(first posted 2/2/2017) The church where I serve is in a tough neighborhood. It was solidly middle class when it was built a hundred years ago, but today it knows all of the problems of poverty: un/underemployment, addiction, abuse. One problem not related to poverty is that there isn’t enough parking on the neighborhood’s narrow streets. A few of our nearest neighbors use our lot. We didn’t exactly invite them. But the lot is largely unused except during church events, so we feel like it’s a kindness to leave them be. The cast of automotive characters in our lot changes frequently — transience is one of the problems of poverty. We see a lot of worn-out trucks and Roaches of the Road. But every now and then something unusual and special shows up. Like this ’75 Mark IV.
Long and low, it commands attention. It commanded attention in 1975, too – these cars have presence. They make today’s tall and stubby cars look almost comical.
I’ve seen a few of these restored at shows and auctions, and figured that’s where most of these that have survived have ended up. But you’re never going to see any restored classics in this neighborhood. Old cars that pass through are always rough.
The interior looks pretty good, though. Surprisingly good. And surprisingly flossy. Was this an everyday Mark, I wondered as I snapped these photographs, or was it special?
Verdict: special. It’s a genuine “Saddle and White Luxury Group” Mark IV!
This was the second year for this trim option. In 1974, a Mark IV so equipped graced the cover of that year’s Continental brochure.
Two other Luxury Group options were available in 1975: the Silver Luxury Group (also introduced for 1974) and the new Lipstick and White Luxury Group. How many men would have bought the latter car if only they had called it the Crimson and White Luxury Group?
The Broughamification of our nation was well underway, and Lincoln quadrupled its Broughamy bet in ’76 with the first of its Designer Series Marks: the Pucci, Givenchy, Cartier, and Bill Blass Editions. So long to the Luxury Groups, but hello to a Lincoln tradition that, even though it shifted to the Town Car in 1982, persisted through 2008.
This generation Mark was, of course, the first not to have an exclusive platform and body. Ford juiced its margins by basing the Mark on the contemporary Thunderbird. And glory be, you could get a Bird trimmed similarly to this Mark. For less. Jason Shafer found one of these gold-and-white Thunderbirds a few years ago, by the way, sporting a terrible aftermarket hood scoop. Check it out here. And I know it’s entirely subjective but I think the Bird sports a lovelier beak.
Here’s this Mark’s beak, a little worse for the wear. But the car looks largely intact, and the rust appears to be only on the surface.
A couple weeks after I photographed this Mark, a funeral packed our lot full. Too full; several cars parked up the middle, blocking everybody else in. It fell to me to find the offending drivers and get them to back their cars out one by one. While I was out directing traffic, a very small woman who appeared to be of Mexican descent approached me, obviously angry, demanding in heavily accented English to know when our lot would be clear and she could park her car in it. Sometimes our neighbors forget that we’re doing them a solid by letting them park here. Anyway, as I drove out I spotted this Mark parked on the busy main road. I have to assume the car and that woman went together. But it was the last time I saw either of them. As is common in this transient neighborhood, both had clearly moved on.
Related reading:
J.P. Cavanaugh tells a story of his father’s ’72 Mark IV.
Tom Klockau found a ’76 Givenchy Edition Mark IV.
Richard Bennett showcases a pristine ’76 Mark IV.
Judging by the steering wheel, this appears to be a 1974.
Agreed. I always much preferred this wheel to the one that came in 1975 and seemed to last forever.
The lack of the white stripe in the black plastic stripes on the pumbers and bumper guards also tells it is a 1974 model.
As 1975 as it probably gets – enjoying the wheels very much.
Got a set of those wheels as well.. Undecided whether to use them on my Lincoln ( which has the spoked wheels I like) or my Grand Marquis, even though the caps wouldn’t match.
Looks like a ’74. It has dual exhaust, which was gone in ’75.
Single exhaust was standard, but Dual exhaust was optional and available in both 1975 and 1976.
I am quoting the 1975 and 1976 Salesmen’s Product Information catalogs from Lincoln-Merury Division.
The really weird thing is you could get the exhaust with either no, a single or double catalyc system, depending on to which state it was ordered.
I thought it was a mistake that my car only has a single catalyc converter on the Y pipe on a single exhaust system, untill I got the right literature upon ordering a new exhaust. It seems that a single catalyc converter was all that was required for a car ordered for Pennsylvania in 1975.
I like the Mk4 shape even with the 73+ font bumper. Nice interior.
My dads friend Joe had a 1976 green mark IV .Road in it once very nice ride, wide but not much room in the back for such a large car .he would use it only on special occasions never in bad weather ( he had a beater nova for that) and as a result of that all the rubber components ,tires ,gaskets failed and had to be replaced on a very low mileage car
Now see, those are the type’s of cars I used to buy for $500 or $600 all day long. THAT is the kind of condition I have bought most of my cars in. A few blemishes here and there, but I have never (knock on wood) bought one yet that wasn’t mechanically reliable with several more good years of service left. I’d rather have a dozen like those rather than one (expensive) restored one. I love those Mark III and IV Lincolns. Some of my favorite all time cars.
For some reason, to me, it always seems sadder to see a run-down luxury car rather than an ordinary car. This Lincoln fell further than a more basic car, like a Maverick. When it was new, it was special, even a special edition of a special car. I’m sure when it was purchased and delivered, it was showed off to many people, the toast of the town. Parked out front in valet parking, washed and maintained religiously (probably).
Now, it’s been passed through a number of likely less affluent owners, and now finds itself hanging on with probably its last owner. It’s nice to see one still being used, but also kinda of sad also.
Same here, I also feel almost sad seeing one of these old Grand Dames of the road in sorry shape. This one isn’t too bad, a respray and some trim pieces and it would be a looker once again.
The ones held together with duct tape and bungee cords with more rust than sheet metal are the ones I really hate seeing. Part the damn thing out already!
Jim, thanks for the shout-out.
Having owned the Thunderbird equivalent of this Lincoln for seven years, these are a perpetual favorite of mine.
Lots of people will likely speak of how poorly they handled, the size, the fuel consumption, the lack of interior space, how they aged poorly, etc. There is validity with those concerns, so let’s speak about that…
Sure, the handling wasn’t in Lamborghini territory, but it wasn’t meant to be. If one paid attention to the curve advisory signs they were golden. That suspension was meant to allow you to drive over large things without feeling it – which you could.
Yes, it was large but it forced one to think and pay attention. I quickly got to where I could park that Thunderbird anywhere and back out with equal ease. The future Mrs. Jason lived in a place with a horribly narrow driveway with parking behind the house. I could drive in and back out all day long. Driving this is like weight lifting – it develops certain muscles.
An added bonus with the size of these? You could tell where the end of the hood is, a nifty perk. How many cars produced since then can claim this?
Fuel consumption? It has a 460 cubic inch engine; so expectations should reflect that. However, truth be told, I routinely got 12 to 13 mpg in mixed driving with my ‘Bird. On the highway I could get 15 to 17 mpg. That’s better than what my father’s ’84 F-150 with that overrated 300 straight six ever dreamed of getting. And I’ll give one guess on which could get out of its own way.
Room wasn’t plentiful but one could still do a lot inside, even in the backseat. I’ll say no more.
All in all, these weren’t bad cars by any stretch. The decor may not be universally enticing (and it’s quite the relic of its time), but that does contain some amount of its (un)appeal!
I am on record as being not so fond of Big Bumper Mark IVs. But I can hardly imagine a better beater. Other than its drinking problem, a 460/C6 combo is hard to beat for simplicity and durability. These aren’t worth much and are really comfy. A great winter beater until the body eventually rusts away.
I’m usually pretty hard on Ford’s Federalized bumper integration, but I’ll give them a little credit here. The job they did on the Mark IV may be one of their best.
“They make today’s tall and stubby cars look almost comical.”
So true. Stubby is exactly the word I’d use to describe many present-day cars, and it’s particularly apparent when comparing the side profiles of newer cars vs. those made during the lower-and-wider period. The short trunks, in particular, contribute to the awkwardness in my opinion.
Of course, then there’s SUVs, about the only things that come close to these Lincolns in terms of length. This Mark IV is about 7″ longer than an Expedition EL, but 2 feet shorter. Its a fun exercise to actually look at the dimensions — sometimes the dimensions themselves aren’t all that exaggerated from what we’re accustomed to today, but the proportions are, and on these 1970s/1960s cars, the horizontal lines really accentuate their length.
Alternative POV: “Today’s tall and stubby cars make these look almost comical”
Increasingly so, the “lower, longer, wider” era of cars is becoming an historical anomaly. We’re just back to the proportions that dominated the majority of the car’s lifespan.
I thought it sort of odd that a comment about this car making rationally proportioned ones look comical would follow the first photo of the Mark IV, which seems to exaggerate the absurdly long overhangs totaling nine feet of its length.
A great example is the first gen Chevy Spark, the one with the gigantic headlights as long as the front fenders. My favorite description was that it had the appearance of a startled squirrel. Imagine one parked next to the Mark IV feature car.
Agreed. Some of today’s cars almost look like slightly-squared-off balls.
But they look so sleek and svelte and just ooze class! Anomaly maybe, but a gorgeous one.
Plus, it depends which cars you are comparing. Many old cars might not have been low and wide but they had a lot going on out front with a straight 8 under a huge hood or even more with v12s. Some were considerably lower than other more pedestrian makes.
I think it’s a bit bold to say that in either case. The current trends may be as much of an anomoly since the longer/lower/wider era boomed in a completely unregulated environment with a lower median age of car buyers than now, not to mention the potential for generational shifts – think the little kids are going to fondly remember riding in the child seats of prosaic CUV when they go new car shopping when they grow up? Plus it’s hard to call it an anomoly when it was the go-to design language for roughly 40-50 years of the mass produced automobile’s 100 and change (depending of course on where you draw the beginning and end lines), most sport sedans still subscribe to it even if they’re within a 200″ footprint, as much design inspiration still comes from very low and wide supercars. What makes the 70s interpretation of it look so comical is it went too far with too little effort to achieve the desired lengths(super long overhangs), which only got exacerbated by 5mph bumpers adding almost a foot to the overall length of carryover bodies in some cases (the 75 Mark IV is 8 ” longer than the 72)
Well said.
Like I was saying, even cars like a Caddy v16 or a Lincoln K has much more stylistically in common with their 70s PLC descendants than any of the cuv’s they make today.
The little kids of today are never going to go new car shopping when they grow up, except perhaps ones that live in very rural areas.
Yes. Compared with the rest of the world, it could be argued that the ‘standard’ American car was an anomaly. I think American car proportions peaked in the mid-fifties; after then the longer-lower-wider theme seemed to bring bulk without benefit. And nowadays with SUVs we seem to have returned to earlier proportioning, with resultant easier access.
Having said that, there have always been stunningly-proportioned luxury cars, to make a visual statement. Like this.
It is amazing how quick poverty can come and go. I started my dream job Dec 5th after being out of work since end of March, 2015. While it was worth the wait, there was a lot of ramen and way too much daytime TV consumed in the process. Happy New Year to all my CC friends! (Assuming I have any 🙂 )
Congratulations on the new job and here’s wishing you the best for 2017! 🙂
Fantastic news! Happy New Year!
Sounds like you lived some situational poverty. The people in our neighborhood live in generational poverty — it is all they and their ancestors going back at least one generation have ever known. Not saying your situation wasn’t very uncomfortable, and I’m glad it wasn’t permanent!!
Congrats! In July 2011I was laid off from a long term freelance job I was sure would resume. It didn’t, nor have any others, and I’ve come to know the ramen – and – Antenna TV periods all to well. Just kinda running out the clock now, you know? BTW , what’s your drean job? Just curious.
In the late ’70s, I knew a man who owned a paving company. He was around 50, had a gut and a combover, and was usually dressed in too-tight disco shirts unbuttoned to the sternum or leisure suits. A gold medallion hung around his neck and gold chains were on his wrist. To complete the ensemble, he had a 1976 red and silver Pucci-edition Mark IV. It was the perfect accessory for his look.
I think one of the things I liked best about the ’75 Mark IV was the silver leather package. Silver leather!!! How many people had silver leather? I’m pretty sure this was the only car ever produced, outisde of a concept vehicle, that had silver leather as a factory option.
The ’75 brochures were my first foray into brochure collecting during the seventies and eighties. Brochures got more boring by the late eighties, let’s face it.
My favorite Luxury Group package was the Black Diamond edition (black “moondust” exterior/black leather interior). I think it was available only in ’76.
The 1979 10th anniversary Trans Ams used silver leather too, I always thought that looked cool.
I believe the Corvette was offered with silver leather in the late 70’s early 80’s too.
The Corvette definitely was. A friend’s Dad did a light restoration on a black ’81 Vette with silver leather interior. Coolest thing about the car by a long shot.
I never understood these things. How could a car that was so darned HUGE have so little interior room? How could an engine so large be so gutless? How could a car brake and generally drive badly, yet sell at a HUGE price?
And I still don’t understand it. These things were never very popular in Canada, mostly due to the above mentioned traits.
As time goes on, I am really seeing the enormous culture difference between the USA and Canada. This is just one example.
To be fair, there’s the US’ interstate system that has thousands of miles of flat, straight, multi-lane highways. I don’t know if there’s anything comparable in Canada, but it’s for this type of travel that huge, inefficient, floaty-ride behemoths like the Mark IV were chiefly designed.
Have a look at a map-Canada also has huge, flat spaces, with long, straight highways. Cars like the MK IV were (somewhat) popular with Alberta farmers. Highway 401 in Ontario is a long, fairly straight highway, too. And just exactly how much time does one spend on an Interstate as opposed to running errands?
No, the reasons cars like this were never popular here in Soviet Canuckistan is due to cultural reasons.
I think Canuckistan (as you aptly call it) follows Europe much more than America ever does or probably ever will. That America is, well, America is a very good thing in my book.
I love these sort of luxoboats and love oozing around town or gliding down the highway in something like this. I love the rubbernecking you see people do when you roll by. I love the glorious excess.
The other thing about cars like this and their descendants is they are a rolling epitome of the American Dream, a republican Rolls-Royce of sorts. It’s nice to be able to have something that is bigger than is absolutely necessary or more nicely appointed than the econobox or junker you had starting out. You made it, and cars like this were the award.
It is a cultural thing, certainly, even in different parts of the US. In the Midwest where I hail amongst the descendants of Slavic immigrants, those Brougham design cues really hit the mark for us. Baroque-y things always seemed to equal high class to me growing up.
My Polish immigrant father had a 1973 Thunderbird as the second & last car he owned. He was very proud of it & said that it rode like a plane. The person who we sold it to said that the reason he bought it because his grandfather had one like it & his grandmother hated it!
Nope. Canada doesn’t follow Europe at all. It’s a common misconception Americans have about Canada, a place about which they knew practically nothing. This is a good thing.
No, our society is uniquely Canadian, and it based on mutual respect.
For certain things, it does as far as I’m concerned. I know it’s not the exact same thing, blah, blah, don’t care- ‘Murica!
You’re right Len. Premium domestic luxury cars like the Imperial, Seville and Mark IVs were a rare sight in Canada. Wealthy Canadians were not especially conspicuous at the time.
Big Lincolns make traveling to hockey games much more enjoyable.
Annually, the “I have made it as a Canadian” car circa 1974 would have been a loaded Pontiac Grandville with 455. When I was a kid in Rosemere Quebec, I lived in a neighbourhood of GM engineers and well off businesmen, as well as professionals. Lots of loaded Pontiacs. Even Buicks were considered ostentatious.
I grew up in Ottawa. I still remember riding in my dad’s Ford Ranch Wagon saying to a friend beside me, “Look! There’s a Cadillac!”. lol
They were still rare enough at the time, that it was notable when you spotted one.
What about the QEW around Toronto? one of the widest highways in the world. Canadians did like big sedans Impalas,etc but not the cost of a personal car that seats only four at a pinch.
It’s not just highways and interstates, Suburban streets are quite wide, straight and featuring gentle sweeps at best too, even in all our big cities the grid system is dominant. The only sharp turns you encounter are at stop signs and stop lights, so you stop, turn and use the gobs of low end torque to get you back in motion for the next stretch of straight flat road. There are very few opportunities to find a handling limitations of a land barge or the handling prowess of a genuine corner carver around here.
I never understood the “how can a car that big have such a small interior” criticism. If it were just one person driving a van of the same length/width would you be less judgemental? Last vehicle I saw with more than 4 people inside was a school bus
That describes where you live, but where I live, streets are very narrow, traffic signals frequent and parking almost impossible.
The provincial highways have two directions, up and down. There is also a lot of left and right in the equation.
That’s another why these sleds were never popular in British Columbia.
And I get that, but you can now understand why cars like this would be popular in a place as described? When there’s massive stretches of straight roads and literally zero natural geographical features to see(they aren’t called The Great Plains for nothing) a flashy car that uses the design language of a Victorian castle, with a cozy interior literally becomes the most interesting and desirable thing that surrounds you. If I lived where you live it would be a different story, but nothing is one size fits all, and nor should it be.
These cars are guilty as you charge on some fronts, and fair enough, it is not your taste.
But, for many of the likely buyers – older folks that had made some money along the way, these were very comfortable cars that delivered smooth power, great air-conditioning (not as much a consideration in Canada, I suppose) and a posh stereo infused interior. A few decades earlier, the owner may have been driving a ’53 Chevy wagon full of kids – a crude truck by comparison with this Lincoln. These drivers really didn’t car that this car didn’t offer the interior space of their old wagon – they didn’t need it.
While the seating position may seem a bit odd these days, a car like this, in good condition, can still deliver its occupants and a fair amount of luggage long distances in comfort – something that can’t be said for a lot of cars that preceded it.
In the 1970’s, air-conditioning was easy an $800 option on a $5000 car. That was a lot of money for cars that rusted to junk in five years. And the idea that Canada is cold in the summer doesn’t really hold, either. Toronto or Montreal in August can easily get into the high 30’C range. I vividly remember my dad’s 1970 Pontiac, which had black vinyl interior. It was like an oven in summer and freezing in winter. My mom wouldn’t let dad roll down the window in case her hair got messed, so we roasted in total misery. The first car we had with air was my dad’s 1979 Impala he factory ordered. It was $850, or about 10% the price of the car.
Air conditioning did not appear in my dad’s cars until the 80s.
This is purely anecdotal, but I would imagine if you encountered an average Ford Granada or a Mercury Monarch on the road in the US, it would typically have a cloth interior and either the 302/351 V-8s.
So many Canadian Granada’s, from my memories, would typically have dog dish wheel covers, no air, vinyl interiors and 250 sixes. lol
Cars didn’t last very long in our climate in those days. After only five years on the road, my dad’s 1970 Pontiac was full of rust holes, had broken front springs and needed a total brake swap-out (rusted hoses) and a front end.
The car had 58,000 miles on it, and dad sold it to a mechanic relative who wanted the motor and Powerglide out of it. Price: $100!
$850 for A/C? The window sticker on a ’78 Impala lists 4 season air conditioning as costing $579. Dont’ think it would be much more in ’79.
Different countries.
Our first AC car was a ’72 Comet 4 door LDO, Canadian price was $412, I remember that from the invoice.
My first was a several-years used 1968 Plymouth Valiant Signet. I have not purchased a non air-conditioned car ever since, new or used, I liked the A/C so much.
Frugality/practicality seemed to be an integral part of our social fabric in Canada for many generations. Back then, you just didn’t see many ‘premium’ traditional domestic luxury cars here.
Premium ‘faux’ luxury, was rare. Independent of the fact more Americans could afford them.
Like I stated above, the whole culture is different in Canada than it is in the USA. It is also vastly different from anywhere in Europe. It is a uniquely Canadian thing.
I am not sure where it came from, but the entire history of European conquest of Canada is quite different than that of the USA. Almost all the US settlers, for example, were deeply religious, while most going to Canada were part of mainstream churches, and thus more modest.
In Canada, it is actually seen as cool to consume less than one is capable, or at least it is in my generation. I get a real kick out of it, actually, when I get out of my Rio in a tailored cashmere suit. It is even funnier when the valet can’t drive a standard…..
An American friend who has lived and worked in Vancouver summed up the differences like this:
-In America, a guy will go for the biggest, baddest thing the bank will finance. In Canada, people more often buy only what they need. In the USA, 75% of people are actively religious, and in Canada, 75% are not.
It was definitely more defined back then, but it’s still present. I’ve always felt a social conscience and humility that connected Canadians. There was/is a self awareness. Not having so much consumerism in our culture at the time contributed. I think the CBC played a big role back then. I think our harsh climate played a huge role. A flashy car is hard to justify if you can only fully appreciate it for 5 months a year. There were many factors.
I grew up in Southeastern Ontario. The only time as a child I’d regularly see Imperials, Sevilles, Town and Country wagons, or my first Lincoln Versailles was during the summer months in the border tourist towns like Gananoque, Brockville, or Alexandria Bay, NY. As the wealthy retirees from New York State and Pennsylvania would come to Canada to fish. Driving through a tiny tourist village like Westport, Ontario in July in the 1970s was like attending a new car show filled exclusively with the types of flashy/gaudy American luxury cars you’d never see in Canada.
Conspicuous consumption was and is more prevalent in Alberta. In the 70s, Lincolns appeared to be driven by junior energy company execs (blue-eyed oil sheiks) or prosperous ranchers going to town.
In general, full-sized Ford and GM products were common here because of the need to tow trailers or carry cargo. It was rare for a white collar professional to commute to work in a truck back then so these cars were the general purpose vehicle of the day. Seeing a hunter driving a full-sized barge with a deer carcass tied to a roof was not that unusual thirty years ago.
Standard full sized cars like Bel Airs, Impalas, Galaxie 500s, LTDs and Newports were common in Ontario. It was the premium American luxury cars, like the Seville or ’82 Continental for example, that were exceptionally rare.
I remember seeing a lot of full-size Lincolns and Mercurys in Alberta. A common sight up to the end of the 1990s. I guess these were purchased during the 70s oil boom and kept by a lot of people when times were tougher in the 80s.
There is one of these that bombs around my area of Edmonton. The guy has painted it matte black and rodded it up a bit. I’ve had the misfortune of driving behind it a few times and been asphyxiated with the windows open.
Is this it?
That’s the one! If it is yours, I apologize for claiming it asphyxiated me but it does run very rich!
Sometimes I’ll transport my bicycle in the bed of my long bed F150. It looks kind of funny, using tie downs like it was a motorcycle. I always feel a little wasteful and wonder if other drivers look at me in judgement. However if if I’m just driving around in my empty truck I don’t even give it a thought.
“Cannon. A Quinn Martin production . . .”
Yep, gotta love it! A QM production was also used sometimes on Barnaby Jones.
Fantastic find and great write-up, Jim. The hump on the trunk lids of these cars used to confuse me when I was learning to tell the time.
“This generation Mark was, of course, the first not to have an exclusive platform and body.”
The Mark III shared the same platform with the contemporary Thunderbird. That was the first Thunderbird came with two or four doors, suicide doors to boot.
Jim is this in Indianapolis? If so, where (if you don’t mind the somewhat personal question). My fiance and I attend Little Flower on the East side, the neighborhood is likewise traditionally working class, but ‘transitioning,’ and not in a good direction. We lived in a rental there for one year (on Shannon Ave) but moved away after a year thankfully. Nothing bad happened to us in the way of crime, but trouble was always sort of around the corner. On a car-related note, it was not unusual at all to see a box-B-body Chevy still in daily driver duty down that way, or in some intermediate phase of “donk” with a lift kit but rolling on steelies.
Little Flower? Small world. The Mrs. and I have been there a few times. Father Gilday, right? We are in the fuzzy border between St. Matthew and St. Pius X, but Little Flower has been a short drive for a “last chance Mass” on Sunday evening. Yes, the east side of Indy has been struggling. I believe that Jim’s church is on the west side, another area that has had its share of troubles.
Yep, we did our pre-marital classes with Father Bob, great guy. Did you know that Steve McQueen was baptized at Little Flower?
The violence in the periphery of the neighborhood was really bad. Constant shootings at gas stations (the Conoco on 16th and Gladstone, and by the interstate exit). I’d always see people in cuffs just driving home from work. Saw a drug-addled prostitute get tased on my way in to work at 6:30am. My commute was like watching a live-action episode of COPS sometimes. A month after we moved out, a police officer in our neighborhood got his house shot up at 2 in the morning by some guy out on parole that the cop had put away for an illegal weapons charge. Our immediate neighbors were all great people and generally staying towards the east side of the neighborhood it was pretty decent. But any west of Shannon working your way towards Sherman was sketchy. West across the tracks in Brookside or north across 16th st is even worse supposedly.
Wow, no idea about the Steve McQueen connection. Mrs. Jpc had an aunt and uncle who lived on Wallace and belonged to Little Flower before moving to the neighborhood around Holy Spirit around 1970 or so.
It is Indianapolis! Our church is near Washington and Tibbs on the Westside. It’s in a neighborhood called Hawthorne. West Park Christian Church was founded in about 1909.
What separates Hawthorne Park from Haughville? Holy Trinity Catholic Church at Holmes & St. Clair was closed recently. Wasn’t that fairly close? Was there an ethnic component to the church originally? The Catholics in that area were mostly Slavic or otherwise from Eastern Europe.
side on 10th st, I ran by it in the Indy mini a few years back. Haughville and Stringtown are definitely rough.
Really cool to see other Indy people on here!
Your Bishop, Cardinal Tobin, will be joining us here in New Jersey, we are very much looking forward to working with and getting to know him!
Hawthorne and Haughville are adjacent. Holy Trinity is fairly close. Surprised it closed — I thought there were lots of Catholics in the neighborhood. I don’t exactly know what ethnicities our original members were. Our stained glass windows all feature the names of charter members and the names are things like Boschen and Lemen and I can’t tell what nationality they are.
Well Indiana does not have mileage or useage restrictions when it comes to their historical vehicle plate so at least that makes it a bit cheaper to register one of these. Some of the car campers in Portland, OR own luxury vehicles and I do feel sorry for them since a Caddy is harder to keep going than other vehicles.
This one is in very good shape in Marin County CA
Rear view
My mom’s ’74 was silver with silver leather interior. It was a good highway cruiser, but in town it was a tire squealing, leaning tugboat that tossed hubcaps every so often, usually on a cold rainy day. I had the pleasure of putting them back on most of the time. About a year after she got it, the “Fasten seatbelt” light came on, even though the plugs had been pulled under the seat, and it never went off. A piece of black electrical tape covered the light. I told my mom’s boyfriend not to use that, as it would make a huge gooey mess, and he didn’t believe me. It’s only major problems were it’s short 2 years or less battery life(One exploded in Sear’s parking lot) and unending radiator leaks. When she sold it in late ’81, the first thing the new owner did was put a huge custom radiator in it so it could deal with the frequent stoplights in Vegas at the time(Maryland Parkway still gives me nightmares). It worked, he told us he could sit in traffic for hours and it never got close to overheating.
Coming a bit late to the party here, but I wanted to comment on a few of the interested threads initiated here.
As a fellow Canuck, I have to disagree with the assessment re the lack of conspicuous car-sumption amongst Canadian car owners. This was not my experience growing up in southeastern Saskatchewan in the middle of the wheat belt. The community I was raised in (between 1959 & 1978) was considered a farm town and had a population of less than 4,800 as of 1981. I recall there being plenty of conspicuous consumption-mobiles in town, which as a car-crazed kid was how I became aware of premium brand vehicles. In no particular order, here is a partial list of high-end American cars that I recall being owned as daily drivers by locals: 1958 Cadillac Sedan de Ville, 1961 Lincoln Continental 4-door, 1972 Ford Thunderbird Landau, 1973 Ford Thunderbird, 1976 Lincoln Continental Mk IV, 1974 Lincoln Continental 4-door, 1977 Lincoln Continental 4-door, 1976 Jaguar XJ6 4-door, 1972 Mercedes 240 D, 1976 Oldsmobile 98 Regency 4-door, 1974 Corvette Stingray coupe, 1969 Lincoln Continental 4-door, 1966 Pontiac Grand Prix, 1978 Buick Riviera 25th Anniversary, 1972 Imperial Le Baron 4-door, 1974 Imperial Le Baron 4-door, 1969 Thunderbird 2-door, 1976 Cadillac Seville, 1978 Cadillac Sedan de Ville, 1963 Buick Riviera, 1964 Cadillac Coupe de Ville, 1968 Cadillac Coupe de Ville, 1967 Imperial Crown coupe, 1967 Imperial Crown 4-door hardtop.
Our family’s first owned car with air conditioning was a 1973 Chevelle wagon. Prior to that we had been ‘exposed’ to A/C in a used 1968 AMC Ambassador SST coupe that my dad brought home off his Chev-Olds dealer lot for a summer trip to Northern Manitoba in ’72. Summers on the prairies are hot and there are still plenty of dusty gravel roads you don’t want to be on with the windows down. My dad used the Chevelle for fishing trips in Northern Sask, which entailed innumerable miles of travel on gravel roads. A new car without A/C was simply out of the question for him.
An uncle of mine had a white over jade green Mk IV like the one pictured in the comments, a ’76 I think. I drove it once and apart from it being so quiet I tried to start it while the engine was already running, felt that it was rather heavy and barge-like to drive. I enjoyed the full-size Chryslers of another uncle more, as the Chryslers always seemed to have some ‘oomph’ once you got your foot into it. I think the Mk IV’s styling, with it’s low roof and slit-like side windows, is starting to look better to me now and is maybe getting a bit more love in general since this look approximates the greenhouse styling of many contemporary cars. What goes around comes around, eh?
More gravitas in neglect than many cars have when shiny and new. A faded monument to a bygone time, but still standing, which is better than most of its contemporaries.
Back in the late 1990s, I owned and rebuilt a 1973 Lincoln Mark IV, Silver luxury group. It is interesting the following these cars had even back then, just not as big and vocal as it is in present day, where they are actually collectible.
I remember being at a gas station on one of my many fuel stops with this car, looking under the hood and checking vital fluids, when a fellow sporting a very British accent called out from behind me, “What a positively vulgar, vile automobile this is–I absolutely LOVE it!” I was a bit confused at his somewhat veiled compliment, but he explained to me that back home across the pond, a good number of folks there love big American “Yank Tanks” like mine, and the more garish and anti-social looking they were, the more they were loved and revered by British enthusiasts.
He explained that the Lincoln Mark IV and Mark V represented the absolute pinnacle of American excess and hedonistic luxury, and were most prized among enthusiasts over there. I probably could have sold him the car for a good sum, but I wasn’t done playing with it just yet, as I had just finished sorting the whole car out, which was a monumental task, to say the least.
One of the security guards at my high school had one of these in the early-mid ’90s. His was black, in more or less comparable condition to this one, and took a few tries to start and stay running. We kids did not appreciate the security guards (I’m being grossly too polite and diplomatic about that); we mocked and scorned them constantly, especially the overwhelming majority of overprivileged kids at that school—the kind whose money and daddy bought them a brand-new Audi or Bimmer or Lexus, then replaced it with another when the kids went out joyriding and crashed it.
I don’t know how old that security guard was; he seemed old to us because white hair and grizzled face and something the matter with his gait. Not long ago I was paging through a yearbook from around that time, and I found a tribute to that security guard on his death. He’d had an extensive and accomplishful military career. In retrospect I guess that Lincoln wasn’t just a car that happened to veer into his life; I imagine it was something he pined for and worked toward for many years.
Good comments. Yeah, far too many young privileged kids look with scorn on older, poorer working people. But in a way I guess that’s a natural thing for many kids to do. It’s only once they get older and have to work for a living that they begin to appreciate an older working person. I’m glad that you grew to respect this man.
Too much car for the wheelbase provided, Air ride and proper tyres fixes a lot of issues these cars have but not the clown factor.
I just learned my mom’s ’74 was a Silver Luxury Group car. I wonder if those wheel covers came off any easier than the regular ones? I don’t know how many times they came off and I had to put them back on. I even bought a rubber mallet to put in the trunk so I could pound them on. By the time the car was 6 years old, the vinyl top had been replaced, along with the radiator the new owner put in, at least 4 batteries, and the seat belt light thing was never fixed until the new owner got some old retired Ford tech to figure it out. And it was on it’s second set of tires. I didn’t mind riding in it, but I hated driving it.