Remember the classic 1961-69 Continental? Sure you do. We all do. But starting with the 1970 model year, non-Mark Continentals were made much less distinctive, though their plush luxury remained. But did you know Lincoln planned to reintroduce the Continental as a suicide-door hardtop?
Yes, it’s true. Lincoln-Mercury would have beaten BMW, Audi and Mercedes-Benz to the market decades earlier with a “four door coupe” of their own! In the early Seventies, Lee Iacocca wanted something extra special–maybe not as prestigious as the Lehmann-Peterson limo, but something with a bit more presence than the standard Continental Sedan and Coupé. A long-wheelbase hardtop sedan, based on the Connie Coupé, was built, brochures were printed, and production was to commence on the eve of the late 1973 gas crisis. But when gas lines and the resulting automotive austerity changed people’s priorities, the project was cancelled.
The few sales brochures printed were altered, so that the would-be 1974 Continental Hardtop (it would not have replaced either the Sedan or Coupé, but was to be an additional model) was airbrushed into a standard coupe! But I recently got a ’74 brochure on ebay that somehow was missed, and I just had to present it here for your enlightenment. Who knows, maybe we’d still have REAL Continentals today if fate had not intervened, forty years ago.
And by the same token, perhaps Imperial would still be around if the compact versions I reported on a year ago made it to production. A Crown Tiara Coupe might have taken the U.S. market by storm! Coulda, woulda, shoulda–that’s the usual line in the domestic lux market in the 1960s and 1970s…
Nice, very nice. That Crown Tiara Coupe is better looking than the TC.
April Fools!!
I know this is an April Fool’s joke, but you know that in the mid-50s, the Continental Division was pretty serious about offering a four-door hardtop version of the Mark II called the Mark III Berlina, right?
Actually, yes. I have a book by Consumer Guide called “Cars That Never Were” and there are pictures of the prototype/clay model. It was pretty nice looking.
Tom, hope you don’t mind if I played with the proportions a little. Yours is limousine sized…..and I thought it should be owner driven. I think it was a huge mistake to go away from suicide doors. Good idea!
Hey, I like it! My original one looks like a pillarless competitor to the Fleetwood Seventy-Five 🙂
Man, that thing really was the size of an aircraft carrier!
I had understood that when examining the Continental prototype, Iacocca accidentally shut HFII’s fingers in the door. Henry killed the suicide door project and silently vowed to fire Iacocca someday.
Iaccoca’s failure in the project lead to his later plan for a K-car based imperial hardtop but market research revealed the only interested party was a guy near Cincinnati with an obsession with windows that go all the way down.
OUCH!
What just hit me???
Funniest thing I’ve read today. 🙂
Awesome, Principal Dan.
Tom you better have a look at the seating picture of your brochure, shows the 2-door window opening only
Oh, that’s an easy answer. The Hardtop used slightly cut-down Coupe doors, so it looks the same from that angle.
Someone actually did that with the Cadillac Seville.
There are 2 different kinds of Seville customs like that, there is the one where they chop a sedan into a 2 seater, with really odd looks, and there is the one pictured above, which was made from a 2 door X-body, like a Skylark or Omega, these were really nice, almost factory quality, I think it was called a Canso.
Yea the San Remo Coupe and Convertible was done by Coach Design Group. I just picked out that picture as sort of a joke for being April Fool’s without really thinking to go along with the Imperial above.
The chopped 4 door you might be referring to was the Opera Coupe which often had spare wheel on the sides. I have no use for any of those cars. There were a lot of companies, especially in Florida, the did stuff like this. The only car of that vintage that I am mildly interested in is the Gucci Seville because it paid homage to the fashion company, but even though that type ostentation is over the top.
I could do a CC on the Pierre Cardin Evolution I I saw at Hershey several years ago but I would hate to anticipate the comments.
That’s the San Remo. Very nice car, makes you wonder why Cadillac never offered it. Only bad thing about this conversion is the modifications to the taillights.
This was very nice in convertible form too.
And then there’s the Milan. What a hideous monstrosity.
On the right side if the vehicle:
W-i-d-e-s-t C–p-i-l-l-a-r e-v-a-h!
Otherwise great shoop!
The text had me going, thinking “I don’t remember hearing of this as a boy at church (from a the Ford mid-managers I chatted up … With each bit I learned from one, I went over to the next and built on it.)
Let’s not forget the proposed new Edsel, this time a Ford “Saturn/Pontiac/Vauxhall” killer……because it worked so well for GM.
That looks like the fabled Saabaru tie-up! 😉
Ford did actually be Merc, VW, Audi and BWM to the 4-door coupe market with the 1967-1969 Thunderbird – with the vinyl roof intended to mask the rear doors with a coupe window look.