It was a cold, wet winter’s evening, but the dinner meeting with David Clash’s 197o Mk.III Lincoln Continental still attracted a good crowd. Unfortunately the Lincoln is about 4″ wider than the dining room doors at Daizies, so with the aid of some temporary lighting it was necessary to brave the elements for a closer inspection.
As mentioned in last month’s magazine, David purchased the car on Ebay from the USA. It was damaged slightly during shipping, but repaired, and at the same time as most of the rubber and consumable parts were replaced. David believes that the interior was preserved by cigarette smoke, although the massive electric seats needed repairs and the very heavy power steering was replaced by a local unit.
The car was designed by Lee Iococca who also designed the 1964 Mustang. The brief was to build a Cadillac equivalent using bits from various Fords and a Rolls Royce style of grill. During the clay-modelling stage 5″ was removed from the front overhang which was thought to be too long, but it was put back again to make it the longest bonnet in production. In 1971 the Lincoln Continental cost $7280 whilst the average American income was $7850. It’s comprehensive list of standard features included cruise and climate control, automatic boot and park brake release, 9 carat gold Lincoln door emblems, tilt steering column, optic fibre lighting, electric windows, anti-lock braking, electric mirrors, hydraulic variable speed wipers and a full chassis with a 460 ci. V8 developing 365 bhp. It did however, have to move about 2 ton of automobile, so its fuel economy was somewhat less than frugal.
As David so eloquently explained, this car can be looked upon as a time capsule from when Ford were at their peak in the USA. The fuel crisis and anti-pollution regulations were however, just around the corner.
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