I see one of the 1980 Lincolns next to one of the 78-79 models, old feelings of disgust bubble up from some place way down deep. The car was a fail on so many levels. I never found them attractive. By the late 80s they had fiddled with the details to the point where it was tolerable (or maybe 7 or 8 years had desensitized me) but I was never in love with these.
The cars just lacked the substantial feel that the earlier models had, never mind the looks. It is a shame Lincoln never found a way to put the 351 in these cars. A Lincoln buyer should have gotten some mechanical exclusivity besides air suspension for spending all that money.
I agree with Dave B that the 1990 model was a huge improvement, and when the electronically controlled transmission came along in 1992-ish, the cars finally drove as nicely as they looked. The only style points that car lost was for the big clumsily covered seam where the C pillar met the roof panel. For what they charged, could they not have filled that seam?
Particularly since the new, front wheel drive, downsized “Baby Cadillac” of the late 1980’s was SUCH a well proportioned, attractive & appealing design? #RollEyes
Yes, that 1985 Cadillac was a stinker, and did more to improve my outlook on the 80-89 TCs than anything Lincoln did with them.
My father went straight from a 78 Town Coupe to an 80 Town Coupe. I don’t recall any repair issues (other than a temp gauge that went haywire when I was driving it) but after that 78, everything about the 80 felt flimsy and cheap. And slow. After that car, Dad had several FoMoCo cars, but never another Panther.
Wow. Great read, and wonderful details here.
When I was writing the 1979 Continental article, I was really struck by the similarities of the 1970s and 1980s Lincolns, with both seeing very strong sales in the final years of their (long) production runs. Both wound up being bulwarks against more recent design trends and a refuge for buyers seeking traditionalism. And both took a long, interesting road to get to that point.
Since you mentioned the 1988 Town Car production total of 201,113 — do you (or anyone else) know why that number was so high for 1988? Equivalent figures for 1987 (76,000) and 1989 (129,000) are nowhere near that mark. I simply can’t figure it out, though I’ve seen that number in a variety of places (my production chart in the Continental article ended at 1987 for just that reason – I felt the 1988 #s would be distracting, and I couldn’t explain them). It could have been a surge of fleet sales, or a long model year… just two ideas, but I’m wondering if anyone else has a better explanation.
The ’88 TC was a spring ’87 introduction, unveiled at Chicago Auto Show that season. So, it was on sale longer than 12 months. It got subtle styling tweaks, like the brushed Aluminum rear tail panel.
Thanks — the numbers make sense now, and it also explains the small 1987 Town Car production numbers (by far the smallest in the 1984-89 range).
I guess the brushed aluminum tail panel was a big hit!
Also: wasn’t the downsized, front wheel drive “Baby” Cadillac was new for 1987? It was more of an ill proportioned, butt-ugly design than the Town Car was.
Given this unfortunate, awkward body and Caddy’s growing reputation for unreliability & terrible quality control; the stolid, reliable, high quality control, boxy Town Car looked darned good by comparison.
Anyone recall the Lincoln commercial in which the parking valet could not find the Cadillac, in a lot full of Buicks, Pontiacs and Oldsmobiles? A Town Car always stood out from these “Downsized” Front wheel Drive GM failures.
There’s no doubt the downsized GM C-bodies that arrived for 1985 helped Lincoln immensely. Just as the Town Car styling got cleaned up a bit, Cadillac let loose its dumpy, dated-looking FWD DeVille/Fleetwoods, which looked a lot like the Oldsmobile and Buick C-bodies, which looked a lot like the Chevrolet, Pontiac, Olds and Buick A-bodies…
The resulting Lincoln commercial was marketing brilliance:
https://youtu.be/SaZqQLpbjFU
Also, Cadillac’s HT4100 V8 bomb was already widely known for being underpowered–and poor quality, after just a few years on the market. Consumer Guide Auto at this point was routinely recommending the Lincoln products over Cadillacs.
Just this past weekend, I saw a late-80s DeVille parked in a neighborhood. As we were driving by it, my wife said “Hey, did you notice that Oldsmobile?”
I had to laugh. Even after 30 years, they still look alike.
GN: Yes, that’s the awesome commercial I was thinking of. SO True!! Even today.
Thanks for posting it here.
“In fact, sales for this 10-year generation of big Lincolns beat the milestone set by the previous 10-year generation: 886,916 Continentals/Town Cars were sold from 1980 through 1989, topping the 615,151 Continentals sold from 1970 through 1979. Missteps by Cadillac undoubtedly helped…”
To say that another of Roger Smith’s (many) Deadly Sins during his tenure as GM CEO undoubtedly contributed to Lincoln’s eighties success, would be an understatement.
It’s ironic that GM did big-car FWD back in the ’60s (with technical success) when it wasn’t needed & few other carmakers anywhere believed it worthwhile in this segment, while dragging their feet on small, transverse FWD & then failing with the X-cars, when it really mattered.
For once, Ford’s technical conservatism in full-sized cars paid off handsomely.
Excellent analysis, and I totally agree, the boom of the Town Car in the 80s did more harm than good for Lincoln’s brand image. Lincoln had a fairly modern line of cars by the 90s, including the redesigned Town Car, but the damage done by those boxy broughams utterly cast a shadow on efforts like the Mark VII and VIII, which really weren’t huge sellers.
The first couple of renderings I find quite interesting, the low sloping hood, thin headlights, steeply raked windshield and formal roof looks like a broughamy Lagonda. Iacocca definitely seemed to have that in his head with the K Imperial, but it would have been much better if it were executed on the larger Panther platform in the first place
I always thought that the greenhouse was just too big. It said, “Look, we have just as much room as the ’79”, but didn’t fit on the much smaller body. Look at the masterful job they did in downsizing the ’61, 14.8″ in body and 8″ in wheelbase taken out, but a FAR better looking car. Not so much in ’80. The ’79-84 Eldorado always struck me as being a much better Mark VI shape, just adjust the trim!
The ’61 lost a lot of back seat room in the downsizing, probably why sales didn’t grow that much for such a ground-breaking design.
The main reason was that Lincoln pared down the lineup pretty severely for ’61; no 2-doors at a time when the Coupe de Ville was Cadillac’s best-seller and no entry-luxury model when Caddy Series 62s sold decently well. Further, the Continental sedan was priced well above a Sedan de Ville, almost halfway between it and the Fleetwood 60 Special, and the ragtop was firmly in Fleetwood territory.
“Or imagine if Lincoln had developed a flagship sedan based on a stretched-wheelbase version of the sophisticated MN12 platform that underpinned the 1989 Thunderbird and Cougar. Such a move would have given Lincoln a capable, comfortable, right-sized RWD V8 competitor to attract upscale customers just as the luxury market saw enormous transformation and growth.”
Technically that was what the DEW98 was supposed to be, but the program dragged on forever, Hoovering $$$ before finally yielding the LS (Which was an attractive car undone by too high a price and iffy reliability).
Ironically it probably would have been better (read ‘quicker and cheaper’) to have just used the MN12 platform but, after its Program Manager was cashiered over its cost overruns, that platform became radioactive inside FoMoCo.
MN12 platform needs some further torsion rigidity and I guess it’s one of the reason they went with the Taurus platform. And Lincoln-Mercury dealers needed a front wheel drive luxury car anyhow, and it made sense. But the drawback of the reliability is too apparent on those cars, on top of the not so reliable transmission.
I seriously doubt there’s a deficit of torsional rigidity in the MN12 platform over the Taurus D186 platform. I’ve driven both extensively over the years, neither one is outshining the other.
I think it’s a simple packaging issue, the MN12 was engineered to be only a 2 door coupe from the start, and the D186 was engineered to be only a sedan from the start, unlike older platforms like the Falcon or Fox which had to serve multiple purposes from the get-go. The MN12 has a relatively long wheelbase at 113″, longer than the Continental by 4 inches in fact, yet rear seat legroom is relatively cramped in the MN12, while being comfortable in the shorter Lincoln. The fuel tank is the reason for that, as it occupies a full third of the wheelbase directly below the rear seat, and to turn that platform into a sedan would have likely required an even longer wheelbase or undergo significant repackaging of the rear floorpan, fuel tank and IRS which probably far outweighed the efforts to stuff a 32v V8 in a Taurus platform. I think by the time that generation Continental would have started it’s development cycle the writing may have already been on the wall for further development of the MN12 as well, just as Paul speculates.
Great article. I was 15 in the fall of ’79 when these things came out and I remember reading an advance article about them in either C&D or Motor Trend. Thought they were ugly and ungainly looking then, and I still feel the same way today. The top-heavy look combined with too many upright lines and wheel openings/tires that were undersized made these cars look like crap.
They got slightly better after the aero restyle in 1985, but I was never a huge fan of them. BTW in the top photo montage I really like the the top left hand drawing (gold) and the bottom right hand drawing (red). These are what the new smaller Lincolns should have looked more like.
The buyers of the time “got used to” the size and rescued the full size cars from oblivion. Who would have guessed in the dark days of 1979-80 that big cars would come back 3 years later? Oil prices eased and people also “got used to” 1 dollar a gallon fuel.
When their 1976 era tanks were wearing out, the new downsized full size cars looked bigger compared to Citations and Escorts, so sales went up.
Meh, I love the four door Mk. VI in all its gingerbready glory.
It’s funny how styles/fads come and go. Now I see sporty Benzes, Bimmers, Lexuses, and Caddies driven by the same sort of blue hair demographic that would have been the main target audience, and they drive the same way their predecessors drove those pillowy Lincoln boats. It’s mostly about keeping up with the Jones’, badge snobbery, or rewarding one’s self at retirement-just like it was when the Caddy/Lincoln/Imperial luxoboats ruled the roost.
We Americans used to love our BIG cars; big, boxy Broughams spelled s-u-c-c-e-s-s. Despite being a different world in 2016, I find those ’70s land yachts still looking good to my jaundiced eye. Mostly. I don’t like the looks of every 1970s-era barge, but I do most of them! I don’t even mind the looks of the early ’80s Lincolns and I wouldn’t mind driving an ’81 Town Car around to see what it runs like (thanks to ‘mark reimer’s summary of said vehicle). But after the mid-80s I can’t work up enthusiasm for any cars.
Last week I found an old article that discussed the 1979 Lincoln Continental. I had set it aside in a folder of aging news clippings I liked and fancied keeping. Someone had sent it to me years ‘n’ years ago. (I wish I could remember who!). I was glad to run across it again. The end of the article talked about how the downsized 1980 model Lincolns were on the horizon and how the ’79s were the end of an era.
Should I live long enough to be part of the Blue Hair crowd I need to be put out of my misery if I start desiring sporty cars ’cause I know I will be senile. I didn’t like sporty cars when I was young and now I’m middle-aged at 43 and still have zero desire for sporty cars. I would gladly own a ’60s or ’70s Luxoboat, however. 😀
While these were a flop compared to the Sedan de Ville, it seems like the Town Car was much more popular than the Cadillacs among coachbuilders. I don’t have numbers, but my childhood memory is that 1980’s limos were far more likely to be Lincolns than Cadillacs. I assume the coachbuilders were fleeing from Cadillac’s HT4100, but perhaps someone knows the real story? Were the early Sedan de Villes (425 and 368 engines) used for limousine conversions?
Cadillac kept the 368 for their commercial chassis for several years after the HT4100 came out. They should have made it an option on their regular cars, but CAFE. Peak hp wasn’t that much more than the smaller engine, but the torque was. OTOH, it used the same iron block as the 500, so it weighed a lot more.
I never cared for the Town Car’s Grosse Pointe Gothic look compared with its crosstown rival, the Cadillac DeVille/Fleetwood. The pointy fenders and pseudo rolls grille were tolerable but the inset of the windows combined with the multiplicity of windows makes it look busy and looks awful to me. The Cadillac had flusher windows and a much more simple, elegant, stately style. Of course, the Lincoln engines were better for most of the car’s run.
I am betting that the 1988 surge was due to the intro of the Taurus based Continental, and many Lincoln buyers picked the Town Car over the Continental.
I dunno that Iacocca ever intended for the Chrysler New Yorker/Fifth Avenue FWD models to be the top of the line luxury cars in America. I think he knew exactly what he was selling; leftover K cars with gobs of luxury trim at massive profits. He also figured out that there was a huge target market for retirees who couldn’t swing a Cadillac/Town Car payments but wanted all the glitz and bordello luxury of a Cadillac/Town Car and could not care less how old and flimsy the chassis was. The New Yorker/Fifth Avenue went out the door for about 20; the Town car/Brougham of the early 90’s were around 25-30. It’s not as though the Town Car/Brougham were hugely advanced. From what I recall the FWD New Yorker/Fifth Avenue sold very well (my grandfather LOVED his), were durable, and must have been hugely profitable for Chrysler. How much can it cost to glop a vinyl roof, leather interior, and some power gadgetry on a nine thousand dollar K car.
Yeah, Iacocca’s luxury K-car variants seemed aimed more at fresh blue-collar retirees who were cross-shopping big Mercurys and Buicks instead of Lincolns or Cadillacs. In that market, a similarly priced FWD New Yorker or Fifth Avenue would have done okay. It wasn’t the ultimate, but was still plush (and practical) enough for many former working stiffs.
I also prefer the RWD C-body Cadillac styling to the Lincoln, at least up through the mid-1980s. The “aero” re-skin for 1980 was well done, but it was a real pity about the Cadillac engines, starting in 1981. By the mid-1980s, Lincoln cleaned up the Town Car’s looks a bit, which helped, while Cadillac stood still with the RWD car, which got really boring. From there, I thought Cadillac’s “refresh” in 1990 was dreadful, while the thoroughly revamped 1990 Town Car was very good looking.
As for Iacocca, I think his real brilliance was exactly what you point out: he knew how to take existing platforms and give them a very specific look designed to appeal to a particular audience. Often that was accomplished with schmaltz, but it frequently worked and usually highly profitable. Automotive visionary and champion of styling and engineering excellence: no way. Outstanding automotive businessman: absolutely!
I think the other problem is that Lincoln also started having missteps starting about 97 as well that pretty much killed whatever efforts earlier in the decade they may have done. I mean, first you had the Mark VIII redesign, which turned a very sleek if somewhat polarizing car and gave it a frog faced front end that did completely went against the body style it was attached to. Then, you had the Town Car redesign that looked like all the other panther bodies with a front end, which is to say going from formal and boxy yet modern, to looking like an upside down bathtub and slightly more upscale taxi. Then you had both versions of the Continental, that not only didn’t do the best job of hiding their Taurus roots, but in it’s final years cost the same as the bigger Town Car as well. That’s not even getting into the decontenting thanks to Jacques Nasser that made the interiors cheaper, plasitcky, and low grade at best (My dad had a 2000 Taurus for a lot of years, so I’m very familiar with how low grade interiors at Ford became in this era, made the interior of my Eldorado look like an S-Class by comparison) Honestly, as much crap has been given to the Navigator, it really was the only new car from them that was a genuine hit when it came out, everything else either had a great concept but was poorly executed (LS) or was just plain stupid to even comprehend (Blackwood).
While these 80s Town Cars are boxy and definitely a bit dated during their decade, speaking as someone who experienced them as old cars that were rarely seen, I think the 80s Town Car has held up rather well for the most part. It’s very much set in it’s era, but having seen a few in person, they are very simple in their design but executed with a very deft hand that’s hard to pull off. I’ve been looking at one as a possible second car, but that’s the future. I will agree that the 90 restyle looks better, and I will agree with Dave B that if you could keep the same basic shape of the 90s Town Car (Especially the 95 redesign) and updated it a bit, it could’ve been America’s Toyota Century, it still looks that good.
Yep, a ’95ish Town Car is about the best, over all, of the aero Town Cars. Still stately, but with more modern technology and engineering.
That said, I’d gladly rock an early ’80s Town Car.
A good friend of mine’s job, in the early 1990’s, was as a commercial trade chauffeur.
The small livery company he worked for had 5 new Cadillacs, one early 1980’s Town Car.
The competition for that old, higher mileage Town Car was fierce. Drivers AND customers were known to say “Gimmie the TC”.
Another thing to keep in mind when comparing sales of the 80’s to the 79’s is the sales boost the 79’s and to a lesser extent the 78’s saw as people realized they were the last of the breed.
I’m always reminded of what my Uncle said when we rolled up in our new 77 Caprice on the summer trip to see all those relatives we didn’t see that often. “I’d sooner buy a Lincoln than one of those sawed off excuses for a Cadillac”. A little perspective, my Aunt was the Bookkeeper for the only car dealership in their small town, a full line GM dealer and like clock work my Uncle ordered up a new Cadillac every other year pretty much as soon as the order sheet was available. Knowing what was coming he ordered a 76 Sedan De Ville pretty much as late as he could to replace his 75. He kept that 76 until he ordered a 79 Lincoln.
Oog. The memories, they come back like last night’s deeply questionable street burrito.
In 1987 my father made the large mistake of buying a used ’80 Continental Town Car with about 50,000 miles. Its styling was quite sharp; to my eye, the ’80-’84 models, whether Mark or Town Car, were the nicest lookers; the ’85 rear end face (ahem) lift was a crude disfigurement and most of the frontal mods were at best not improvements, and the subsequent models grew progressively uglier as what had been a brand-new bar of soap was iteratively melted.
But classy styling and a giant trunk are all I’ll give that ’80 Stinkoln Clown Car my father bought. It was an execrable excuse for an automobile in just about every way. With almost any other car I’d say it had suffered from previous-owner neglect, but it’s not at all clear to me that fastidious treatment would’ve made any difference. The Stinkoln was full of sloppily-thought-out engineering further degraded by cynical beancounters. It was carelessly thrown together with low-quality materials and inadequate assembly techniques throughout.
It was loaded with first-year stuff that had not been adequately developed or debugged. First year for EEC-III engine management system with throttle body fuel injection and electronic control of ignition advance. First year for the digital VFD dashboard with trip computer (oh yeah, it was a real trip). First year for punch-code keyless entry. First year for the AOD ProbleMatic transmission. First year for serpentine drive belt. All that stuff (and much much more) failed early and often and expensively.
The car suffered from idiopathic electrosclerosis; its electrical faults were many and varied and intermittent. It would sometimes just refuse to start…or refuse to crank…or refuse to stay running…or stall at stop signs. It ate several alternators, there was untraceable radio interference from something under the hood (that resisted all conventional and several unconventional fixes), the wipers were a sometimes thing. The audiovisual multimedia turn signal indicator system was kinda cool, though: not only was there a conventional little green arrow-shaped telltale on the dash that would (sometimes) light up in sync with whichever turn signal was operating (if it had decided to be on duty that day), but one could also see the turn signal operating by dint of the rest of the car’s lights dimming and brightening in time, and hear it in the blower motor slowing down during the signal’s “on” phase and speeding up during the “off” phase.
The EGR valve ($) and its controller ($$) failed numerous times. The ignition lock cylinder and switch broke at least twice. The inertia switch decided one fine morning that the car (parked in the garage overnight, not touched by more than dust motes) had been hit hard enough to warrant disabling the fuel pump. The A/C compressor emitted horrifying crunch and screech noises from time to time, but miraculously managed to stay in one piece, or at least close enough to keep functioning. The crude self-diagnostics went haywire on a regular basis, issuing spurious DOOR AJAR or BRAKE LIGHT OUT or WASHER FLUID warnings at random whim.
The 302 engine had almost enough power to drag an ice cube off an oiled teflon table, and the car was geared super-tall. Did I mention this was in Denver, where baseline elevation was 5500 feet? Up I-70 at 30 mph in the right lane with the blinkers going—if the blinkers chose to sign onto the plan that day.
First year for every part of the body and interior, numerous parts of which fell off and/or apart repeatedly. The paint flaked and peeled. The door hinges came apart. The door panels pulled right off just by closing the doors until finally the Lincoln dealer(!) resorted to reattaching them with big, ugly sheetmetal screws. The glovebox latch sometimes didn’t. The power door locks didn’t either, but they did emit a hair-raising squawk when it was cold out. The vacuum-operated parking brake release also didn’t, but it hissed like an angry cat. The power windows worked most of the time, except when they didn’t. The remote control for the RH sideview mirror would’ve almost worked except it didn’t.
The rear lap belts were misdesigned backwardly: the belt pulled out from the inboard side and buckled at the outboard side. Get T-boned or sideswiped? Tough luck, you don’t get to unbuckle.
I could go on (and on and on), but it all begins to sound the same. It was a terrible car, and Ford ought to have been ashamed of themselves—but weren’t. An across-the-street neighbor seemed to have better luck with his ’83 Mark IV, but my grandparents’ experience with their new ’86 Clown Car was more akin to ours with the ’80.
Y’all can praise the Panther cars to high heaven til you’re blue in the face; none for me thanks, I’m driving.
That is called a “lemon”, a first year lemon at that. Any car can have them. I’m sure the commentariat can rustle up numerous stories of Panther bulletproofness that can show, albeit still not objectively, that Panthers were usually pretty reliable.
Maybe so, but I hardly think automakers using early buyers as beta testers counts as a valid excuse for the experience. And when I most recently needed a car, I took a look at Clown Victorias and
Big BillboardsGrand Marquises de Sade ranging from ’07-’11, several with very low miles, and all of them had stuff breaking or broken that shouldn’t have been. They all gave off a uniformly mediocre feel at every touch, just like every Panther rental I ever had. Sure, they can be kept on the road for half a million miles, but I just couldn’t bring myself to sign up for half a million miles of mediocrity (not to mention half a million miles of exposure to unreasonable fire danger). I bought an Accord—much better.Sorry the 1980 model was an isolated lemon for your family, Daniel.
My one year difference ’81 Town Car was one of the most reliable, best built, highest quality control cars I have ever owned. I’d rank the ’81 model’s quality control on par with my 2006 Toyota Camry’s.
My ’87 Town Car, ’95 Grand Marquis and ’05 Town Car have been much than better quality control cars. The ’95 GM went 130K without a single problem. The co-worker whom I sold it to STILL has it today!
Cadillac’s quality control (or lack thereof) for this time period has been well documented and panned by several sources.
See my reply (just above your comment) to dominic1955.
Quality control cannot be adjudged by personal experience with one car, or a handful of cars. That term refers to the consistency of quality from car to car. It speaks only to the consistency of the quality, not to whether the quality is good or bad—that’s a separate matter. Wildly inconsistent quality in a given make or model is at least as bad as consistently lousy quality.
It sounds like you had a good experience with your ’81, and you consider it about as well built as your ’06 Camry. That doesn’t say anything about the quality control of the ’81 Lincoln, it just says you had a good experience with yours, like our neighbor had a good experience with his ’83.
Then there’s the much fuzzier matter of how to measure quality. Different people have very different expectations and perceptions of what constitutes high, low, and acceptable quality in an automobile.
These are not simple questions with easy, pat answers. And I realise my awful experience with that ’80 Stinkoln is just as inapplicable as your good experience with your ’81 as a measure of the quality or quality control—or lack thereof—of those cars as a class. But it sure did sour me on Ford products for a very long time.
I guess I never noticed any serious quality issues in any Panthers I’ve been in. The typical 80s-2000s crap that GM pulled as well, yes.
However, were I to get a Town Car one of these days, it would be for funsies. I like them, even the last iterations because they are big, supremely comfortable (as in they seem to fit me like a glove and float down the highway) and reliable.
If you don’t want mediocrity, I don’t know why you went with an Accord, though the most recent generation is finally more than a sh!tbox and actually fairly handsome.
Without wading into the Town Car discussion, I must say I wouldn’t consider any generation of Accord to be mediocre. I will wholeheartedly agree with you though that the current generation is a handsome car. I would even go so far as to say it’s the best-looking Accord since the third-generation.
The Accord is quite competent, good, and well-executed in just about every objective way, and has consistently had very good marks for dependability, cost of ownership, fuel- and space-efficiency, etc. It is boring, absolutely not an exciting car; you’ll get no debate from me on that. But that does not make it “mediocre” — that’s just not what the word means.
I just stumbled into this conversation tree, and let me preface this with that I am not going to argue in favor of the Town Car over an accord, or argue your experiences(which from many other anecdotal evidence is right on the money, hit and miss best describes early 80s Fords), BUT regarding the word Mediocre, plugging it into google does show some humorous synonyms for it:
ordinary, average, middling, middle-of-the-road, uninspired, undistinguished, indifferent, unexceptional, unexciting, unremarkable, run-of-the-mill, pedestrian, prosaic, lackluster, forgettable, honda accord
I may have added the last one lol
I agree about the 80-84 Towncar looking better than the 85-89, the new bumpers made it look to narrow and the rear tail light treatment was just a mess.
“idiopathic electrosclerosis”
Term of the week!
»doffs cap«
Daniel,
So other than a few quirks you’re saying it’s a good car, right? LOL
RE: EEC-III. I felt your pain.
I had a ’79 Colony Park with an EEC-II, feedback variable venturi carb. Best thing I did for the car was to throw it all away and install the old Dura-Spark ignition.
See here for a full-length COAL feature on that particular ’80 Stinkoln Clown Car I was talking about.
Of my parents many owned and rented Panthers, the 84 Town Car was one of my favorites. Triple Royal Blue, smooth, surprisingly economical, a sheltered, introverted back seat…and I was young and short enough to not realize that the packaging was still pretty awful, and that the handling was ponderous at best. It would take until my own 93 Grand Marquis to realize that.
These are my favorite cars ever. They are beautiful and reliable and comfortable. They are good on gas and have decent power. Well made and reliable they often go 400000 miles on the original drive train. They only got better as years passed unlike the gm competition. I prefer the earlier models with the better bumpers and pointy fenders. Only changes I would have made to the line up would have been an optional 351 injected engine, 2 inch shorter roof and all would have gotten Mark vi opera Windows and fenders. I would have also put Mark vi coupe on a longer wheelbase. . The later cats should have kept the early bumpers and gotten the ho. 302. I say they the big Lincoln was the best 80s car.
GM, you’ve done it again. What a simply fantastic piece. This was my lunch break today. :). I’ve nothing to add to the comments above outside of stating how much I enjoy how your writing and illustrations complement your featured articles. The latter-day Town Car seems even more like the proverbial sow’s ear / silk purse, given the rocky initial reception of these cars. I had no idea the coupes were *that* rare. And now I can’t un-see how cluttered the greenhouse of the sedan was.
The AQ text, which I could probably read if I squint hard enough, but am reluctant to because I already have a headache, makes me want to apologize to everyone on whom I’ve ever inflicted any substantial amount of white-on-black text, especially online. (I did at least have the presence of mind to make the text bigger if it was light on dark.)
These box Panther TCs were all over Florida when I was very young there in the 80s and were widespread among seniors in CT into the very early 00s. The 302s drove smoother and quicker than the 307 powered RWD Caddies but I’d still take the latter, or even the ’90 facelift, over the Lincoln, just for its timelessness and looks. I fear part of it derives from childhood when, riding along I-495 to the family’s place on Cape Cod with my dad and grandfather in grandpa’s ’88 Grand Marquis LS c. 1991 or so, we passed a pale blue box TC driven by another elderly man and two blue-hairs as passengers. The man was picking his nose, as my father was quick to point out. From then on, I always anticipated that the driver of any of the many pale blue box TCs would be that same Nose-Picker!
I very much like the looks of the earlier gigundo 70s Lincoln and would like to test drive one at some point. Methinks there is room in a future Orrin driveway or storage yard for a Continental or Mark V.
Love my sweet survivor 84 Town Car. Picked it up about 3 years ago in Hackleburg, Alabama from a lady who had retired from driving.
I once knew a guy who renovated his fading ’86 Town Car interior by swapping to a pristine junked 4-door Mark VI interior (which of course the panels and trim pieces are the same, only differently and better finished). The result was really great, a very unique Town Car for sure. Then it had its vinyl roof redone, received a beautiful new paint job, and a rebuilt HO motor (which of course swaps right in). Last I saw him, he daily drove it more or less (except the winter). With the suspension all rebuilt it wasn’t particularly sloppy, either.
Box Panthers have a potential for greatness when properly maintained, refurbished and switched to HO.
I’ve always said the 117 inch wheelbase Continental’s/Town Car 2dr’s were much better proportioned than the 114 inch wheelbase Mark VI’s. I just cant stand 2dr Mark VI’s.
Normally, I like a low beltline on a car (rare this century), but these Lincolns show why GM used a tall cowl on the ’77 downsized cars.
I wonder if the greenhouse looks better with a full metal roof, as rare as hen’s teeth. For once, the fake convertible top is actually an improvement, since it simplifies. Enlarging the useless opera window would also help, but the fat B pillar (for the light and landau roof edge) would still look strange. Fordecades, Ford styling was ruled by the straight Edge, unfordunately.
One factor not mentioned in the Town Car’s mid/late-decade popularity was that Ford massively pushed them into Hertz and Budget rental fleets, making them far more readily available (and heavily advertised) at lower prices than a Cadillac from Avis or the other GM-affiliated rental companies.
The idea was to get Lincolns in the hands of both Caddy owners and people with Lincoln money who hadn’t considered one. That, too was a successful short-term strategy that may have damaged the brand in the long run.
I just purchased Lincoln Design Heritage 1963 – 2000 by Jim and Cheryl Farrell which is worth every penny of its $95 cost. Book shows many proposals for downsized Lincolns, including a downsized proposed 1976 Lincoln Continental, supposedly on a proposed Tiger platform sharing much in common with Fox, resembling a large Granada/Monarch. Book also has drawings of a proposed fwd 1990 Lincoln Town Car, which to me resembled the 1985 Cadillac Deville.
Cadillac had the same issues shrinking their 1976 cars and still having them look like Cadillacs, and did a much better job with the 1977 downsize (1979 for Eldorado) than Lincoln did for their biggies. I think the 1975-1/2 Seville helped Cadillac in a regard – by pricing it higher than other Caddys, they made it the aspirational Cadillac that semi-competed with Benz and Jag. It helped prepare buyers for the boxier greenhouse of the ’77 sedans, whose style was lifted from the Seville. The ’80 facelift of the big sedans was also successful (the coupes, less so.) The only styling dud was the ’80 Seville, which wasn’t really a downsize, and even it looked good from the C pillar forward.
I’d put Chrysler’s R body somewhere worse than the ’77 or ’80 Cadillac C body but well ahead of Lincoln’s Panthers, inside and out.
Love the Lincoln continental all the Lincoln car 1980 yes it good thank you?mm?