In 2002, I scored a 1986 Chrysler Exec Limo from the repo man, with leather and turbo 2.2 for $3300 CDN and only 110,000 kms (~70,000 miles) on it. Turbo was almost too powerful -- on long downhills with foot off the accelerator it would keep speeding up & up unless you downshifted and let it scream (or keep foot on brakes till they fade near the bottom turn). Brake parts were same as LeBaron, not good with the extra weight. Electronic air suspension died early, so it got Gabriel HiJacker air shocks set about 40 psi. I drove it daily as a work vehicle, going to various customers to fix computer hardware. Golf courses would motion me to park with the posh vehicles, then I'd open the back door and haul out tools. Oh, it's you!
The 1969 model year was the high point in both Lincoln quality and prestige... with the introductory Continental Mark III and the final year of the "suicide door" Continental. There was some cost cutting in the 1970 redesign of the Continental and the 1972 redesign of the Continental Mark IV (both of them still beautiful and superior to Cadillacs of those model years).
Thanks for this. I just found an 84 limo. Tan over blue. I think I will pick it up this weekend. Looks like it was a resort car. Pity not turbo, but those came only for the last year.
I bought one from a very well to do family in Santa Monica Ca I think they owned Borden Dairy .It was nice but people made fun of me and one person called it the la Bamba Mobile due to it`s extra thick carpet and orange color.
The Seville and Continental had nice, graceful, flowing lines, but the Imperial's lines look forced, as it they were added at the last minute. All 3 were interesting attempts to set these cars apart, but the public was mostly unimpressed.
These are really good handling and driving cars! If you have lean burn swap it out for Mopar orange box ecu,vacuum advanced distributor and a bigger carburetor,not a smog version..Then they will smoke the tires and be actually quick..Even the 318 will run 15's in the 1/4..The 400 can run high 13's...Our 75 400 4bbl with 3.21 axle did! But a cam swap/head job these will be as quick as you want! A guy in our club has a 79 Cordoba 360 4bbl that runs mid 12's and is a hwy cruiser too!
In 1981 I bought a pre owned 1971 Lincoln Mark III from a local Lincoln dealer. I really liked that car. I wanted a little more performance so I installed an Edelbrock aluminum manifold and Holley carb. The manifold had smaller intake ports that increased intake fuel mixture velocity which made a feelable difference in low-end acceleration. Under hard acceleration the tires would chirp on the 1-2 shift. I also liked to give the distributor as much advance as possible, so I had to use an octane booster to cut down on pinging.
Ford's placement of the horn button on the end of the turn signal stalk during this era was a poor safety decision. What were they thinking? I'm surprised that even passed DOT regulations and that lawsuits didn't follow, when panicked drivers fruitlessly pounded away on the center pad.
@@OldDocSilver So you bought it brand new? Funny,My Uncle had a brand new one,my Dad did and these were reliable great handling cars! Did you know old cars had a 5 digit odometer,after 99,999 they rolled to 00,000...They NEVER shown over 99,999...So your 50,000 mile Cordoba was 250,000 miles as by the late 1980's that was the average mileage on those cars!
These were weird cars and most owners didn't take care of them most likely the will go up in value cause owners just trashed them instead of fixing them sad 😥 haven't seen one in 15 yrs.
Yes. I would not buy a car with red or orange gauges. My preference is green as ND blue. The best was my parents 1962 Chrysler Newport. It had electroluminescent dash and was a beautiful sight. I also prefer my gas gauge to be upright where full is to the right and empty to be on the left. I don't like upside down bushes. The dash bushes in my 72 Mercury Montego and 72 Pinto have the gas gauge the way I like it. Lastly, I want round gauges. I don't like a speedometer needle sweeping across the dash. It reminds me of an old persons car.
My first NEW CAR at age 18 I wanted a Tbird and pulled in the Mercury part of the lot in August 1980 and salesman talked me right into his loaded Demo as seen in this video at the 5 min. point. Twotone white over bittersweet with the Bittersweet half landau rood and back deck lid face. It was attractive especially to a 18 year old. It was $10K with power options, 4.2 V8 and Decor Group. How ever I paid $7500 due to it being a demo. The horsepower was a joke compared to todays cars and the MPG wasn’t that great either.
The dash of a particular vehicle weighs heavy on my decision to purchase a car. I love 80's digital dashboards. I loved pontiac red gauges with all buttons backlit. Examples of cars I own that the dashboard influenced my purchase are: 1986 Chevrolet Corvette, 1987 Chrysler Lebaron premium with full digital package including one year only 24 monitored systems with electronic voice alert. 1989 Oldsmobile Tornado Trofeo full digital package, cell phone and VIC touchscreen CRT, this system was the next evolution of the Buick CRT touchscreen. Im very glad youtube put this video in rotation, Ill be buying some of your cool books!
These were nice looking cars when they came out, really good looking, but towards the late 70s update , made it a bit clunky looking, not as trim and clean as the early models
When it came out in 68, as a marketing ploy, it was a limited production car, then In Sept Lincoln did Radio adds that it was so popular and had do much interest, they were putting it into regular production and to come check out the new 69 Mark III. Lee Iacocca bragged that they "made this car on the cheap using the Thunderbird 4 Dr frame and was a huge profit maker". This mark looked great, but the 68-70 Eldorado handled much better
I drove one of those 82-83 Continental and it was not all that great and it had a very expensive to fix air suspension . Had a friend buy a 87 slightly used one and she said she had never spent so much money on repairing and keeping that car going, and she had previously had a 79 and 80 Eldorado , she turned it in on a Buick
That's the story with every air-suspension car I know, from the '58 Eldorado Brougham to current Mercedes models. If anyone manages to build an air suspension that lasts the life of the car, they will deserve an award of some kind.
In the 1990's I bought a 1980 Versailles with tu-tone black and silver paint. It was fun to drive but resembled driving a boat on water in its preciseness. Sadly, in 2004 I didn't have time to take care of it nor a place to store it so I sold it. Both the car and my time owning it are now bygone eras. James, your review was excellent.
It's my understanding that the 68-1/2 models came from the factory with the 460 engine balanced and blueprinted from the factory. Actual BHP is around 450 on these cars!
I read they used hand selected fits on the early models. Wouldn't be surprised if they did the same thing with the early 429's. Nobody cares about the blueprints, just the process moving down the line. The blueprints (for the car) were put away in a cabinet long before anything moved down the line.
they were dreaming , I remember seeing in a San Francisco paper about 77 or 78, a Lincoln dealership had a deal on 2 for 20K, I live about 100 miles from there and our local Lincoln dealers were dealing on them, I think on a more base one you could pick it up for about 10-11 grand
It is a cruel shame that the Imperial struggled in its production lifetime because it was a really distinctive car with very strong construction. If I had the cash, I would love to have a 1960, 1964, or 1968 Imperial rebuilt to its '60s glory. And I would also like the Frank Sinatra edition of 1983. The Imperial was a great American car that was never given a chance to have its moment in the sun.
@@murphman76 yes, the Versailles was the first production car with those, he had the wrong Lincoln . The Versailles was also a flop but had its best sales year in 79 when they redid the roof line
