I’m sitting here in my van on Friday night in Port Orford, and there’s nothing for the lead-off post for Saturday. Time to head for the Cohort: Score! Nifticus just posted these pictures of a ’66 Lincoln Continental coupe, a rather rare thing to see out on the streets, and a car that has always fascinated me. So now I get to tell you why.
I’ve never been a big fan of the changes made to the Continental sedan in 1966, with its GM-aping hip implants. But this new coupe addition to the lineup, the first Lincoln coupe since 1960, now that was a bit unexpected. But with that GM-aping coupe roof line, it works much better. In relative terms, that is. It’s no…Riviera.
When I say “GM-aping”, I’m not saying it was a blatant copy of one of their cars, but both the Coke-bottle hips and the roof line were clearly heavily influenced by the seminal 1963 Buick Riviera. This was the car that finally put the traditional Ford formal coupe roof out to pasture.
There’s also an overtone of 1965 Olds Starfire coupe, especially in the overly-long trunk.
From this angle, it’s got Riviera written all over it.
Of course it can’t touch the Riviera for originality, proportions and all the other fine details that made it a classic in its time.
I’m not a big fan of the new front end, but I guess Ford felt it had to be more dramatic and bold.Still beats what they did with it in 1969, I guess.
What’s behind that new front end is also a bit fascinating, in a slightly perverse way. It’s the then-new 462 cubic inch version of the hoary MEL engine; its penultimate outing, one that only lasted two years before being replaced by the much more modern 460 V8. But something about that big hunk of MEL V8 has a certain pull; as in the pull of 485 ft.lb of torque. How about swapping in the tri-carb induction system that was available on hot Mercurys back in 1958 or so? Now that would make a nice hot rod Lincoln.
Just like the 462, the new Conti coupe roof also only lasted two years before being replaced by this obviously Mark III inspired version in 1968. No need to ape GM anymore! The Mark III nailed the Ford look to come for the next quarter century. This does nothing for me.
I’m liking this one more and more, especially without the wheel covers. Maybe strip off the Lincoln badges, hood ornament and Continental script, to make it look even more anonymous. Folks will be guessing what GM coupe it is. It’s an Olds Century Silverstreak Super Plasmafire!
I need to cut this short, as the moon is out in full glory on a perfectly clear night, meaning a walk up to the Port Orford Heads trails to see the ocean and coast views in its light. No headlamp for me, even for the first stretch through the woods. I always loved hiking at night, and this makes me feel young again. At my age, I take that whenever I can.
That was awesome. No; that’s not my picture. And it’s not what it looked like; this is one of those super long exposures. Actually, this same view south was remarkable, as there was only one faint light from a house up in the woods to be seen, looking down some 20 miles of coast line. Hwy 101 turns inland at Humbug Mountain (on the left in this shot), and the coast is very rugged and not very accessible for some distance. I’m assuming the glow on the horizon s from the town of Gold Beach, 27 miles south, and only picked up because of the long exposure.
The view to the north was dominated by the lighthouse at Cape Blanco, and some houses near the beach that are visible from up there. The town of Port Orford sits directly on the other side of the heads, so it’s otherwise not visible from up there.
Yes, nature trumps cars; at least for me.
That’s quite interesting… I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a 2 door 1966-67 Lincoln in person. Though I’m more familiar and slightly enamored with the party favors of the 4 door 1960’s Continentals, this one has charms of its own. And I’m kinda surprised that this particular hashup of lines works well together, but it sure does.
I’ve always been more than fond of 1965-68 Cadillacs, but I don’t particularly love them in Coupe DeVille form. I think the 2dr Linc wins this one.
The 2 door Lincoln Continentals from 1966-1969 were all over the place in the late 1960s and the 70s, my sister in law had a 66 Riviera and her long time best friend had a 67 lincoln coupe, my sister in law said the Riviera was a much nicer car to drive as the Lincoln was like steering a big box around
Great photos and I like the blue color. I wouldn’t have guessed it was a Lincoln from the leading shot of the post. The front end is kind of blocky and anonymous. I wonder if hidden headlights would have added more “Lincoln-ness.”
Nature trumps cars for me as well. Much as I admire so many of you at CC for your ability to fix and upgrade your vehicles yourselves, I just don’t have the knack for it mechanically or the patience. I know it can be learned, but that time is time that I myself would rather spend playing outside or doing art. But my hat is off to anyone who is happy to spend all Saturday tinkering in the garage…and more so to anyone who makes time for both that and outdoor pursuits.
Is that a stock color? I hope it looks better in real life.
It doesn’t look like this has the same wheelbase and overall length as the sedan. The freaky-long trunk and formal roof on the 129.5″ wheelbase made the ’67-70 Coupe De Ville look weird, but not quite as badly proportioned as the Chrysler fuselage coupes. They both should just have used the 4 door hardtop roofs.
“Is that a stock color?”
Good question – I’m thinking no. I got to looking and found this, which shows a Sapphire Blue that could be it, but two other sources (paintref.com and automotive mileposts) do not list “G” Sapphire Blue as a Lincoln choice.
I am betting on a respray, but maybe someone special ordered that G code Thunderbird color all those years ago?
Here’s the Sapphire Blue T-Bird
The stock colour for this car is light metallic blue. I altered it for a slightly deeper blue. The car also rolls with nicer wheels in the summer, and the stock steelies with winter rubber in the winter months.
I had never noticed the Conti-Rivi connection before, but seeing these pictures juxtaposed, it’s clear and obvious. Wow.
I will echo Joe Dennis in that I never noticed the Riviera connection either.
Frankly, I could never get past the resemblance to the coupe roof on the 1966 Falcon. It seems that Ford has been capable of making one roofline that serves multiple cars in its lineup. There was the Thunderbird roof, the Continental Mark roof and then this one in between.
None of the Continental coupe roofs has ever looked quite right to me, though I prefer this one to the later one. The later one isn’t bad on its own, but it makes the car’s extra-long rear look even longer.
I was going to add a bit on the similarity to that too, but on the Comet, which had the same roof but longer trunk and front end. That’s what it evokes very much, in the FoMoCo family. But then the moon’s call forestalled that.
I like these coupes, though I haven’t seen one in a long time. When you think “‘’60’s Lincoln” the 4-door Continental always comes to mind, but these coupes were a nice change from the norm, unlike the later Lincoln coupes that looked too much like their Ford brethren. I never thought to make the comparison between the ‘66 Continental coupe and the ‘63 Riviera, though, but looking at them makes it obvious. I like both cars, and Lincoln could have done worse than taking inspiration from the Riviera. The Lincoln is longer and has the look of a luxury cruiser, while the Riviera looks a little shorter and comes off as a little more sporting in appearance – a sport coat as opposed to a tuxedo, if you will. I don’t care for the blue colour, though – a dark blue or black would look much better.
> When I say “GM-aping”, I’m not saying it was a blatant copy of one of their cars, but both the Coke-bottle hips and the roof line were clearly heavily influenced by the seminal 1963 Buick Riviera.
You’re being kind. Comparing those rear-three-quarter views of both cars, this is about as blatant a rip-off as I’ve seen. Except for the tombstone grille, which anticipated both the 1970 Toronado and 1974 big AMC sedans (Matador and Ambassador) and was as ugly as either of those.
I don’t know why Lincoln felt compelled to offer a Continental coupe given that the popular Mark III (introduced in mid-1968) was similar in size, price, and market position. I suppose the extra few inches of length yielded some extra rear seat space, but this wasn’t a high priority for most coupe buyers. The Continental coupe reminds me of the Falcon Sprint and other sporty small cars that fell by the wayside after the Mustang dropped. Lincoln would nonetheless offer a big non-Mark coupe through 1981 despite continually low sales figures. (Curiously, over at Cadillac the Coupe de Ville usually outsold the sedans until the 1980s.)
I’m sure this has been discussed on a Riviera post, but it’s so unusual that the ’65 is IMO better and cleaner than the ’63-4. Hidden headlights, taillights in the bumper, and no fake opening trim on the side. Not the typical trajectory. The Continental peaked early and kept declining until it looked like a bigger Mercury.
Agree! Same happened with C2 Corvettes, that got cleaner throughout their lifespan.
I owned a 67 Continental coupe for 13 years. I liked the car and should have kept it. The restyle for 1966 included drastic cost cutting and de- contenting along with a much lower price compared with earlier models. It was still a nice high quality car for the era, but the cost cutting was evident especially inside, where, for example, real wood trim gave way to plastic appliques.
Imho its one of the few cars that looks better with a vinyl roof, black preferred.
As for the GM hips I can’t fault Ford for including them. Eventually the hips were ubiquitous, and seen everywhere. I recall as a car crazy 7 year old, in 1972, noticing that virtually all cars on the road had these hips, or a C pillar kick up. I wondered if there was a technical reason for hips to exist, as if they were necessary the same way bumpers and wheels were.
I recall being surprised seeing a black 4 door 66 New Yorker. Wow, no bulge, no hips!! A sleek low straight belt line, front to back! Nice.
Sorry about all the little typos; the keyboard on my 6-7 year old $150 Samsung Chromebook is failing. The space bar needs several good hits now, and other keys are getting wacky. I just cleaned it up a bit.
Time to get a new laptop; that should be fun.
I paid $62 per sheet of 3/4″ OSB T&G subfloor sheets yesterday. Yikes; That used to cost about $20 or so. I remember 1/2″ OSB going for $5.99 during the last recession.
Good thing I’m just building out a littlepole barn cabin and not a whole house.
Yeah lumber prices are still pretty brutal.
Have you taken a hike out there this morning to see the Tsunami?
I was on my daily morning hike on the heads ( I go twice a day most days) and noticed the waves were rather powerful given the perfectly calm weather. Then Stephanie texted me about the tsunami; I hadn’t known before. I took some pics and video.
The waves were obviously not like the 20 footers they had down here during the big storm a couple of weeks ago, but they packed a lot of power and cause a lot of churn between the rocks. It was not normal.
It’s supposedly not over yet, there could be more throughout today. The first wave apparently isn’t the strongest and more could be hours later. So maybe just stay on top of the cliff for now…and a few steps back!
What I heard from my local TV station was that the 14th wave was the biggest that made it to Hawaii while it was the 17th that was the biggest in Alaska.
Hope you post some of those pictures and video.
The similarity between the 1966-’67 Lincoln Continental coupe and the 1963-’65 Buick Riviera roof line and razor-edge details is obvious now that you’ve pointed them out. No doubt Riviera did influence the thinking though doubtful anyone worried about it. After all, Ford had been peddling versions of the ‘Thunderbird roof” for most of a decade by this point.
These two door Continentals became superfluous once the Mark III was introduced. It was added to the line for 1966 as Lincoln’s market acceptance had risen with the ‘slab-side’ design theme. Cadillac still sold a significant percentage of Coupe de Villes which had to be met. Plans to drop the convertible were already afoot, hopes were the coupes would fill the void, especially when the sunroof became an option.
For Baby Boomers, two doors, especially hard tops, were equated with being sporty or personal. The desire for a luxury coupe could have sent some Lincoln buyers over to Cadillac, The Coupe de Ville had a cachet of it’s own. So it was better for Lincoln to include one in their own line up. The Mark or Eldo was not seen as the equivalent of the two door version of the standard Lincoln or Cadillac. A lot of people thought that the personal cars were too flashy, meant for younger show offs, though sales became stronger over the years, especially into the 70’s.
Looking at that first photo I do realize that there was a lot of overhang both front and back. It looks pretty excessive now, but if you compare it to a contemporary big Ford or Chevy, it doesn’t seem so out of the ordinary. The Lincoln had to be bigger than an LTD.
My Dad and I both used to buy six or seven year old luxury cars back in the 70’s. He had a ’69 coupe for a few years, I had a ’66 sedan. Later, I preferred my ’70 Coupe de Ville. I just felt that it was a more dynamic design. Both cars could really run.
Never seen one in the metal but I kinda like it, it does look like a rip off of the Riviera when you see the two together but that coke bottle styling went international around 66/67 especially on GM cars we got here from all continents
What I find curious is both the 68 and Mark III roofline look more like the 65-70 Mustang coupe roofline with the shorter quarter window, which while they had riviera hips the overall look was revised enough to be pretty distinct. The Falcon/Fairlane and Comet sedan bodies and Continental coupe was an odd crib of another car company from disparate ends of the market.
I don’t like the 68 but I think why it doesn’t work is the coke bottle upsweep goes beyond the glass, It appears Lincoln recycled the whole body and roof from the 66 and simply made the quarter windows smaller.
“Just like the 462, the new Conti coupe roof also only lasted two years before being replaced by this obviously Mark III inspired version in 1968. No need to ape GM anymore! The Mark III nailed the Ford look to come for the next quarter century. This does nothing for me.”
Only flaw in the above paragraph is the Continental Mark III didn’t come out until March, 1968, many months after the regular 1968 Lincoln line. The 1968 Lincoln Continental 2 door hardtop would have inspired the Mark III, not the other way around.
Ford,Lincoln, or Mercury has never had to “ape” anything. Don’t be hating just cuz you don’t have any class or a bad ass ride.
That the styling of the’66-’67 Continental 2-door was influenced by the Riviera is quite an interesting observation and, in the context of the times, is probably accurate.
Ford introduced the concept of the Personal Luxury Car (PLC) with the 1958 Thunderbird and GM (finally) responded with the stunning 1963 Riviera. With the Riviera’s success, and Ford undoubtedly hearing about the upcoming 1966 Olds Toronado and 1967 Eldorado, this info almost certainly convinced HFII that a Lincoln PLC was needed. But in what form? The ’66 Continental seems like the perfect toe-in-the-water to see how the market might react without a truly huge commitment.
Obviously, it was something of a stopgap measure until the 1969 Mark III arrived and, with the arrival of the 1969 Grand Prix and 1970 Monte Carlo, the full-on seventies PLC competition was on.
Paul, thank you for pointing out the similarity of the two vehicles–I’ve never made that connection but you are correct. I personally love the 68 Couple with the new “formal roof” treatment. To me, it improved on the look of the 66-67 couples. A beautiful, long “land yacht”.