1980–1982 Lincoln Continental Mark VI – Lincoln Looks Backwards And Trips Over Its Own Feet

Left side view of a maroon 1980 Lincoln Continental Mark VI two-door with a red landau-style vinyl top and turbine-style wheels

1980 Lincoln Continental Mark VI Signature Series in Dark Maroon / Orlando Classic Cars

 

For 1980, Ford shifted its popular Lincoln Continental Mark personal luxury car to the smaller, more fuel-efficient Panther platform, only to watch in horror as sales of the new Continental Mark VI fell to about half the level of its gargantuan Mark V predecessor. The conventional wisdom is that customers balked at the Mark VI’s downsizing, but was that the real problem? I’m not so sure.

High-angle right side view of a maroon 1980 Lincoln Continental Mark VI two-door with open power moonroof

1980 Lincoln Continental Mark VI Signature Series with power moonroof / Orlando Classic Cars

 

I recently read an interesting paper analyzing trends in automotive fuel economy between 1978 and 1984, the first five and a half years of the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) era, and this passage jumped out at me:

Size class shifts have proven to be a relatively minor factor [in the improvement in average fuel economy]. Consumers’ primary strategy for buying a more efficient automobile is not to buy a smaller one, at least not in terms of interior space, but to shop around for a more efficient nameplate or configuration. … This fact has some interesting implications … [and] it aids in understanding why consumers did not strongly resist downsizing, as had been predicted before the fuel economy standard had fully gone into effect (10). Consumers appear to be reluctant to accept downsizing in terms of interior volume, but are willing to accept downsizing in terms of vehicle weight or exterior dimensions. [My emphasis.] This explains why consumers have been able to make the transition from the large American cars of the early 1970s to the more European-sized fleet of today.

Although this observation might have been true overall, most people who remember the 1980–1983 Lincoln Continental Mark VI (and the 1980–1982 Ford Thunderbird) will insist that these cars were exceptions, that buyers in this class HAD rejected their smaller exterior dimensions and scaled-down styling, despite the new models’ improved efficiency.

Front view of a maroon 1980 Lincoln Continental Mark VI with upright grille and concealed headlights

1980 Lincoln Continental Mark VI Signature Series / Orlando Classic Cars

 

There’s no question that the Mark VI was far less commercially successful than the outgoing Mark V. Even in a market still gun-shy about fuel economy in the wake of a second oil crisis, the Mark VI had laid an egg: In 1979, the last Lincoln Continental Mark V sold 75,939 cars, outstanding for such an expensive car, but in 1980, the new Continental Mark VI sold only 38,891 cars, 47 percent of which were the new four-door sedan version, which was essentially a Lincoln Town Car with Mark styling cues. Obviously, something had gone wrong.

Tail of a maroon 1980 Lincoln Continental Mark VI, showing its Continental spare tire hump

1980 Lincoln Continental Mark VI Signature Series / Orlando Classic Cars

 

It wasn’t that the Mark VI looked radically different than the Mark V — Ford had tried very hard to make the styling of the 1980 model as evolutionary as possible. At launch, Jack Telnack, then the executive director of Ford North American Luxury and Intermediate Design, had stressed that “the Mark VI retains virtually all of the exterior design cues of the Mark V, including opera windows with Continental star and distinctive rear deck.”

Right front 3q view of a Dark Red 1979 Lincoln Continental Mark V with a white vinyl top

1979 Lincoln Continental Mark V / Orlando Classic Cars

 

The Lincoln-Mercury studio had felt they had little choice in that. As designer Gale Halderman later remarked, “All of the bosses drove Lincolns. The Ford family drove Lincolns. So, [if you changed the Lincoln,] you were changing something that everyone above you liked.”

Right front 3q view of a maroon 1980 Lincoln Continental Mark VI two-door

1980 Lincoln Continental Mark VI Signature Series / Orlando Classic Cars

 

If anything, Halderman and executive stylist John Aiken had gone overboard in their determination to adapt the design features of the Mark V to the more squared-off proportions of the Panther platform, introduced the previous year for the full-size Ford LTD and Mercury Marquis.

Right side view of a Dark Red 1979 Lincoln Continental Mark V with a white vinyl top

1979 Lincoln Continental Mark V / Orlando Classic Cars

 

Although more than a foot shorter than the Mark V, the Mark VI was still in no way small — the two-door was 216 inches long, while the four-door was the same 219.2 inches as the new Continental Town Car. It was more space-efficient, but the 6-inch-shorter wheelbase and a 2-inch increase in height gave the Mark VI the sullenly upright posture of a middle-schooler who’s just been admonished to sit up straight.

Right side view of a maroon 1980 Lincoln Continental Mark VI two-door

1980 Lincoln Continental Mark VI Signature Series / Orlando Classic Cars

 

(I can’t help thinking the two-door Mark might have had slightly better proportions if it had used the 3-inch-longer wheelbase of the four-door model, but the net effect would probably have been about the same.)

Left side view of a white 1980 Lincoln Continental Mark VI four-door

1980 Lincoln Continental Mark VI sedan was 3.2 inches longer than the two-door, with a 3-inch-longer wheelbase / Bring a Trailer

 

Nonetheless, Halderman later said that the Mark VI was one of his favorite designs. The styling tested very well in consumer clinics, and a Popular Mechanics owner survey found that the people who bought the Mark VI liked it a lot. It was exactly what a lot of Lincoln buyers had said they wanted: familiar Lincoln styling, with the expected oceans of synthetic wood, plasticky leather, and brightly colored crushed velour, but in a tidier and more fuel-efficient package.

Left rear 3q view of a Dark Red 1979 Lincoln Continental Mark V with a white vinyl top

1979 Lincoln Continental Mark V / Orlando Classic Cars

 

The Mark VI was all of that, even if it was only economical in a relative sense. (The 1980–1982 models were still two-ton cars with the aerodynamics of a barn door; 1980 owners averaged around 13 mpg in urban driving and 18 mpg on the highway.)

Left rear 3q view of a maroon 1980 Lincoln Continental Mark VI two-door

1980 Lincoln Continental Mark VI Signature Series / Orlando Classic Cars

 

If the Mark VI was what buyers said they wanted, why did so few of them turn out for it? It’s important to stress that whatever anyone thought of the new Mark’s looks, this period was a truly rotten time to buy a new car. Throughout the late ’70s, inflation had been pushing up the prices of food, energy, and household necessities, while household incomes had stagnated. After about five years of relative stability, new car prices had also shot up significantly; for instance, a base 1980 Mark VI started at around $2,300 more than a 1979 Mark V.

351-2V engine under the hood of a maroon 1980 Lincoln Continental Mark VI

The 1980 Mark VI was available with the two-barrel 351 in addition to the standard 302; although real-world fuel economy was about the same with either engine, the 351 rated 2 mpg lower on the EPA combined scale and was dropped for 1981 / Orlando Classic Cars

 

At the same time, as the graph below illustrates, interest rates on new-car loans were skyrocketing, reaching an average of about 16 percent in 1980 and peaking at almost 18 percent by the beginning of 1982, compared to perhaps 10 percent back in the early ’70s. As a result, all domestic car sales were down almost 25 percent from their 1979 level, even in the higher price categories.

 

Chart showing interest rates on new auto installment loans for 1977 to 1984, with lines showing the most common interest rates of both finance companies and commercial banks rising sharply in 1980 and 1981 before falling off in 1983

U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis, Survey of Current Business, October 1984

 

Also, while the 1973–1974 OPEC embargo had proved only a temporary damper on sales of big luxury cars, the second oil crisis that followed the 1979 Iranian revolution had again given buyers second thoughts about thirsty land yachts, which the Mark VI still definitely was. Cadillac De Ville sales also tumbled by more than 50 percent for 1980, while the Eldorado was down 23 percent. Some of those customers may have switched to smaller high-end imports — Volvo, Audi, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz sales all rose during this time, with Volvo showing the biggest gains — but it seems that quite a few people decided it just wasn’t a good time to trade in on another pricey luxury car.

 

Bar graph showing market share of new car sales by model year for 1977 through 1984, with full-size and luxury cars highlighted in blue

U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis, Survey of Current Business, October 1984 (I added the blue highlighting to full-size and luxury sales)

 

As the above chart illustrates, the market share of new domestic full-size and luxury cars bottomed out in 1981 and began a gradual improvement over the next three years, helped by a big drop in interest rates in late 1982. However, the market for homegrown luxury cars remained weaker than its late ’70s peak for the rest of the run of the Mark VI.

Dashboard of a 1980 Lincoln Continental Mark VI with red velour upholstery

1980 Lincoln Continental Mark VI Signature Series with Dark Red velour upholstery / Orlando Classic Cars

Back seat of a 1980 Lincoln Continental Mark VI two-door with red velour upholstery

1980 Lincoln Continental Mark VI Signature Series with Dark Red velour upholstery / Orlando Classic Cars

 

1982 was the worst year for Mark VI sales, which fell to 26,336 before recovering a bit to 30,856 for 1983, the last year of this generation. The final tally was 132,781 cars in four model years, where the Mark V had sold 228,862 in three. Mark VI sales also fell well short of the FWD Cadillac Eldorado, Buick Riviera, and Oldsmobile Toronado, whose sales picked up smartly as the economy improved.

Front view of a black and cream 1983 Lincoln Continental Mark VI

1983 Lincoln Continental Mark VI Bill Blass Edition / Mecum Auctions

 

I think the big difference was that the 1979–1985 GM E-body coupes were rakish enough that at least some Baby Boomers were willing to buy them; median buyer age was mid-40s. By contrast, the Mark VI seems to have been pretty solidly Boomer-proof, still aimed at essentially the same crowd who’d bought the 1969–1971 Mark III a decade earlier. (In the Popular Mechanics Mark VI owner survey, almost 60 percent of the more than 1,000 owners surveyed were over 50.) Judging by the subsequent upswing in Town Car sales, there was still a market for traditional domestic luxury cars that looked like they’d been styled with a T-square, but even many of those buyers increasingly preferred boxy four-door sedans to boxy two-door coupes.

Left front 3q view of a black and vanilla 1983 Lincoln Continental Mark VI two-door with a black carriage roof

1983 Lincoln Continental Mark VI Bill Blass Edition in Midnight Black and French Vanilla with black Cambria Carriage Roof / Mecum Auctions

 

Certainly, if you weren’t already a fan of big coupes like this, the Mark VI wasn’t likely to convince you. It was soft and supremely quiet, but by ’80s standards, it was starting to feel like almost as much of a lumbering dinosaur as its oversized predecessors. The ride still got queasy over wavy surfaces, fuel consumption was still pretty heavy, and the injected 302 (the sole engine after 1980) provided only 130 hp to haul more than 4,000 pounds. The four-speed AOD transmission also made for sleepy top-gear acceleration and tended to “hunt” annoyingly between third and fourth at around-town speeds.

Front seat of a 1983 Lincoln Continental Mark VI two-door with vanilla leather and cloth seat, viewed from the driver's door looking back

1983 Lincoln Continental Mark VI Bill Blass Edition with French Vanilla leather and Greenwich cloth seating surfaces / Mecum Auctions

 

As for the styling, you can judge that for yourself, although I’m with Consumer Guide, which called the Mark VI “overdecorated and conspicuous … for extroverted high rollers.” It was lavishly equipped, but for the price — $20,229 for a “base” Mark VI coupe and $24,533 for a 1983 Bill Blass Edition like the Midnight Black/French Vanilla car — you could have a Mercury Grand Marquis AND a Ford LTD Crown Victoria, which were mechanically similar if not quite as plush.

Left side view of a black and vanilla 1983 Lincoln Continental Mark VI with a black carriage roof

1983 Lincoln Continental Mark VI Bill Blass Edition / Mecum Auctions

 

Of course, the Mark V had also been expensive, and at least as gaudy, but where it had fit the zeitgeist of its era, the Mark VI now seemed unfashionably anachronistic despite its digital instrument panel and electronic gadgets — too severely tailored for the tastes of a shrinking cadre of aging loyalists.

Digital instrument panel in a 1983 Lincoln Continental Mark VI, viewed through the steering wheel hub

Electronic instrument panel was a delete option for the 1983 Mark VI / Mecum Auctions

 

The Mark VI is not at all my cup of tea, and I’m sure its awkward proportions probably didn’t help its case in this fashion-driven segment, especially in the latter half of the run. However, I think its biggest problem was not its styling or its size, but rather that Ford had been so fixated on clinging to the success of the Mark V that they had failed to consider where the luxury car market was going rather than where it had been.

Closeup of the hood ornament and Mark VI badge on the radiator shell of a 1983 Lincoln Continental Mark VI

1983 Lincoln Continental Mark VI Bill Blass Edition / Mecum Auctions

 

The “Aero Bird” Thunderbird and subsequent Mark VII demonstrated that Ford was capable of looking forward as well as backwards (the 1983 T-Bird alone sold nearly as many cars in one year as the Mark VI did in its entire run!), but the Mark VI was aimed at placating existing customers rather than attracting new ones, which just wasn’t enough in a more difficult market.

Related Reading

Vintage Feature & Review: 1980 Lincoln Continental And Mark VI – The Challenges Of Shrinking Giants (by GN)
eBay Find: 1981 Continental Mark VI – Pine Opalescent Panther (by Tom Klockau)
Design Analysis: Did The Lincoln Mark VI Have The Biggest Overhang Ratio Ever? (by Paul N)
Curbside Classic: 1983 Lincoln Continental Mark VI – Missing the Mark (by J P Cavanaugh)