I agree, 100%. Every other channels focus on muscle cars. Here, we get the vehicles that everyone bought. Plus, we get a little history of the manufacturers. When America was great.
Always interesting and informative, Adam’s content is superb and well researched - he personally knows many in the industry as we have been introduced in his interviews; these videos are a joy!
I agree with your comments on the first year Mark IV. Once the big bumpers kicked in the car looked like it was designed by Peterbuilt. First year designs just have all the original intent.
The final design of the Mark IV was absolutely fantastic. Definitely, the correct choice was made. These cars are wonderful and they float the driver down the road as if floating on a cloud!
What makes Adam's channel so fantastic is that no only does he own vehicles like he covers but he has revived a period of automotive history that idiots over at Curbside Disasters has mocked for years. Great channel, Adam.
Everyone likes to pick on Bunkie for his time at Ford. Personally, I loved the designs he gave the "green-light" to. I also loved the Ford squared-off "three-box" era of the late 70s- through the 80s.The 1977 Mark V is my all-time favorite.
The quality of the Mark III was far superior to the Mark IV and V. The Mark III interior with real walnut, diamond patterned leather seats and gorgeous instrument panel was first class. The Mark IV showed cost cutting measures. Interesting how the slab sided Mark V handily outsold the Mark IV.
I owned a '70 MK III and a '72 MK IV. There was absolutely NO comparison in the quality of materials, as well as build quality. The MK IV was a beautiful design, but it was really a piece of cr@p. I think it also cheapened the brand to share the platform with the Thunderbird '72-'76. I owned one of them too, a '75. Even worse quality. Yeah I bought it because it was beautiful, but an even worse piece of cr@p!
@@kenk7451 But the Mark II was also based on the 67 Thunderbird chassis (the 4 door model). I had a 1975 Mark IV and it was the worst mechanical piece of junk. Everything went wrong with that car! And it went through ignition modules what seemed to be every month!
… 1969(68) thru 1971 Mark III’s had superbly styled exterior/interior’s that were pace setting for 1968 - 1971 Detroit era luxury cars…Mark III’s “ Rolls -Royce” themed front end styling was mimicked by the Detroit Cadillac “after market” trade vendors for decades… The “ retro classic “ front end styling of the 1974 - 75 Imperial which was nicely done seemingly appeared to have been cued / based on Mark III front end… …1972 thru 1976 Mark IV’s were better styled and trimmed than the 1971 thru 76 Eldo’s and had much nicer interior detailing / trim than those post 1970 Eldo’s… …Mark V’s had striking “retro classic “ exterior styling but were much more like a “Ford LTD” inside from dash to seating with interiors that were de-contented in very noticeable ways from 1972 - 1976 Mark IV’s ( no movable rear side windows / back seat lights & controls / back seat center armrest ) ….the Jubilee Mark V’s had the interior all Mark V’s could have / should have had… …1968 -1971 Mark III ‘s were / are / remain the bench mark Conti’s…
Absolutely! The interior on the IV was simulated luxury, The III was genuine, especially when it came to materials. The IV shared the intermediate Ford body with the Torino and apparently the same cost-driven, downmarket interior materials. You really have to appreciate Wes Dahlberg's design all that much more when you consider the restraints he had to produce such a beautiful car. The Mark III was the successor to the Mark II of the mid-1950's and I believe Ford put a lot of extra effort into the III because of the high quality of the Mark II which had preceded it. That, as well as to set the Mark III apart from the Thunderbird upon which it was based to justify the much higher price of the Lincoln. By the time they were ready to introduce the Mark IV in 1972 the success they had achieved in the market led them to give in to the increasing cost pressures of the day and take a lot of cost out of the interior. Subsequent sales proved it to be a safe decision. @@kenk7451
As a senior in high school in ‘69-‘70, my close friends mom had a top of the line Mark III. She used to let him use it. That was without a doubt, the nicest riding car I was ever in. It was the same burgundy/black combo like the one shown here. I wish I could find one now.
The Mark III exuded luxury with its real walnut accents, diamond-patterned leather seats, and exquisite instrument panel-a true class act. However, the Mark IV took a step back with noticeable cost-cutting measures. Despite this, the Mark V's success, with its distinctive slab-sided design, proves that in the world of automotive allure, sometimes the unexpected steals the show.
Adam, you can see the Bordinat design in ALL the Ford Fox and Panther platforms with one single panel: The lowest part of the rear fender behind the rear wheel. ALL of them have this panel! From the Ford Squaremont to the Mustangs to the Lincoln you show at 5:18. This angled, slightly tucked up panel is very apparent on every Thunderbird and Cougar in the '80's, and on many Lincolns as well. Look at Ford Fairmonts then later LTD's, and Mustangs, and Cougars. All have this Bordinat panel...
Yeah, I see it now. It's a trick to reduce visual heft. The cheapo version much used by the Italian is painting the sill and front and rear valances in a contrasting color, mostly black. Like people wouldn't figure out the car isn't actually that slim, it's just painted that way?
I’ve never been a fan of the Mark IV and neither was my mother who bought a brand new triple black ‘70 Mark III. When her Mark turned nine, she traded it in on triple black Mark V. She never cared for that car and regretted turning in her Mark III. She went in a completely different direction and bought Mercedes SL in 1985 which surprised me. I said, why did you buy a two seat convertible when you don’t even like the sun. Her answer was I can keep the roof on which she did for the next 20 years she kept that car. 😄
I like the Wes Dahlberg. I wish they would have used the rear window treatment Bourdenay (sp?) version. It would be interesting to see what and how the Mark V came into being. Your videos are the best in the business.
Ahhh, the Bunkie Beak. Learned about his influence from your channel. It’s a design feature I don’t care for, but it was so prolific….across companies he was with, and the copy cats that had to compete. People must have loved it, back in the day, as the beaks sold cars.
The 69 mark III is still the best design of all the mark series lincolns, It is not a giant land yacht but still a full size car and the appointments you could get just made the car a great luxury machine.
This was great, thank you. I remember these cars and rode in many. My favorite is the '74 Mark IV. When new, the Mark IV's were exciting and stylish. They were huge, luxurious and expensive. Even the floor to roof red velour seemed just right......
The final version of the vehicle. Ever since I was a kid, I have been wild about the 72 Mark IV and the 71 and 72 Cougar. I want to own a 72 Mark IV one day. or a 72 two door imperial crown, or a.....
I keep seeing a '92-'98 Cadillac Seville in the background and I hope to see a video about those one of these days (unless there's already been one I've missed). My folks had two when those were new and I was learning to drive, (a '92 4.9 SLS and a '93 Northstar STS), great-looking cars and great to either drive or to ride in. (And I say this as someone who knows about and has needed to use the Northstar water pump socket. I know, the starter's in the engine valley, etc.; the last time I had to care where a starter was, was 22 years ago helping fix my sister's bought-for-$600 in ~2001 '87 N-body Iron Duke/TH125 Grand Am coupe.)
The movie ,,, the French Connection ,,, the mob was transporting coke or heroin in the rocker pannels ,they had to cut them open , find the dope and then rebuild the whole car so the mob guys didnt know that it was found....
I always thought that the 72 MkIV was a gorgeous car! The Bordinat version not only was ugly, but those fender scallops(?) looked like over-exaggerated MkIII fenders, and, at least in my mind, looked a lot like the 66 Duesenberg revival attempt. Knudsen picked the right design!
As usual a fantastic video. I'm missing a video about the last gen B-body GM cars (whale Caprice, Roadmaster, Fleetwood) I and my dad had owned 5 ones over the yesrs. They're great daily drivers....apart from the rusty outher shell..😊 especially the LT1 is just pure ❤. Thanks a lot for your documentaries.
The 72 Mark IV is a masterpiece. Bunkie Knudsen is my hero. I love what he did at Pontiac, and I love what he did at FoMoCo. Automobiles politics is rough!! Pontiac used to print a 1-800 number in their brochures for customer comments and suggestions. I remember calling them in 1997/98 and lecturing this poor Customer Service Rep on what I thought Bunkie would do regarding some now forgotten design. To my surprise, she knew who Bunkie was. Alas, they didn’t take my suggestion, and shortly thereafter, Pontiac was discontinued. Coincidence??? Hmmm …
1972 Mark IV one of my favorite looking cars from when it came out and I was 11 years old - very glad Knudsen picked alternate proposal!!! And thank you very much for mentioning the book - I’m going to order it tonight!
Hi from Sydney , Australia. The Eugene Bordinat mk4 concept was PURE UGLINESS, terrible, I would never have bought one. However, being the owner of a 1972 Ford Homebush, Sydney built right hand drive completely knocked down MK4 kit/pack, the Des Wahlberg car is beautiful, graceful & elegant, to me they are everything that the 1971 to 1978 Eldorado should have been. The MK4 looks ever bit a GM type design, it looks like the natural progression from the 1970 Eldorado look at the body side contours, curve to the door glass, even the wheel arch shape, the 1972 MK4's are PURELY STUNNING. I've always hated the 1977 MK5 with its slab sides , hateful side gills in cheap plastic , and the cheap glass fibre nose cone , nasty . MK4 pure class.
An excellent overview/history of the Mark IV. And I much prefer the Dahlberg version. And the Farrell's Lincoln design history book is outstanding, I agree!
I liked the rounded sides and lines of the car they built. Had to tilt seat forword down to keep from hitting shins on low driver side dash. Car was a thrill!
In the final Bordinat proposal, I saw the greenhouse of a 1970 Barracuda and the front of a 1981 Imperial. In all iterations but the final Bordinat proposal, I saw the influence of the 1967 Eldorado.
Here is a design lesson of not putting strong curving lines against a strong straight lined body. The Monte Carlo pulled it off because the curve was less severe, stayed high on the fender and blended out at the A column.
My grandmother had a 69 Mark III. My dad drove a 72 Mark IV. I always thought the 72 was the most handsome design. I loved the long hood/short deck; I thought it was most elegant.
Thank you Adam. This was quite good. There seems to have been a lot of behind the scenes drama to get a successful car out. I like the design proposals you shared and the story behind that. That look carried on well into the 1980's for Lincoln . It influenced a bunch for Ford( LTD) and Mercury products ( Grand Marquis and Cougar). That other proposal was too much and too out there. I own the bpok you mention at the end of the video. I like the book because of the stories and many design proposals. Thank you again.
This was not the first time Bordinat showed a tendency to hold grudges. Ten years prior, he held a very strong grudge against Elwood Engel, for a similar reason. The narrator states several times how flat flanks were Bordinat's design M.O. That was *not* the case ten years prior, especially where the '61 Lincoln was concerned. Bordinat wanted to establish a sense of continuity to the Lincoln design, which was lacking in the '50s to the point that Lincoln was suffering an identity crisis. To end that problem, Bordinat decided to continue the design theme introduced in 1958 as Lincoln's long-term identity. He produced a design based on that monstrous monstrosity *and* got approval for it to go to production. Meanwhile, Engel, who had some involvement in the original '58 design, had sworn to learn from that mistake and produced a Thunderbird concept based on the extinct Mark II. When that proposal was shown to the hierarchy, Robert S. McNamara (yes, *that* Robert S. McNamara) declared that Engel's T-Bird concept become the new identity for Lincoln. Approval for Bordinat's proposal was rescinded, and Engel's design went to Bordinat's studio for tweaking. Even though Bordinat also took bows for the '61 Lincoln when it was handed the IDI award that year, he still had to have some vitriol towards Engel for essentially overruling him. I suspect he took revenge on Engel by sabotaging the '64 and '65 Lincoln proposals with flat side glass, something the car was never originally designed to have, and which was already starting to fall out of favor with the whole industry (thanks to Virgil Exner, Sr., whom Engel left Ford to replace at Chrysler in 1961)...but he also knew he could not totally scrap the design, so he kept his meddling primarily to the side glass. Luckily that dictate of his lasted only two years. I've never been much of a fan of Bordinat, based on the history I've read and heard about him; but that's not the main reason my personal pick is the Knudsen/Dahlberg design that became the production IV. Bordinat's leftover post-'50s extravagance was very evident in his proposal. If he did become known for "slab-siding," he begrudgingly had Elwood Engel to thank for that.
I wondered why the Mark IV didn't have the perfectly straight edges and flat planes that plagued Lincolns and Fords later in the 70s. The A pillar bulge is odd, but if you can avoid focusing on it, it also helps prevent the Mk IV from looking too rectilinear like the Mk V and VI do.
The 1972 MK IV, as designed by Dahlberg, was the perfect high end personal luxury car for the time. Few cars embody popular 1972 styling themes (sort of an updated coke bottle shape) as well as the MK IV. About the only problem with it was the poor fuel economy and the small trunk compartment. But buyers overlooked these flaws and the car continued to be relatively successful even after the 1973 oil crisis. Even more amazing was how the car was facelifted for 1977 and continued on until 1979 as the Mark V. I remember my uncle had a 1973 MK IV which I think he eventually replaced with a Pontiac Bonneville diesel.
I heard that "Hank the Deuce" (Henry II) loved huge cars. And who better to demonstrate how these drove than William Conrad in the 1970s TV series "Cannon," lurching around corners as if he were Steve McGarrett in Hawaii Five-O.
As much as I liked the 72's exterior (althoug not as exquisitly executed as the 67 Eldorado), one thing I like is the interior of the Mark IV. Especially the design of the driver's door and the window controls. The car also looks best with the deep dish aluminum wheels.
Thank you for the interesting video. I knew a little bit about these cars but it's cool learning more about the Mark 3, I didn't know it wasn't a model until 69 I thought it started in '67 like the Thunderbird because I know It shares the same chassis and frame as the 5th generation Thunderbird from 67 to 69 and a little bit of a refreshing added beak for the 70 through 72 model year. I knew this because I have a 1967 Ford Thunderbird with the rear suicide doors that I believe the Mark 3 shared that chassis and has similar looks we'll still be in distinct and having more sharp lines in the front I would say.
These designers who contributed in the final glory/excess years - years where the size and scale had few limits, when pressures from the imports and fuel economy weren't factors yet - it's interesting to hear about those designers' later careers designing the likes of the Escort and Taurus. Were they frustrated by the new place they and their employers found themselves - especially in the tough 80s?
To my taste, US carmakers largely lost the plot not just on market economics and quality but also on design starting 1972ish. The designs featured in this presentation, for instance...only a mother could love. And I say this as someone who adores American car designs of the '40s, '50s and '60s
My father had 3 marks over the years a 71/74/78. My favorite one being the 74 gold One like in the video . He let me pick out all the options. The worst one was the 78. The 78 was like a Thunderbird with Lincoln stickers on it.
11:36 The door handles look like those on the Grand Prix, and the sweeping fender flairs look as if they came from a Buick or Monte Carlo. Seems like a threat to Lincoln's brand identity.
The '72 Mark IV is one of the best looking cars of the early '70s. I wish this video would have had one with the proper front bumper though. That added accessory cross bar over the grill really spoils the front.
Side note: The old SIA magazine has a good recounting of this story. Indeed, in its heyday, they had many interesting design based articles, as most of the players were still around. (Sadly, it morphed into Hemmings Classic Car, and never, in my opinion, really replicated the quality the magazine once had)
When you say "final version" they're always cleaned up to the point they're actually able to sell them. I don't doubt that would have been the case with Dalberg's(sp?)design. So, you can imagine the cleaned up version being a lot nicer and really hard to tell almost WHAT it would have looked like. It might have been nice. I owned a 1973 Mk IV back in the day and I was happy with it except it was slow and ponderous to drive.
Caddies started having 4-6-8 engines, a bit later than this, with the amount of pistons using fuel decreasing with a decrease in speed. I wonder if Lincoln got into that.
I would agree that the Chardonay clay model is a little over the top with those fender flares and the slanted headlight covers. The production model looks best.
The final design obviously proved itself over time. The bigger trend to note here, in general, was the amount of pure 'bloat' American car designers were subscribing to in this time period. Other models from Ford, GM, and Chrysler fell into this trend as well. The Mustang is prime example of this. Originally derived from the Falcon platform, the early 70's Mustangs had ballooned to such dimensions that calling this model a 'sports car' was a bit laughable. Fortunately (or not) the gas crunch came along in the mid-to late 70's and forced Detroit to adjust their thinking. Of course we are now again experiencing the same trend again with large SUVs and trucks that have become living rooms on wheels!
0:21 If I had a Mark III, that is exactly the color scheme I would want... Beautiful! (And that year has the advantage of not having the complex hydraulic wiper and steering system...) I also wouldn't mind having Frank Cannon's ice-blue Mark IV - from the seasons where it had the blue leather interior, NOT the red velour! 😜
I also think in the pilot he was driving a 1972 Lincoln Continental sedan and he also had a Mark III as well as a 1972-76 Mark IV. Isn't it amazing how he always managed to wreck old cars and the Lincoln was spared in every episode? Priceless.
@@lvsqcsl You're right, he started out in season 1 (in 1971) with a Mark III in the same color. I think the black 1970 Continental was either a rental because he was on a trip, or it was one of his cars that DID get wrecked, leading to all the Marks.
I wish we could’ve had both, the model in the thumbnail of the video is beautiful in its own right but I wouldn’t have wanted it to replace the car we got
Had a 69. Mk3 got 17 mpg i tuned for reg gas nice car they were fast gave it up during gas chrysis in 70s was 1200s no prize. 69 cad got 8 mpg 🤕. 56premiere was nice too
I own a 1974 MK4. In my opinion I believe that the 74 bumpers make it look much more fuller and shaped. The 72 style rear end has ugly tail lamps placement
