The Continental Mark VII.  Coming of Age.

By Tim Howley

Originally published in the September/October 1995 issue of Continental Comments (Issue # 205).

In June, 1983, Continental Comments previewed the forthcoming Continental Mark VII at the Sears Point Race Race Track near Sonoma, California. We were invited there as part of the general press. Motoring magazines saw the car several months later. Most of the Third Quarter, 1983 issue, Continental Comments #153 was devoted to the new 1984 Mark which we called the most changed Lincoln-built car since the 1936 Lincoln-Zephyr.

A lot has happened to Lincoln-built automobiles since this author and his wife previewed the 1984 Mark VII 12 years ago. A lot has happened in LCOC, too. Since that time we have published more than 50 issues of Continental Comments covering the very broad spectrum of cars that this club recognizes.

With the 1984 Continental Mark VII, Lincoln went after two distinct markets, the Mercedes 380 SEL type of buyer with the LSC model and the traditional Lincoln buyer with the Designer Series. The LSC model had high-performance suspension, quick-ratio power steering, high-performance axle ratio, high-performance tires with racing type wheels and a sporty interior. Only the LSC cars, as I recall two of them, were presented to the press at Sears Point. These were hand built prototypes which I am sure have long since been destroyed by the factory. None of the Designer Series models were available at the time. In fact, almost none existed at the time except for mules that were used in the advertising.

So this was the Mark of the future that is now a Mark of the past, and it could well become in the very near future the fastest growing segment of Lincoln and Continental collecting.

In 1984 these cars took some getting used to. Aerodynamic design was only beginning to come out of Detroit at that time. A lot of Lincoln buyers were not used to it; hence Lincoln kept their Town Cars in the classic styling mode for the remainder of the decade. As the decade wore on, the Continental Mark VII, later renamed the Lincoln Mark VII, became more and more popular, especially the LSC series. Slowly Lincoln began to attract a younger type of buyer, not really the died -in-the-wool Mercedes buyer, but certainly the “Yuppie”who was moving up from the Toyota Celica and Honda Accord. The Marks of the Eighties defined for a whole new generation of Americans what Lincoln quality, craftsmanship and distinctive motoring personality were all about.

The new Mark’s single most advanced feature was EAS (Electronic Air Suspension). The singularly least innovative feature was the Ford 302 V-8 with throttle-body fuel injection coupled to a four-speed overdrive automatic transmission with a locking torque converter.

Later in the model year, all Mark VIIs were available with a 2.4 liter six-cylinder turbo diesel engine. This was a completely new engine designed to overcome the problems that GM had been having with its automobile diesel engines. We do not know how many Mark VIIs were equipped with these diesels and wonder if any of our members have Mark VIIs so equipped or know anything about them. The flush-fitted European style halogen headlamps were the first ever on any U.S. car. The coefficient of drag on the Mark VII was down to .38. On the Mark VIII it is down to .32.

EAS was controversial in 1984 and remained so for several years. The fear was that it would eventually wear out and be prohibitively expensive to repair/replace. The mechanical air suspension of 1958 was highly unreliable, so much so that Ford never put it on a single Lincoln or Thunderbird, but a few hundred 1958 Fords and Mercurys were so equipped. The GM system, which was sold on all GM makes in some numbers, was forever deflating in the poor owner’s garage or driveway. EAS, introduced on the 1984 Mark VII was a much more encouraging story. It was developed over a four-year period in cooperation with Goodyear. The system is similar to that used by NASA for the space shuttle’s launch platform. As it was explained in Continental Comments #153, “Four rubber air canisters replace the standard coil springs. There is an electronic air compressor, two height sensors in the front and one in the rear, plus an open-door sensor, a brake sensor and a microcomputer in the trunk. With air springs, Lincoln-Mercury engineers were able to develop a ride that is soft enough on the boulevards, yet stiffens up in the turns. There is also automatic load leveling at all four corners so the car is always at the same level.”

It is interesting and reassuring to note that in the 11 years that the Mark VII has been on the road, Continental Comments has only received one letter from an LCOC member complaining about EAS failure. From what we can determine, EAS is as durable as the total car, engineered to last 200,000 miles or more. Indeed, there are now quite a few Mark VIIs out there with 200,000 miles on them.

The Designer Series models were originally, in 1984, offered in the Bill Blass and the Versace. If there were originally more Designer Series than that, the 1984 brochure did not mention them. The Bill Blass models were gold on the exterior with wire spoke aluminum wheels (not wire spoke type wheel covers). Interiors repeated the gold theme. For 1984, the classic white and blue Bill Blass models with the nautical theme were no longer available. The Versace models, inspired by the young Italian designer, Gianni Versace, had dark walnut exteriors, again with wire spoke aluminum wheels. Interiors were desert tan. In addition to the LSC and Designer Series, there was a standard Mark VII offered in a variety of colors and with an assortment of styled wheels available. Here is specifically what the 1984 catalog had to say about wheels: “(A) Special cast aluminum wheels for the optional special handling package have wider rims than standard wheels and unique centers with exposed bright lug nuts. These wheels are standard on the LSC. (B) Cast aluminum road wheels are standard on the Mark VII. (C) Wire spoke aluminum wheels are standard on Bill Blass and Versace, and (D) Forged aluminum wheels are optional on all models, except with the handling package and LSC.”

If you’re buying an early Mark VII to collect, 1984-86, it will not be easy to find a low mileage car. The original owners bought them to be driven. It is very rare to find any example today with less than 100,000 miles. But don’t be discouraged, the low mileage examples are out there. Also, consider that miles really don’t mean a lot on a Mark VII if the car has been cared for. The LSC models are still the most popular and consequently command the highest prices. The Designer Series models are really not in demand like the LSCs, consequently you may be able to strike a real bargain. Original owners of these cars tended to be older, more conservative people, and you just may find one of these with low miles. The least collectible, but probably the most plentiful are the standard Mark VIIs. Any Mark VII with all the goodies, especially the moonroof option, is especially collectible.

When interviewing Lincoln-Mercury stylist Dave Turner on the Mark VIII (see the next issue of Continental Comments) the subject of the Mark VII quickly came up because this was the car that bridged the enormous gap between the classic Mark VI and the very futuristic Mark VIII. Rating the Mark VII in terms of styling, Turner commented thus: “I think what the Mark VII is is a real classic in the series. What the Mark VII has is superb trendiness. There is this sense of wheels and tires, and the road and stability and competence and all of these things. They are the mark of the Mark VII, and I think that’s one of the things that’s going to go down in the history as to what the Mark VII was. It’s competent, it’s trendy, it’s straightforward, it’s disciplined, it’s a really good car. And when I look back on them, every once in awhile you see a really nice one driving on the road, and I say, ‘Wow, that was a nice car’. I think that anyone who owns a Mark VII can be proud of that.”

Our feature car is a 1984 Bill Blass Mark VII owned by Ed and Joan Harants of Brunswick, Ohio. This is a 60,000 mile all original car. Harants bought the car when it was only one year old and had 11,000 miles. He has maintained it in like new condition ever since. Last year they entered the Mid-America National Meet in Itasca, Illinois and the Eastern National Meet in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania. At both meets they took a Primary First. While Ed bought his car when almost new, others are finding that there are some real advantages in buying an early Mark VII now. First, it is possible today to buy such a car for $5,000 or less. All you really need to do is a lot of detailing in order to be highly competitive in the Primary Class. You really don’t need to worry about restoring. A Mark VII has yet to win a Ford Trophy and enter the Senior Class for even bigger hardware. And surely there must be one or two of them out there with only a few hundred miles, just waiting  or some loving collector and Elliston H. Bell potential.

Stainless Steel Lincoln Continental Convertible at Williamsburg, 1993

By Tim Howley

Originally published in the July/August 1995 issue of Continental Comments (Issue # 204).

One of the most most unusual cars displayed at the 1993 Eastern National Meet in Williamsburg, Virginia was a 1966 Lincoln Continental convertible sedan brought to the event by Bill Westfall on behalf of the owner, Allegheny Ludlum Steel, a pioneer in stainless steel development. This car has 190,000 miles, the engine has never been gone through, and was just starting to use oil in 1993, only proving how long these engines can go. The car is a 1966 with a 1967 grille and some 1967 trim. It has both 1966 and 1967 parts.

Originally three of these Lincoln Continental convertibles were built. This one and one other are are in daily use. The other was in Dearborn at the time of the meet. This one is kept in the Philadelphia area. Allegheny Ludlum uses these cars for sales purposes and they take their clients out in them.

These cars were hand assembled at a cost of approximately $300,000 each. Two were built for Allegheny Ludlum’s promotional use and a third one was built for the Ford Motor Company, Lincoln- Mercury Division. Two were built very late in 1966 accounting for the combination of 1966 and 1967 trim. The third one was all 1967. Later Ford decided to dispose of this third car but it had been in an accident at Ford and was almost demolished. Eventually it was almost given (free) to Allegheny Ludlum who restored it. It is now in the Thompson Museum in Cleveland.

These are not the only Allegheny Ludlum stainless steel cars. The whole story goes back to the late ’20s when Henry Ford dreamed of a stainless steel car that would last forever. The first stainless steel cars to appear were Model A Fords back in 1930. Three of them were built. They had a conventional Ford chassis and running gear, wooden floorboards and stainless  steel bodies—or “Allegheny Metal” as it was called then. Two of these cars were scrapped during world War II; the third one may survive.

In 1936, six 1936 Ford stainless steel two-door sedans were made by Allegheny Ludlum. This time the floorpans were made of high carbon steel rather than wood. At least four of these Fords survive. One is in the Thompson Museum. Two still belong to Allegheny Ludlum and a fourth may be in the hands of a private owner.

In 1960, two stainless steel Thunderbird hardtops were built. Allegheny Ludlum still retains both of them, and both are regularly driven.

All of these cars were used for advertising and promotional purposes by both Ford and Allegheny Ludlum. None of them were easy to build because stainless steel cannot be stamped into shape like other types of steel, one reason why there have never been any stainless steel production cars other than the DeLorean. How these cars were built is a story in itself. The most difficult task in building them was shaping the roof panels, hence it was somewhat easier to build the Lincoln Continental convertibles than the others. The Thunderbirds and the Lincoln Continentals have stainless steel exhaust systems which have never been replaced.

1968 Continental Mark III Press Release

Originally published in the First Quarter 1995 issue of Continental Comments (Issue # 203).

From Patrick J. Kelly of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania comes this 1968 press release on the Continental Mark III found in the library and research center of the Antique Automobile Club of America in Hershey, Pennsylvania:

Dearborn, Michigan, February 12, 1968. Diplomats, royalty, entertainers, classic car admirers and “carriage trade” buyers throughout the world have placed more than 1,000 orders for Ford Motor Company’s new Continental Mark III, the luxury personal car scheduled for introduction at Lincoln-Mercury dealerships in April.

E.F. (Gar) Laux, Ford vice president and Lincoln-Mercury Division general manager, said today that although few persons have seen the new motorcar and initially production will be limited, the company expects to sell between 13,000 and 15,000 Mark Ills in the first full calendar year.

Mr. Laux, addressing newsmen attending the national press-radio-television preview of the Continental Mark III, said the new car will continue the “momentum toward excellence” began by the Lincoln Continental and derived from a heritage that includes Henry Leland ’s original Lincoln and the first Lincoln Continental and the Continental Mark II.

“The momentum toward excellence, once achieved, is yours as long as you value it and protect it,” Mr. Laux said. “And that’s what we propose to do.”

The Continental Mark III will enter a steadily growing market of luxury and luxury/personal cars that annually accounts for about 440,000 units, a retail business worth about $2.5 billion. The present Lincoln Continental participates in this market to the extent of more than $250 million annually, Mr. Laux noted.”

The Mark III is a luxury car, a personal car and a two-door hardtop,” Mr. Laux said. “In other words, the Mark III is placed squarely in the center of the three most affluent and fastest growing areas of the market.”

Influencing the momentum toward excellence , Mr. Laux added, are the highest standards of design, manufacture, advertising , customer and supplier relations.

The new 460-cubic-inch engine which powers the Mark III, Mr. Laux said, is one example of the high standards of design accorded the new car. The 365-horsepower V-8, with a design background deeply rooted in the company’s performance engine program, is ideally suited to the Mark III, he added. The new engine also features advanced emission control.

Pointing out that January car sales by Lincoln-Mercury dealers were up 19% over Jan u a ry , 1967, Mr. Laux was optimistic about the balance of this year.”

Many of the new car purchases which were deferred last fall by the Ford strike will be made in this quarter of 1968,” he said. “Consumer reaction to the new models has been excellent, and we expect 1968 to become a banner year in the history of the industry.

“There seems to be no lessening in the American’s reliance on cars for his personal transportation .” He cited a steadily increasing car population, buoyed up by a scrappage rate of about seven million cars a year.

Mr. Laux also said that he expects Lincoln-Mercury sales to get an added boost this spring with a pair of new Mercury models—a hardtop and a convertible—with “yacht deck” simulated woodgrain side paneling and a new Cougar XR7-G, featuring a special handling package and power-operated sun panel in the roof.

Comparison Drive Test Mark II vs. Mark VIII

by Joe Sherlock

Originally published in the September/October 1995 issue of Continental Comments (Issue # 205.

When Jim Farrell asked me to road test a 1995 Lincoln Mark VIII and compare it to my Mark II, I panicked. I had never done a published road test before. I looked at some of the recent tests in the car buff magazines and they were frightening. They were done with lots of instrumentation, reporting things like lateral acceleration in G-Force units, slalom speed, rates of deceleration, etc. Then there were the inevitable letters to the editor disputing the results— “In your test of the 1995 Clamshell 3.2 litre Deluxe, you claim a top speed of 113.4 mph. My buddy is an Indiana State Trooper and we borrowed his radar gun over the weekend and clocked my Clamshell coupe at 119.8 mph. Furthermore, your front track width measurements are incorrect….” You get the picture—lots of nit-picking, and I’d be exposing myself to the greatest group of nit-pickers of all—LCOC members, who will spend hours over a few beers discussing how many Mark IIs were really made and what’s the correct color of the windshield fluid reservoir cap on a ’77 Town Car!

Then I discovered a role model—Tom McCahill. McCahill tested cars for Mechanix Illustrated in the Forties to early Seventies. Everybody called him Uncle Tom, probably because he was the kind of uncle everybody wished for.  He was a no-nonsense guy who loved cars, dogs, driving fast and a couple of scotches at the end of the day. He palled around with notables, too, including band leader Paul Whiteman. Unk tested cars using nothing but a stopwatch, a heavy right foot and the seat of his pants. His prose was legendary; he once compared the handling of a ’57 Buick to “a fat matron trying to get out of a slippery bathtub.” The swivel seats on the ’59 Imperial were “as easy to get into as a floating crap game.” My friend Marty Hayes and I once brought a copy of Mechanix Illustrated to high school when asked by our English teacher to cite examples of every modern, enduring prose. The teacher was not amused by Uncle Tom’s prose. Tom spoke bluntly, too—his opinions were firm and, if you didn’t agree, well too bad.

So…armed with nothing but a heavy foot, the seat of my pants and a digital stopwatch which I got in 1989 from a BMW dealer as a premium for test driving a new 7-series (I liked the watch better than the car!), I headed to Detroit to wring out the Mark VIII. When I picked the car up, my first impression was that this was indeed a personal luxury car. I felt surrounded by instruments—the dash and console seemed to wrap around me and everything was within easy reach. As I moved off into traffic, the car felt, well, agile. You point it; you punch it; it it goes. This was not a car that would take some getting used to; I felt at home immediately. I hadn’t been to Detroit in 10 years and I had forgotten how much the streets get beat-up from those cold winters. Asphalt and concrete don’t like big temperature changes. They get brittle when it’s cold and they don’t like to be hammered by cars and trucks with chains and studded tires. Choppy, potholed roads didn’t bother the Mark VIII. That air-suspension just smoothed everything out. The computer controlled suspension just soaks up the bumps and potholes, but when you throw the car into a corner, the computer instantly responds and stiffens everything up so that the Mark doesn’t wallow and thrash around. McCahill would have said that the Mark VIII was as “smooth as a vanilla ice cream soda that’s been standing in the sun.”

By comparison, step into a Continental Mark II and the controls are generally within easy reach, although the heater and air conditioning controls are set low enough that you’ve got to take your eyes off the road to make adjustments. The Mark II rides softly but wallows in the corners— big time. You shouldn’t try any tricky cornering in a Mark II anyway; you’ll just lose those expensive wheel covers when they go flying off the wheels. Replacements are over $200 a pop—if you can find them. Uncle Tom would probably tell you that they’re as rare as having ladies of the evening become members of a church choir. The Mark VIII is an exceptionally quiet car, too. When you punch the gas, you’ll hear a nice although muffled V-8 rumble as the car takes off. When you’re at cruising speed there’s a real absence of noise. Tom would say that this Lincoln is “as quiet as a night with an archbishop.” If you need some sound, crank up the JBL audio system. It’s great and creates the same theater of sound effects as the Bose system found in competitive contemporary cars. The Mark II is a pretty quiet car for a Fifties hardtop, but the vent windows and lack of door pillars make it hard to prevent wind noise at freeway speeds. Turn on the Mark II’s Town and Country radio and all you’ll get is AM after the vacuum tubes finally warm up. The six-way power adjust seats in the Mark II are very comfortable for me; we’ve taken lots of long trips in ours and the seats feel as good after eight hours as they did when I first got in. The Mark VIII seemed to have 37-way power adjust seats. I certainly liked them and I think that they can be adjusted to fit just about any driver. We didn’t take the Mark VIII on any long trips but, if we did, I’ll bet they’d still feel great 10 hours after we started. Tom McCahill would have liked the Mark V III’s seating comfort to a La-Z-Boy recliner upholstered in cream puffs.

What about performance? Well, the Mark VIII is a real hot rod Lincoln. The engine spools up quickly and you can easily burn rubber from a standing start if you don’t engage the traction control switch. I clocked 0 to 60 in seven seconds flat; Motor Trend says this puppy will do a quarter mile in 15.4 seconds with a trap speed of 95 mph. I have no reason to disbelieve them. What about the Mark II? Well, Motor Life tested one in 1956 and said it would get to 60 mph. in 11.5 seconds. This was respectable for the day, but not earth shaking. My own Mark II does 0-60 in about 12 seconds if you start in low and manually shift, although it never sounds happy when it’s pushed. In contrast, the Mark VIII sounds very happy when you push it. It’s a little unfair to compare the Mark VIII and Mark II directly. The Mark II is a much heavier car, and it has less horsepower. When the Mark II was new, FoMoCo declined to list its horsepower, but everybody knew that the Mark II had the ’56 Lincoln engine which was rated at 285 hp. SAE changed the way they rated engines beginning with the 1971 models. So, by today’s measurements, the Mark II probably has 200 or so horses. That’s no match for the 280 ponies under the hood of the lighter Mark VIII. (FoMoCo personnel told me that every Mark VIII engine is dyno tested and that it consistently pulls around 300 hp. FoMoCo has continued to rate it at 280 hp. to keep insurance premiums reasonable.)

Performance is, of course, a relative thing. A 1956 Volkswagen would get to 60 in about 30 seconds. A ’56 Corvette would get there in about seven seconds. The Mark II was in-between, but nearer to the Corvette than the VW. Today, the performance gap has narrowed a lot. A 1995 Volkswagen Golf will get to 60 mph. in under 10 seconds; a new Corvette LT-1 in just under six seconds. At seven seconds, the Mark VII is still nearer the Corvette than the VW. Uncle Tom would have probably said that the ’95 Mark is “as hot as a Saturday night in a room full of Jane Mansfields.”

Do I have any complaints about the Mark VIII? Well, when I first drove one in late 1992, the interior looked too stark. Since then, the Lincoln folks have added some rosewood trim to warm things up a little, but it still seems a little too clinical for me. The interior side panels on the door seem kind of flimsy. By contrast, the Mark II’s interior speaks volumes about luxury. It’s got lots of detailing around the dash, on the side panels and on the upholstery that says, “Hey, we spent a lot of hours making this thing!” The exterior of the Mark II was considered conservatively styled and relatively chromeless  compared to its contemporaries when it was first introduced, but it sure has a lot more chrome than the Mark VIII does. I do like the optional chrome wheels on the Mark VIII; they add a distinctive touch to the exterior. A couple of extra pounds of chrome in the bumper areas and a set of whitewalls would make the Mark VIII just about perfect in my book. The Mark V III’s price is very competitive with other contemporary luxury coupes and, in 1995 dollars, it’s about 33% less pricey than the Mark II. (A $10,000 domestic car in 1956 was unheard of, one reason why the car was so short lived.) Oh…and my other complaint about the Mark VIII was that I had to give the car back to Ford. Until I realized that I had to return it, I was, as Tom McCahill would say, “as happy as a pack of fleas at a dog convention.”