(first posted 6/22/2013) Like Jim Cavanaugh — or even more so, if that’s possible — I found the 1980 Mark VI to be rather pathetic: a rolling monument to bad proportions embellished by kitsch. OK; some of that is subjective, and I’m not going to even argue about its many details, like the silly fake front fender “gills”. Beyond the details, there’s a very fundamental problem with the Mark VI: it’s riding on a too short of a wheelbase. That alone makes it look like a kit car: The Fiberfab Mark VI: build your own Continental on a VW Beetle chassis!
As I was looking at this picture late last night, I decided to do a little research to see if the Mark VI’s relationship of wheelbase to overall length (overhang ratio) really was much worse than average, and compare it to other cars. By the time I decided to finally go to bed, I hadn’t yet found a challenger; maybe you can. But here are the numbers so far, as well as those of some competitors:
The Mark VI has a 114.4″ WB (Wheelbase), and 216″ TL (Total Length). By subtracting the WB from OL, we have 101.6″ of OH (Overhang). Dividing that by the TL gives us a 47% OHR (OH Ratio), or in other words almost half of the Mark VI is hanging past its wheels. Is there another car with as much?
The Mark VI’s nearest competitor is the E-Body Eldorado. Just looking at the two in the front is revealing: you would expect the FWD Eldo to have its front wheels set pretty far back, yet the Mark’s are even further back.Yet the Eldo’s OHR is only 44%, a number that as we’ll see represents about the outside edge of what is acceptable to the eye in that regard. Of course that wasn’t the only reason the Eldorado was profoundly better looking than the Mark VI, but it’s a good place to start. And the Eldo outsold the VI by a huge ratio (82k to 11.5k in 1982). Ford essentially handed the luxury car market back to GM with its poorly executed 1980 Lincoln models. Of course, that would change in 1985…
The front wheel location is actually the hallmark of all the Panthers: it had two inches less wheelbase than the GM B-Body, and it appears all of that or more is the result of the front wheels being further back. And the Mark VI is basically a Crown Vic or Grand Marquis (same wheelbase) with lots of additional overhang, especially at the front. The 1980 LTD has a 45% OHR (MGM pictured).
Jim mentioned the Chrysler Cordoba as an example of a downsized luxury coupe that worked much better than the Mark VI. Given its shorter wheelbase, I wondered if it might equal or top the Mark: 112.7″ WB; 209.8″ TL = 46% OHR. That’s getting mighty close, but even a percent or two in the OHR makes a noticeable difference to the eye. As well as the fact that the Cordoba just wasn’t nearly as boxy as the Mark.
Just for perspective, I decided to toss a wide net of other cars to compare, including the monstrous 1958 Lincoln with its huge rear overhang. But with a 131″ WB and 229″ TL (only 13″ longer than the Mark VI, it turns out!), it has a rather modest OHR of 43.7%.
New cars are often criticized for their long front overhangs, partly due to FWD as well as crumple zones. The 2013 Lincoln MKS is one of the longest sedans sold today, so let’s do the numbers: 112.9″ WB; 205.6″ TL = 45% OHR. Right in the typical range. Of course, modern cars are a lot taller, so their overall proportions are very different than from the past. But even if a car has a very large front overhang, as long as the back overhang isn’t too severe, it still doesn’t look ridiculous (in terms of OHR).
GM wasn’t totally innocent of this issue though. The redesigned “whale” 1992 B-Bodies kept the 116″ WB, but added length as well as a lot of width. With a 115.9″ WB and 214.1″ TL, the Caprice has a 46% OHR. Precarious.
The Fleetwood Brougham added inches to both wheelbase and length, and ended up with a similarly-precarious 46% OHR. In this case, it’s very rear-heavy, with that massive roof. The wheelbase (121.5″) just isn’t enough, and the rear wheel looks to be 6″ too far forward.
I thought of the 1990-1991 Riviera, which was the beneficiary of both front and rear extensions to make it look more…something. With a 108″ WB and 198.3″ TL, it has a 45.5% OHR. That’s pushing it, obviously.
And I was pushing it last night, and had to stop there. I suspect there may be others out there that might challenge or top the Mark VI, and I leave that to you to find them. And here’s the perfect resource: the automobile-catalog.com is an awesome resource for specifications. Just enter the year, make and model in their search box, and they’ll take you there.
Undoubtedly, there are going to be some oddballs out there with wild OHR, but we are mostly talking about full-sized cars and such. But finding a car that has over 100″ of total overhang like the Mark VI alone is going to be a challenge. But bring it on…
Quick ‘n’ dirty wheel base stretch, with a widened C pillar
1971 Stutz Blackhawk/Bearcat: 116″ WB, 227″ OL
OH/OL= 48.9%
I believe the late-1970s models continued to use a GM A-body donor car, but they must have kept using pre-1978 donors until switching to the B-body in 1980. Otherwise, the proportions would really have gotten comical. I can’t imagine how any of these things handled.
You like overhang? How about a Plymouth Superbird.
The 1977-1979 Continental Mark V…..
Overall Length: 230.3”
Wheelbase: 120.4”
Just a hair under 110” of overhang…
OVER NINE FEET of sleek aircraft carrier overhang…
I just saw this ’62 Mercury Monterey on Craigslist and couldn’t help but notice the rear overhang (longer than Ford on same wheelbase, perhaps). The total OHR works out to be 43.8, not quite a contender (due to modest front overhang). But I figure the rear overhang to be about 67″, amounting to 31+% of the total car length. I know we don’t have such a “breakout” statistic for the cars cited/pictured above, but the Merc sure looks like a contender in this particular subcategory (continental kits excluded, of course):
1971 Mercury Grand Marquis. 47.1% overhang on a 2 door coupé that is 19½ feet long. Doesn’t get more outlandish than this, surely? Unless anyone here knows of an even more gigantic road going cruise liner …
1954 Cadillac Eldorado
Wheelbase 129.0 in
Length 223.4 in
42 % overhang
1980 was the down-sized year for Lincoln. The overhang ratio for 1980 is similar to 1979. The proportions of the 1979 Lincolns are better styled even though the overhang ratio for the full-size Lincoln Continental is 45% and the Mark VI is 47 3/4%. The 1980 Lincoln style, while about a foot shorter in length, is boxy by comparison.
I thought for sure my ’97 GTP would win this one. Parking this one in a steep driveway was always a major PIA.
But alas, it did not beat the Lincoln Mark VI, or even some of the other examples cited, including my own Fox body T-Birds… oooh… I should look up my old MN12, but I digress…
196.5″ OAL – 110.5″ WB = 86″
86 / 196.5 = 43.7659%, or just a little over 7/16 the length of the car.
Maybe that low front end had more to do with difficulty entering a steeper driveway…
Thanks to Paul’s handy link, I looked up Automobile Catalog’s figures for the homologated winged Mopars:
1969 Daytona 48.2% (117 wb, 226 long – 109 overhang)
1970 Superbird 47.5% (116 wb, 221 long – 105 overhang)
About where J.P. has the ’77 Mark V.
The Mark may be bad but it wears it well. That and the Cordoba shown above are so good looking to me (just a kid when they were new).
Okay. We seem to have agreed there is a ‘sweet spot’ in the overhang-to-overall-length ratio, and that the Lincoln’s styling went out of our visual comfort zone.
What I’m left wondering is WHY Lincoln did this?
I’m thinking the amount of metal in a body-on-frame design would not be affected by where the front wheels were located. The chassis would (I assume) weigh the same, regardless of how much was wheelbase and how much was overhang.
So what was the advantage?
Did someone at FoMoCo actually like the short wheelbase-long overhang look? I’m aware the Mark VI was on the existing Panther chassis, but to my eyes all the Panther cars would have been improved by having the front wheels a few inches further forward.
My first thought was the 1990-93 Chrysler Imperial, but I forgot about the wheelbase stretch from the New Yorker/Dynasty that rules it out. Still, those front wheels look like they need to be shoved about 8″ forward.
“The Fiberfab Mark VI: build your own Continental on a VW Beetle chassis”!
Interesting!
But put it on a more readily available chassis.
Nothing says hookers and blow like a mark vi.
Overhang? What overhang? DFO
The Mark VI looks better with the full vinyl roof, but very few large coupes were sold that way by then, they were all landau/cabriolet with the occasional hideous fake convertible top.
Our ’68 Electra had only 99 inches of overhang, but they were mostly in the back, so we’d hear the tailpipe scrape the pavement going in and out of Grandma’s steep driveway entrance and her highly-crowned street.
Personally I think the Mark VI is a good looking car. But then I also prefer the Mark IV to the much more popular Mark V. Not that I don’t like the Mark V, but it just looks too big, whether or not it’s actually any longer/wider than the Mark IV it replaced. An imposing car the Mark V, but darn big.
I also preferred the IV to the III, V, and VI. Most Vs had a lot of fussy ornament that early IVs didn’t even offer. I never liked the gills or the boxy greenhouses, to me a bigger defect than the short wheelbase on the VI. The curved A pillars on the IV are a little weird, but they relieve the straightness of the front half, and the whole car has subtle curves and shapes the later ones really needed.
This itty bitty Lincoln ain’t ‘nuttin compared to what Ford woulda, coulda done.
Ford designed its 1973 full size cars fully aware of coming bumper standards for 1973 (front) and 1974 (rear).
You’d think with a fresh design, Ford would not have become famous for its steel I-beam rams with built in park bench.
I’ve come to a better understanding of where Ford was coming from after seeing a video on the development of the 1973 LTD and Marquis. Ford was taking a serious look at incorporating crumple zones to better protect passengers, not just a better bumper protecting headlights and body work.
They approached crumple zones by looking at longer overhangs, and some pretty extreme designs were played with. It’s quite apparent this exercise made it into production to a degree.
Now THIS is serious overhang…..
Just saw this 1966 Olds Starfire and instantly wanted to grab an advil. That’s quite a hangover,
Here’s the Starfire…
What a profoundly ignorant way of judging car design. You sound mini- minded / moronic!! The Mark Vi is vastly more attractive than the gigantic Mark V & designers downsized it to perfection. I owned a Mark IV Gold Edition, Mark V Givency Edition, & Mark VI Bill Blass edition The IV was great, the V was overblown & the VI was so awesome that I have just bought one, in retirement, to relive the glory days of my luxurious youth. The all electronic dash, & lux appointments out classed the ROLLS ROYCE ( I briefly owned) of that time. In the outdated & dowdy( ugly by comparison) Rolls ,I felt cringy- so sold it after 7 months & bought a finer Mark VI. BILL BLASS EDITION that vastly surpassed that Rolls by leaps & bounds……JR