The Continental Mark IV has become a polarizing car. On the one hand, it cemented Lincoln’s position as the king of 1970s luxury cars, or at least of American luxury cars. On the other, it came to represent the kitsch of Malaise-era luxury like no other car of the period. As for me, I can appreciate both viewpoints, having lived through that era and those that have come since. The Mark IV has also been written about quite a lot. Perhaps, though, there is room for one more perspective. I am fortunate to have experienced one of these firsthand from the very beginning, when my father took possession of one of the very first of the breed in the fall of 1971.
In many ways, my father was the opposite of Paul Niedermeyer’s father, who has been chronicled so ably by his son. One similarity was that my own father was also very intelligent, and earned his college degree in mechanical engineering, with a minor in nuclear physics. But the hard sciences were too constricting for Dad, for his gifts lay elsewhere.
My father had an innate ability to read people, and read them well. This was not always a good thing. When teenaged me would occasionally try to shovel a load of nonsense his way, he figured it out very quickly. Such as the time I tried to explain that my D+ grade in 8th grade phys ed was because I was not naturally athletic. His gaze told me right away that he was not buying, and suggested an alternative basis – that perhaps the teacher was picking up an attitude problem. Of course, he had me. But beyond his ability to see through the rationalizations of a teenage kid (which most of us pick up at some point or other), he always seemed to have a sense of people in general.
In 1969, he had left a decade-long stint with his first employer out of college, a small-ish company that specialized in synthetic sealing materials. He had worked his way from sales engineer to general manager of the Fort Wayne plant. But he desired something more, and became a self-employed management consultant. It became important to him to project an image, although such an image was not new to him. His mantra was that if you want people to perceive you as important, you have to look the part. And he did – from his never out-of-place hair, to his dapper wardrobe, to his car.
After a short stint with a 1969 LTD, Dad went all-in with the most sought-after luxury car in the land – a 1970 Continental Mark III. My father firmly believed that when you made your living by presenting an image to others, a few dollars in a monthly car payment was no place to cheap-out. I am sure that there were people leasing their cars before my father did, but it was certainly not common. But it made perfect sense – your image per dollar goes a lot farther with a lease. Some day I will come back to that particular Mark III, which was really a terrible car. When it found itself on the back of a tow truck in the fall of 1971 (and not for the first time), the scheduling was perfect, as there was a new top Lincoln coming out.
My parents had been divorced for about 5 years, and Dad would show up every third Friday after work to pick my sister and me up for the weekend. I always sat by the living room window waiting for him to arrive, and was thrilled to see an unfamiliar car pull into the driveway just as the sun was setting on a snowy November evening. I knew my cars pretty well at the age of twelve and knew immediately that there was a brand spanking new Mark IV in the driveway. At first, I thought it was a loaner (Dad was tight with the owner of Bushong Ford Lincoln Mercury in Van Wert, Ohio) but I quickly found out that it was really his.
It was just like Dad to choose a color that was perfect for the age: Light Ginger Brown Moondust Metallic with Brown Calvary Twill vinyl roof – brown cars and the 1970s just went together. The new car smell (with the bonus of leather) was intoxicating. The hood glistened with what had to be the most perfect paint job ever applied to a car, and the new stand-up hood ornament waaaaaaay out there at the end made me feel like the most important 12 year old in the world. The Mark III’s doors were heavy and sounded good, but this car took that quality to a new level. Each of those doors seemed to weigh as much as a new Pinto.
Dad’s Mark IV was notable for two options: the little oval opera windows (that would quickly become universal but was still optional on early cars) and the delicate little crossbar on the front bumper which gave some protection to the massive grille. Frankly, that little crossbar (with its white rubber rub strip) was what made the front end of this car really work for me. I had seen the “without” version depicted in the magazine that chronicled the new 1972 models, and didn’t really care for the look. The “with or without” bumper debate would turn out to be a short one, because both versions would be replaced by a bumper that looked like a plated parking block the following year.
Spending so much time around the delicately-styled ’72 model has had a lifelong effect on me, making the inaugural Mark IV (OK, the second inaugural Mark IV if we count the 1959 version) the only one of the breed over which I have ever been able to gin up any enthusiasm whatsoever. The huge bumpers simply ruined the looks of later editions, which have never appealed to me in the slightest.
I spent a lot of time in the close quarters of that back seat. Really close quarters when they were shared with my younger sister and a pre-safety-seat toddler brother. Oh well, at least there were reading lights. That I was constantly told to turn off. “If we can’t use them, then why are they even here?” was a question to which I never received a satisfactory answer. Actually, has anyone ever been allowed to have a backseat reading light on while someone was trying to navigate an expensive car through a dark night?
The Mark IV’s lease was up in late 1973, but for perhaps the only time in my memory, Dad held off replacing it until it was four years old. The economy was starting to tank and my stepmom’s ’68 Cutlass was screaming for replacement, due in no small part to a botched paint repair from when I ran a riding mower into the driver’s door. So, a Cutlass Supreme coupe would be the only new car in the driveway in 1974.
My father’s utilitarian view of cars showed up in his maintenance habits. Looking back, it is hard to imagine how such an expensive car could be in such awful shape in four short years. And how someone schooled in mechanical engineering could have such a disdain for a car’s maintenance. Part of the problem was not the car, but vandalism damage to both sides that resulted in a less than ideal paint job below the side pinstripes. Also, the car never saw the inside of a garage, soit got the full effect of Midwestern weather. But the rest was the car. First, that Lincoln threw wheelcovers with great regularity, and Dad was always slow to replace them, no doubt due to their high cost. For a guy who paid such attention to his image, driving an expensive car with dirty black steelies never made sense to me.
I was starting to drive at the end of the brown Mark IV’s time with us. By then, the car was approaching 90,000 miles. The shocks were shot, and the thing wallowed like nothing I had ever experienced. There was at least one warning light glowing on the dash, I believe due to a malfunction in the Sure-Trac brake system. “If the brake pedal goes to the floor, just pump it a couple of times” was the calm advice from my father in the passenger seat. I was not allowed to reply with any of the words that popped into my mind. This wasn’t so much a car as it was a carnival ride.
Within a few months, the economy was improving and car shopping started in earnest. Soon, a special-ordered 1976 Mercury Monarch Ghia sedan arrived, with enough options boxes checked to bring the car to Lincoln-levels of equippage. I was happy to see a new car (and to be honest, a Monarch with a 351 was a lot more fun for a stupid teenager than you might think) but it was a kind of a letdown from that Lincoln. Dad must have thought so too, because a ’78 Town Coupe would replace it.
Thinking it over, I believe that Dad’s Mark IV (and the lemon-like Mark III before it) created in me a lifelong bias against expensive new cars. I watched each of those cars morph from one of the most desirable luxury cars made to a worn-out rolling turd that was almost embarrassing to be seen in. To this day, I would rather either buy an older expensive car for a fraction of the price or buy an inexpensive new car for its more palatable depreciation curve. Although the glossy magazine ads and Lincoln brochures were selling a lifestyle, those Lincolns turned out to be just cars. They didn’t really make my life any more glamorous, and they suffered from the same weaknesses as other cars costing a fraction of the price. If new expensive cars turn you on, then buy them. But don’t expect them to infuse your life with any long-term prestige and prominence, because all too soon they will cease being able to deliver.
I have sat on these pictures for a long time. I stumbled upon this beautiful example parked on a downtown Indianapolis street one Sunday nearly four years ago. To me, the ’72 Mark IV was never so much a car as it was a part of my growing up, and so I put off writing about it (as I so often do with more personal stories.)
But Father’s Day is here again, which always makes me think of my own Dad. And it is hard for me to think of him without a certain brown Mark IV becoming part of the collage of memories that follows. This car makes me remember when I was twelve and Dad’s Mark IV was new and beautiful and desirable, and I was so proud to be a passenger in it. And that makes me smile.
Great write up. Brings back memories and my Dad and his Mopars.
I always liked Lincoln’s despite their foibles.
Happy Father’s Day JP.
My Dad has always bought used as his father did before him. Oldsmobile, Pontiac, and Chevrolet – which are also the brands his father bought. He is now holding on to a 2009 Pontiac Torrent an example which is more or less loaded with the exception of AWD.
Although I’m sure my wife and daughter have something planned for me today, I’ll try to steal a little time with my old Mustang. In that family heirloom I’ll not only find reminders of my father (who owned it from 1979 to 2013) I’ll find the spirit of my maternal grandfather who owned it from the mid 70s until his passing in 1978.
Happy father’s day JP.
A father’s chosen car can leave a big impression on a child’s memory. You father’s big brown Lincoln said a lot just sitting there; starting the engine wasn’t even necessary.
I seem to vaguely remember sitting in a Mark IV in a Lincoln showroom while my friend Chuck was doing something there with his Capri and seeing a clock that said “Cartier”. It was captivating; an Easter Egg that might be missed by some, but not by a car obsessed nut case.
Remembering my father on this day too. His car of choice was a 1953 Packard, Thanks for the memories.
Ford brought out a special Cartier edition of the LTD here in Australia. I always meant to grab one of those little Cartier trunk badges to stick on my old Cortina.
This was a good writeup. Your father deciding to keep the car long after the new wore off and then replacing it with a much less expensive fake Mercedes is a common problem for luxury owners. It is really hard to then trade to a lesser car. Going about his life he will be asked about his Mark IV and then tell he got a new one. He will admit to the Monarch and maybe spew some hype about luxury in a new size or Euro influence or whatnot. He will see the disappointment on the friends face though and be shamed by it.
I have been there and done that. The car emblems read Jaguar and Saab in my case but I remember vividly the feeling. Yes I know this can all be avoided by sticking religiously to appliance cars. Egh.
Interesting view. My childhood friends’ grandfather was a successful entrepreneur and leased expensive cars, a new one every 2 years. I vividly remember his new 1976 Eldorado, white and red, 2-tone leather inside, and even had a power moonroof. I had never seen such a fully optioned car before.
In a few short years those cars were replaced by a series of Nissan sedans, each one kept for many years. At the time we thought his business was failing. In retrospect it was probably just a fit of common sense.
It was the result of “sticker shock”, a very real thing back then. Even $2000 cars were well into the $3000 range in a few years.
These Marks, and their Thunderbird “sisters” are good looking cars, BUT I wish their oversized dimensions were an optical illusion.
Just last night I realized that even the downsized Thunderbird of the late 70s is bigger than the “behemoth” I’m driving now: an 09 Crown Victoria.
How I miss all those cars with their “color-keyed” interiors in 6 or 7 different colors.
Excellent review. I wonder how my own car habits will be remembered by my son, who is 10. Like many of us, I buy ancient eclectic wrecks, fix them and drive them. Resurrecting cast-offs from another era is my hobby.
Fortunately my son is not judgemental and not materialistic. He’s the product of the internet age, so maybe my reputation won’t suffer too much.
In the summer of 1979, my stepfather bought a ’75 mark IV in really nice, almost new condition from a family friend who had bought another car. It was white, with red pin-striping and red leather interior that was so gaudy, neither I or my stepbrothers cared much to ride in it. Part of that disdain was also due to the fact that he wouldn’t let any of us drive it, but he had no problem expecting us to wash it. That same summer, we were remodeling the 100 year-old farmhouse we were living in and was getting rid of some old curtains from the upstairs bedrooms. They were decorated with little white and red dingle-balls, which gave us boys the idea to install them on the trim/molding inside the car where it could be easily seen about the windows. It took a day for the old man to figure out what exactly it was that had become different about his car. I always thought it looked more properly pimp and considering the old man often drove it in his cowboy leisure suit, made the picture complete, in my mind. We couldn’t talk him into dressing up and posing in the car for a picture before the dingle-balls were removed.
Those dingle-ball strips around the windows were very popular here for a while among people of an, ahem, ‘certain ethnic background’.
Yes on Valiants if I remember correctly.
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!SI!.
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-Nate
Great piece, JP. My own father was the same way about maintenance. Which has made me the opposite.
He was so unconcerned that he let me do seasonal bondo and paint bodge jobs on his 66 Mercury and even suffered the 3″ port a wall white walls I bought for it. And paid to have them put on.
Happy Father’s Day to all you Dads out there.
Concur with others that this is a nice Father’s Day CC. Put me down as one who prefers the early Mark IV without the grille crossbar. The later cars are one of the few that work with the 5mph bumpers.. An earlier CC mentioned that the styling of the Mark IV was one of the lesser known efforts of Bunkie Knudson’s brief stint as a Ford president. He’s usually regarded with disdain for the increase in the 1971 Mustang’s size and the 1970 Thunderbird’s ‘Bunkie Beak’ nose where he tried to make it look like a Pontiac. Maybe if he’d hung around, thing’s might not have been so bad, considering how successful the Mark series became for Ford.
I had an uncle who was a plant manager for one of the major bread companies back in the day (they were one of the first to use the Charles Schultz’ Peanuts characters in their advertising). He always had a Ford personal luxury car, beginning with Thunderbirds, then moved up to Lincolns as his career ascended. He bought into the hype that once you reached the top, you had to have a Cadillac. That didn’t last long and he quickly went back to his Lincolns. A salesman type, he liked to wear white dress shoes with the requisite matching belt.
Likewise, the whole fallacy of the economic return on the image thing of these pricey luxury cars is an astute observation. The only luxury car I can think of that ever came close to being worth the price of admission might be Lexus, and that’s only due to the Toyota underpinnings, of which the level of quality can be found on the most rudimentary Corolla.
One reason for buying a Lexus instead of a Toyota is the superior level of dealer service. Toyota dealers around here are like their Chevrolet and Ford counterparts – service-after-the-sale ranges from lousy to okay to really good, depending on the individual dealer – but the Lexus dealers do consistently provide superior service.
Not hard to guess which of my fathers cars was my favorite. Same time as he had the new ’67 Lincoln, he also had a new left over ’66 Beetle which would become my first car in ’72. Before this was a series of new Cadillac’s for him and new Chevy wagons for mom and the family. The Cadillac’s and ’67 Continental were from his aluminum siding salesman days. See the movie “Tin Men”. The Beetle was for his Catholic Bible salesman days. See the movie “The Flim Flam Man”. He could sell bagged ice to an Eskimo.
In the early ’70’s he had a used ’67 Monterey 4 door in puke green, a new gold ’72 Pinto, a new ’74 puke green stripper Duster, for his tool business a new gold ’75 Dodge van with 225/torqueflite. The new ’79 Aspen would be his last Chrysler product, it was a fully loaded 225 equipped brown painted dud. Also was his last new car, always bought used after this.
Mom and Dad were married for life from 1954 on.
Happy Fathers Day.
Great piece for Father’s Day! My Pop was a huge fan of Lincolns too, though Cadillacs were his favorite. He never owned a Lincoln, and had one disastrous Cadillac (I’ll be writing that one up soon), but these cars, warts and all, always had a special place in his heart, and therefore in mine.
When my parents’ friend moved from sales manager at a Pontiac dealership to owner of a Lincoln-Mercury dealership in 1971, I would spend time in the showroom and noticed that the 1972 Continental Mark IV was nowhere called “Lincoln” – not on the car, not in brochures – even though it was sold in a Lincoln showroom right next to “Lincoln Continental” sedans and coupes. Later I did a little research and found that Ford never used the term “Lincoln” on any Mark-series car, from the 1950s all the way through the Mark VII, which switched from “Continental Mark VII” to “Lincoln Mark VII” midway through its run.
From that same friend we purchased a 1972 dealer demonstrator, a Continental four-door in Copper Moondust Metallic with black leather interior and black twill vinyl roof. It’s amazing how inelegant both the Continental sedan/coupe and the Mark IV would become within only a few years.
As for the ’72, I don’t know how easy it is to find a photo of one without the oval windows, but that was my preference.
I got to say JP, your father certainly had good taste in cars. It’s amazing that growing up with what your dad drove certainly leaves some impact on you.
My dad grew up in Toledo, in a rather blue collar situation. My grandfather worked for GM in an assembly line, one of the few jobs he could have, so my dad got used to having cars be around for a long time. He told me my Granddad’s first new car was a 1975 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, although without as much bells and whistles on it. (He said my grandfather didn’t elect power windows on his because, “It’s just one more thing to break). Dad’s cars were all American brands, his first was 1973 Gremlin, and he bought two different Cavaliers. His dream car remains a 69 Camaro RS/SS, and the car he wanted most as a teenager was a 1985 Pontiac Fiero GT.
My dad and I never got along back then, and we don’t really get along now, but his taste in cars ended up being far from my own. The car that I associated with dad was a 2000 Ford Taurus, it used to be my mom’s grandmother’s, but after she died, Dad bought it from her estate. It was relatively new, and dad had just sold his Cavalier Z24 so he just took it for himself no questions asked. I remember always being in that Taurus when dad was driving or taking me somewhere, but it’s not a car that I could tell you anything about.
The other car I remember that we still have, was a 1956 Chevy 210 station wagon. It was a bit of a restomod to make it more bearable in modern traffic, but that wagon was a proud object for my dad. I remember when we used to go to church, we would always take the wagon, I remember how cavernous and huge it was and how dad used to always hit a bump on the way home that would make the entire suspension go out just to provide a thrill for us and scare my mom. That wagon is still with us, now relegated to grocery hauler and the occasional special trip car, but after 12 years of ownership, it’s starting to develop a lot of problems. Now my dad also bought another car, a 1958 Apache truck in orange, that I absolutely despise. It’s a custom built truck with a 454 in it, but also has 20 inch rims with low profile tires that make for an absolutely miserable ride.
I never caught the same tastes as my dad, I was a Mercedes die hard when I was little, and now my tastes are more in line with old school American barges than with anything my dad likes. My dad likes the new Dodge Charger, I prefer the Challenger.
I also agree with you and say that these 72 Mark IVs work better with the crossbar in front of the grille than without.
Happy Father’s Day JP.
Great write-up and photos. You nailed the problem – your dad was not into maintenance. Any new car, expensive or cheap, will be worse for the wear within 4 years if treated like an appliance, and it will become a total turd if the person in charge does not treat the car as they treat their clothes. At 90k miles Toyota shocks would not fair any better than Lincoln shocks. A friend of mine has a 2015 Corolla that he bought for his then 18 year old son in late 2014. That car turned into a garbage pile within 2 years and 40k miles, needing a complete cosmetic overhaul of the interior and a solid 7-stage buffing job this spring. I remember that car the day they bought it and I have watched it deteriorate over those two years. Fortunately it was new enough that they saw fit to give it a complete interior restoration. The number of front brake jobs it went through during the same span was also higher than anyone would expect out of a Toyota and the kid wore out those tires by 25k so bad you’d think he tracked it.
The way I’ve always seen it is that some people just buy a car (or have it given to them) but never identify with it. To them it’s strictly an appliance, there to do a job and nothing more (which may or may not include projecting a certain image). I’m not judging, those people usually have other priorities that simply leave no room to worry about a chunk of metal on wheels. But that’s the kind of owner where cars usually go through hell.
The Driver, one who identifies with the car, is a different beast altogether. S/He will remain on top of the maintenance, treat the vehicle to washes as frequently as s/he visits the local drycleaners, view WOT as a rare treat versus the thing you do when the light turns green, avoid that deep pothole on a familiar street that they drive every day rather than ram straight through it every time, and that thing will still look and feel approximately new at 4 years old / 90k miles on the clock.
Just how it’s always been. As far as cars go, your Dad’s Mk4 had very bad luck. Your Dad sure had good taste in clothes though! 😉
Wow. I believe the Corolla story, but still, wow. My guess is that kid will be a lot easier on the first car he actually has to pay for out of his own pocket.
Anyway, I’ve had my 2014 300c for two years now with 40K on it, and aside from the drivers side floor mat, looks the same as when I bought it. Actually probably better because I can do a better job of cleaning it than the dealership did. But, I’ve always been that way even with my high school beater.
As to the article, I love me some Lincoln PLCs-more the Mk. V for me, but the Mk. IV is great too.
Right? My grandfather was a highly competent and respected mechanical engineer, whose approach to car maintenance was somewhere between neglectful and abusive. Oil changes every idonno months or mumbleteen thousand miles, whichever was longer. One foot on the gas and one on the brake as he racked the automatic back and forth between Reverse and drive during parking maneuvers. Still managed to get a lot of miles out of his Acclaim, his Aries before that, and before those a string of other American cars, mostly Chrysler and Ford products.
That said, what are we to make of your dad’s reaction to the lousy ’70 Lincoln? Wow, what an awful car, I think I’ll buy another. And then the ’71 quickly went to shìt and so he bought yet another (Mercury-branded this time). Was his friendship with the Stinkoln dealer really so good as to countervail the rottenness of the cars?
His lease decision was all about resale value which kept the residuals high and the payment low. That was one reason I could never get anywhere pushing a Chrysler.
I want it! The green mist over the brown just in case there is confusion. Any if’s ands, or buts are not relevant.
A brilliant write-up, JP. Must be something about the era they grew up in, because my father had a similar attitude toward having a good car to be seen as successful in business. His budget never extended anywhere near that far, and it would have been over the top for his line of work. But new cars happened every four or five years, so he (read I) always washed his car every weekend (making sure to polish the chrome), it was serviced regularly, and any dents were taken care of within a month or so.
Then things went bad, and what had been a nice impressive-looking green on green Falcon 500 limped along gathering rust and dents until he died. But it was mechanically perfect to the end.
A very nice piece, JP, thank you.
And nice pics, too!
I recently bought a 72 Mark IV. Nearly pristine, with the Light Yellow Gold paint code ( 6B ). Fully optioned, tilt wheel, sunroof etc. I was 10 when these came out and to me they were the bomb compared to my Dad’s now rusting 66 Scout and that blue smoke dragon of a SAAB 96 my mom made him buy. This Mark IV is my second childhood revenge on all the times we pulled up in those rusting monstrosities. Now looking back I know my dad was just smart with money. He said he could buy one of those Marks for every day on the week but he wouldn’t waste the money on one. And it was true, my dad was blue collar rich having worked for himself since he was 13. Still, to a 10 year old whose friends parents drove Gran Prix and Monte Carlos, the Mark IV sure was sweet. It’s interesting in 1972 the Mark was the most expensive American car you could buy and Pinto was the cheapest, so Ford had em coming and going.
Great write up! My parents bought a used ’75 Mark IV in 1979 when I was 4 years old and it was the first car of theirs that I am able to remember. Gold with a gold interior. What baffled even my 4 year old mind back then was how a car so large on the outside could be so cramped on the inside.
Excellent father’s day piece! I also concur with you that after 1972, the large bumpers ruined the Mark IV. I am not a big fan of these luxo-barges, but I can tell you if I saw one like the subject of this article on the street or at a car show, I’d be very interested and I’d enjoy looking at it.
Like many other young men, I was greatly influenced by my father, and I probably have to accredit him for my interest in cars at all. Some of my earliest memories are of me sitting with my dad looking at a car book or magazine with him. Growing up in a large family and my father being an immigrant who came to our country with next to nothing, we always kept our cars for a long time. Although my dad is far from being the most mechanically inclined person, he certainly has an innate ability to keep a car in meticulous condition. While others have this skill too, my father is one of the few who can do it with a car that is regularly used, and by a family of six. That said, I certainly inherited his ability to keep cars running for a long time, and keep them looking good too. I know that I have had a large influence on my son who also has a strong interest in cars too, so I hope the tradition will continue on.
Does anyone remember the episode of Seinfeld, where Jerry’s girlfriend only looks good in certain lights? This car is sort of like that……on some angles, it looks outstanding, and then you get it on the wrong angle and it looks bloated and ungainly. Certainly, the front end (in particular the grille) looks great, and the sides are decent, but get it on anything but a straight on view, and the car’s lines, creases and bulges look awkward. I can’t remember saying that about a car in a long time.
My father bought a brand new ’85 Riviera. He knew from my youngest years that I loved to read and specifically ordered the rear seat reading lights. I was always allowed to read in the back seat. (the massive pillars on that car probably helped- no oval opera windows.) Those lights, which were hemispherical metal with a small lens that could be rotated 180 degrees, would get super hot. burned the hell out my 7 year old hands many a time.
Nice article! 1972 was by far the best looking of the Mk IV’s. I really dig the hubcaps on this car. With so much else on the car being gaudy and flashy, it is interesting that the wheelcovers are so restrained.
HAPPY FATHER’S DAY ! .
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It’s nice to read all the loving comments .
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-Nate
Thanks to Dad and Dad’s dad for passing along a bit of mechanical ability! 🙂
I always have a soft spot for the cars my dad has owned, too. I still stop and check out ’63 Galaxie convertibles and “Clydesdale” Mach 1’s.
I had a neighbor who leased cars for his wife and himself, back in the 70s…she drove a new Lincoln coupe every couple of years, and he graduated from Corvettes to Porsche 928s in the early 80s. They were very much trying to look and act the part of successful business owners.
It pained me to no end that my dad wouldn’t get anything nicer than an Olds 98, and kept his cars until they almost had to be pushed into the dealership for trade-in. If I could go back in time, and get one of my dad’s old cars, it would have to be the light green ’69 Delta 88 4 door hardtop…he drove that thing until 1978, and I have lots of memories of that tank.
Great story and photos on Father’s Day, jpcavanaugh! The Continental Mark III and IV seemed even more exotic than Cadillacs at that time.
My father became an “Oldsmobile man” after their 1965 Chevrolet Bel Air wagon turned into rolling junk by 1971, and was then subject to the recall for defective motor mounts that covered all Chevrolet V-8s built between 1965 and 1969.
As I got older, I took over the cosmetic care of the family cars, so they looked good throughout the time we owned them. By the late 1970s, my parents were also becoming more religious about maintenance, so the cars were in decent shape when they were traded. But those Oldsmobile 88s did have a higher quality “feel” than any contemporary full-size Chevrolet from day one.
My father specifically refused to consider a Cadillac because he felt that people who bought one were trying to “show off.” In a small Pennsylvania town in the 1970s, that was still considered to be a no-no. The local Cadillac dealer sold a fair number of Cadillacs, but many of them went to people from out of town (particularly Harrisburg), as he consistently offered better prices and trade-in allowances than other dealers. He also sold Chevrolets and Oldsmobiles, and those marques constituted the bulk of his business.
My great uncles and their kids were Oldsmobile dealers in Northern Kentucky from the 20s till the late 90s, when they sold out to a big dealer group. Olds Ninety-Eights were the car of choice of Northern Kentucky organized crime guys…nice and luxurious, but not flashy enough to draw attention from law enforcement. They were not as prone to showing off as their big-city counterparts. The mob guys’ homes tended to be pretty low-key too, not like the flashy stuff the Chicago and NY mobsters were prone to.
The subtle differences between the three “high line” GM divisions – Oldsmobile, Buick and Cadillac – are hard to understand today, but were so real at that time.
My father would never have considered a Cadillac, but a Ninety-Eight was within the realm of possibility – after the kids were through college and mortgage was nearly paid. An Electra wouldn’t have been in the running. We were an Oldsmobile family. That lasted until 1999, when GM’s effort to turn the division into its import fighter finally drove my parents to buy a Buick.
Interesting feature, and I’m very interested in your conclusion about the Lincoln and Mercury being just cars. Such thoughts chime with the observation you can make, though not a clearly as you could, about for example the European Ford Granada, Opel/Vauxhall Senator, or even Rover 3500 or 825. All likeable enough cars, but not somehow built like a Mercedes, BMW or Jaguar. Instead cost and price added by trimming and equipping a disguised higher volume product to meet the lo volume product price, but ultimately the roots come through, and the early depreciation is marked.
However, I still like it – I grew up watching Frank Cannon – and it brings back memories of your Dad, which is great.
that car pictured here look like the one used in the second season of Cannon (1972-1973). First season was a 1971 Lincoln Continental Mark III and for the remainder of the shows run was a Lincoln Mark IV. The 1972-1976 Lincoln Mark IV was known as “The Cannon Car”.
My mom was going to move to Vegas in 1973, and in the summer, she started looking for a new car to replace the soon to be sold, and never liked ’73 Cutlass Supreme she had. It was the most pimped out mid sized car I’d ever seen. I never liked the Colonade styling, and the “misty blue” with a white vinyl top was just a sad color, just above what we called “Weak assed green”. A neighbor who owned a used car lot bought the Cutlass for a very good price for his wife, and my mom and her asswipe boyfriend went out and came home that night in a silver over silver MKIV. Fully pimped out, it’s size amazed me, and it’s “handling” scared me. The hubcaps began flying off pretty quickly, and I remember getting out to get one when it came off on one of the busiest streets in Toledo when it was like a week old. They moved to Vegas about a month after they bought it. The “fasten seat belt” light came on almost as soon as they got to Vegas, and nothing the dealers could do would get it to turn off. It soon was covered with black electrical tape, which stayed on it until the car was sold in 1981. Other than constant radiator issues and an almost yearly battery change, it was pretty good as far as cars went back then. A new, larger radiator in 1979 finally resolved all it’s cooling issues, and the car could be in stop and go traffic without any issues from that point on. I was supposed to pick them up at the airport one Sunday afternoon when the battery puked out and I picked them up in my truck instead. Her boyfriend was on thin ice with her and they got into a huge fight about them having to ride in my “shitty ass truck”. I hope that fight was the thing that finally pushed her into getting rid of him. A couple of months later, he was on his way out. My mom offered him the car, mostly as an incentive to get out, but he refused it, saying he didn’t want “that piece of junk”. He should have taken it. He ended up living with some woman 10 years older than him who looked like his mother, in a trailer, and what did he end up driving? A ’66 Chrysler Newport. My mom and I were always amused when one of us saw him driving it. After she died, her daughter tossed him out and he spent his last years working at a men’s store and sharing an apartment with some guy he worked with. A sad pair of 80 year olds. After a stroke, he refused to eat or drink, and died soon after, leaving everything he had to the roommate. He and his sister were textbook sociopaths, so he really didn’t have anyone who cared about him. His sister (the full one) ended up burying him in Vegas, even though she had tons of money. Their half siblings weren’t able to afford to bring him home. The story of their father’s marriages in Toledo, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, London, and Warsaw(At the same time!) would make a very entertaining movie. Somehow, the kids born in Warsaw all survived the Holocaust along with the first wife, and wound up in Toledo, The kids born here knew the other kids, but nobody knew they had the same dad until the younger ones went to a party at the older kid’s house, and saw their dad’s picture on the mantle. I would love to have seen that moment. After the 4 kids figured out they were half siblings, dad’s London kids were soon discovered along with the never divorced wife. Soon the Pittsburgh and Cleveland kids and wives were discovered. Dad took off to Brazil, where he again married and had another son before dying at 84 years old. The Brazil kid appeared in 1970 one day, soon after dad had passed away. His resemblance to my mom’s boyfriend was amazing. The dad had a total of 11 kids with 5 women, married to all of them at the same time. He just added a wife and kids as he went along.
@ jpcavanaugh – I never knew until this story that you also grew up in NW Ohio (I was born in Findlay, grew up near Lima)….
Cool! I actually grew up in Fort Wayne, but after my Dad remarried he lived in Van Wert County, so I spent time there too. Principal Dan hails from that general area as well.
A great story about a Lincoln and about your Dad. The ’72 is clearly the best of the IV models due to the bumpers; the later ones truly ruined it, and the visual weight added by the chromed battering rams as opposed to the slimming effect of the inward-tapering originals completely demolished the styling’s balancing act between bulk and grace.
My parents always bought used; the one brand-new car either of them ever owned was the ’72 Nova Dad bought when he got his first full-time job fresh out of college–managing a Woolworth’s store in northern Jersey. That Nova was gone before my time; apparently within 5 years the fenders were rusting out and there were holes in the floorboards. So my memory is full of used cars, none of them particularly exciting except for the Audi that quickly turned sour once it started costing him money. But that was an aberration anyway (partly my fault) for someone who’s always been practical with his automotive choices. His most recent car was a 2010 Corolla, bought lightly used, and he seemed quite happy with it despite its very appliance-like nature. But that one got sold when he retired and they downsized to one car, keeping Mom’s Grand Marquis instead.
Happy belated Father’s Day!
I certainly understand the father/car maintenance thing as my father had a certain “way” with vehicles… he had a “death touch”. His vehicles would either develop this “magnetism” and other vehicles would hit them or he’d drive them into the ground. His brand new ’69 Checker Marathon got hit no more than 2 weeks after we got it! And that was just the first of many incidents that car was involved in, none of which were his fault! Then there was the ’81 Concord… oh, that poor, poor car! Hit at least ELEVEN times, again none his fault! He just had that “magnetism”…
Looks like the car used on the second season (1972-1973) of Cannon. William Conrad starred as a heavy set detective who lived large. The Lincoln Mark IV is about the size of a Mississippi river barge. The color was a medium green metallic with a dark green top and leather upholstery.