Loved that ad when I saw it back in the 80's!! I certainly get the issue....I was working part time for Avis back then moving cars from A to B for them....and if you didn't pay attention to the "finer details", you could easily mistake a Pontiac for an Oldsmobile or Chevrolet or Buick. LOL
I remember that ad clearly, partly because I owned an ‘85 Cadillac FWD Fleetwood, but mostly because I’m old! I know I’m probably in the minority, but I hated the Taurus/Sable jellybean styling-and still do-which desecrated even the Thunderbird and the Lincoln Mark VII and Mark VIII. But they got that Town Car right. It still turns my head and starts me salivating whenever I see a relatively decent example. Thanks, Adam! Have a happy Thanksgiving!
In 1986 the thunderbird and Mark VII looked quite different although the same body. In 1987, Thunderbird changed its look and did look very close to a Mark VII
Remember a billboard ad in 89 🤔 of Town Car stating MY KIND of TOWN CAR driving into Chicago. Think 🤔 it may have featured Frank Sinatra, playing on his hit song 🎵,
I do remember that ad back then and shook my head, poor GM. . There was still the Fleetwood Brougham, but I like all three Lincoln offerings for the 1987 model year.
I really missed "real cars" since I spent about a year working at a quick lube shop was the market was transitioning from rear wheel drive, roomy front engine bay to front wheel drive, crowded engine bay. 4 or 5 times each day, I'd get my arms or hands burned by some freakishly-hot engine component in something like a Nissan Maxima, just trying to remove the oil filter. I quit & got a good job at AT&T, so it came out alright in the end.
That was my favorite ad. I would always chuckle when it came on TV. IDK, but I was always able to distinguish between the GM C body cars, including the Buick 98, Oldsmobile Park Avenue. LOL
I recall when the 1980 Town Car/Continental debuted there was some criticism of its styling...look there's the new Lincoln and the box is came in. As the years progressed, even though the platform was old tech...it did get some refinements with port fuel injection and over drive transmissions which would help it get close to the mid 20s on the highway. I recall chuckling at this ad and I grew up with a bunch of GM products, including the front drive A body Pontiac 6000, a Pontiac Grand Am and the H Body Bonneville. If you saw the new Taurus and Sable for the first time...all of GM products look dated....much like when the GM 77 cars debuted...Ford and Chrysler full size cars looked dated. In 1987, who would have thought that the basic underpinnings of that Town Car would be in production until 2011!
That was a great commercial; it really got the message across. Look at car commercials these days; the car is shown racing around some random street being driven by a maniac.
GM commercials aren't any better now. Walking around beating on a tailgate humming a ridiculous chant. Boasting ridiculous awards from JD Powers that no one cares about and most people know are just awards that are bought and paid for. Or one of my favorites when they go trashing Ford for having aluminum pickup truck beds when they know full well they are going to have to resort to having them themselves in just a few short years and it will prove that they were behind the technology curve. I don't think GM learned much since the '80s.
The cloning of GM cars was the legacy of Roger Smith. GM was once the largest and most successful corporation in the world. Roger is the one that started GM on the path to bankruptcy. When you have nothing better to do, read the book Irreconcilable Differences: Ross Perot Versus General Motors.
I sometimes watch old episodes of The Price is Right, and they have those Dane Cimarrons on there alot. It's absolutely DISGUSTING how much more they cost than a Cavalier did.
@@johneckert1365 $14,100 at the end of the golden road 🤣🤣🤣 Check out the waviness in the bumper below the grille 🤣🤣🤣 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-LgcPGef78yo.html
@@pdennis93 Can you imagine being that contestant, finding out you're playing The Golden Road, hoping for a big motorhome or a Corvette, but instead it's a god damn Cimarron 😱😱😱😱 Just let me play the Dice Game for a $6,000 Chevette or an Escort lol There are no numbers higher than six, and there are no zeros in the price of the car. Now roll those dice! 🎲
I used to love the magazine and print ads comparing the quiet of a Ford Crown Victoria to a Rolls Royce. There was even a television ad. This was an ad that was revived from 1965 when Ford compared an LTD to a Rolls Royce in terms of quiet.
As a teen in 87,I do recall that commercial but only because of how smooth that guy's hair was that asks for his Lincoln. You know he's gonna score,too.
Hey Adam, I remember the Lincoln ad from 87, I enjoyed it then & I enjoy it now!!! I'd love to see more vintage car ads!!! Thanks for sharing another fun video!!! 👍👍🙂
The big and boxy rear-drive Cadillac Brougham (with its name changed from Fleetwood Brougham in 1987) was redesigned more aerodynamically for 1993, not 1992. The 1993 redesign also reclaimed the Fleetwood name, with Fleetwood Brougham denoting an upscale trim level of the base Fleetwood.
I enjoyed this ad back in the day, as I bought a new Grand Marquis the year before. What we didn't know was that this as actually prophesized the end of the five tier marketing strategy that had served GM so long. This strategy begun by Alfred Sloan in the 1920s made GM #1, but now in a changing world it was losing its effectiveness.
The ironic thing about this video is that a 1991 Brougham (especially with the 5.7) is worth a small fortune now and a 1991 Town Car, even a mint condition one isn't. Where the Brougham was the last of it's kind ever in 1992, the Town Car was the first of its kind from 1990 until 2011 so it's still a "used" car. The 96/97 are kinda the exception so far depending on condition.
@@BoardwalkBullies That's kind of a moot point, since so few Broughams were sold compared to the Town Car, one of the few hits Ford had over GM. In 1991 Lincoln produced close to 120k Town Cars compared to close to 30k for the Brougham, which means the difference is almost a hundred thousand cars. The best year for Lincoln was in 1988 when they made over two hundred thousand Town Cars. So, I'd say they made a point there?
My mom had a 1988 Lincoln Town Car Signature Series. The car was phenomenal. 28mpg highway and 18 to 20 city. She leased a 1996 Town Car and gave the1988 to me. I drove the car 17 years. It was dependable and easy to service. 1997, in my opinion, marked the end of the Town Car. What followed were cheap Fords. The Town Car was "What a Luxury Car Should Be."
Agree. I never really liked the 1998 redesign of the Town Car either. That design was a little too bulbous and the interior felt cheap. The older Town Cars may be boxy but still had a classy look to it.
This was a good segment Adam. This really hit GM hard. It took time to recover from this too. The ads were quite effective. The interesting thing is the Ford panther cars went on for years and were successful too. I was so glad when GM started upsizing the cars in 1989-1990 time frame and redesigned the car by the early 1990's. Great topic. This could be entire segment by itself.
I was so disappointed when GM downsized their cars again in the mid 80s. The designs also looked cheaper and more economy-like than the previous cars, which had more elegant, luxurious designs. GM's quality was beginning to go downhill at that point too. When GM totally redesigned most of their cars in the early 90s, there were ups and downs. The Caprice and Fleetwood Brougham went from beautiful cars to hideous designs. The new Roadmaster was a hideous beast. The Bonneville, Park Ave, Deville, Seville, Riviera, Eldorado, 88, and Lesabre all looked much nicer and had better sizes. The 98 had a very "elderly" look vs the previous car. The new Aurora was much nicer than the last gen Toronado. The totally redesigned Grand Am was a beauty. I'm a big fan of most Panther cars. Crown Vics, Grand Marquis, and Town Cars were all over the place during the Panther production. Crown Vics had become more common than Caprices in the early 90s after Chevy redesigned the Caprice. And Panther cars are strong, long-lasting cars. The last generation Crown Vic will most likely become a big collector's car in the next 5-10 years.
@@michaelsimko7694 I understand how you feel. I own two of the cars you do not care for you listed: a 1992 Oldsmobile Toronado and a 1996 Oldsmobile 98. I like the look of both of them after they were upsized. I liked the 98 because it was trying to recapture the former glory of past 98's. The Toronado is a nice balance for style room and comfort. I prefer it over Aurora and I felt the Aurora should have been called "Toronado". I was not a fan of the downsized era at GM 1985-1990 either. I do not think buyers were either. The 1993-1996 Fleetwood was nice but I understand your view point about the size. They got wider and longer. I have no idea why. I was not a fan of the Roadmaster's front end design on the sedan or wagon. The issue with the wagons( Chevrolet, Oldsmobile, Buick) they had too much Chevrolet Caprice in the design and it was obvious where the 1977-1990 versions were distinct by brand. I hated the headlights on them as it should have been a quad headlight design( meaning two headlights on each side of the grille) and not the one they had. The Fleetwood at least had a quad headlight design. Chevrolet did attempt to correct Caprice 1993-1996 and we got Impala SS out of that. It is true what you say.. The downsized cars( C and H and E Bodies) in the 1980's looked like the cheaper N Bodies. GM designers admitted this and they went too far with the downsizing. That hurt all the brands. GM paid for that for a long time. The panther cars were great cars too. I liked the Town Cars except the headlight design 1990-2002 and the 1998-2002 Town Car( 2003 fixed everything that was wrong), the Grand Marquis were always "grand". Nice interiors and elegant. Those panther cars are indeed durable.
But all those cars that GM produced still sold incredibly well. It's easy to say this now, but back then, people didn't want a big dated looking sedan. Besides, Caddy still offered the Fleetwood, which Lincoln fails to mention, but again, its sales slowed because everyone wanted the new smaller Sedan deVille. Regardless, it took 59 years for Lincoln to finally outsell Cadillac in 1998, but hasn't happened again, since. I really don't think Cadillac is concerned what Lincoln does anymore. In fact, I don't think any brand is worried about the Lincoln brand.
@@fp5495 Cadillac did counter with an add during this time with the Brougham. Here is the link: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-qd1ryfW7thg.html
@@fp5495 I think the newest Lincolns aren't chasing the Euros like Cadillac; but are doing much better with traditional 'American Luxury". Those new Lincoln SUV's interiors make a mockery of the Cadillac XT's interiors in my opinion; and I've configured both !!
I worked at Champion Lincoln Mercury in Birmingham Alabama. Sold a lot of them. I loved when we traded one in close to the weekend. Before it went to the clean up shop. I would grab it for the weekend. I would be styling
I really think it would be interesting to see your take on how the Cadillac actually started to transition back to it's more traditional roots as the 1980's came to a close. They certainly made a concerted effort to ditch their cookie cutter image. The 1989 FWD Fleetwood actually went back to fender skirts, when no other mass production vehicle still featured them. Cadillac actually held on to that part of history, all the way to the 1999 model year with the Fleetwood Limited, as well as the 1994 to 1996 DeVille Concours. These were the last years of the true tailfins as well, and most models actually sold relatively well. I can't remember you ever giving your take on this era, you always present with a high level of class.
Lincoln successfully ingrained into the mind of buyers that they were the biggest car made even though the Fleetwood/Brougham was bigger then any model Lincoln.
Seeing the Mark VII LSC in that advertisement brought back memories of my 1985 LSC. Probably the most beautifully designed car I will ever own (even if some people did mistake it for a Thunderbird!).
I don't think many people understand how revolutionary the Mark VII was for the US auto industry, even if the car wasn't something that got notice like the Taurus/Sable. The car was by far the overall best this country produced over almost it's entire run. The '88 was the pinnacle of these cars.
The Lincoln ad is one of my absolute favorite of all times. Such a great poignant message aimed directly at the aspects of auto design that mattered to the prestige minded buyers of American automobiles. I work in marketing today (not in relation to automobiles, though) and I wish we were doing thought provoking work like this, instead were way more interested in catching algorithms and driving up click through.
an astute vehicle shopper would have realized it was not a realistic comparison, they should have compared the town car to the Fleetwood or chevrolet caprice, both full frame rear drive vehicles. this ad capitalized on the viewers ignorance of the car lines, by every objective standard the Caprice was a nicer car, unless superficial things like "prestige" were important.
The ad was impactful, but it didn't last. According to the Encyclopedia of American Cars, total 4 door sedan production (rounded off) for Cadillac excluding Seville in 1987, 88, and 89 was 227,000; 215,000; and 217,000 respectively. Sales for the 3 years for Lincoln 4 door full size were 94,000; 242,000 and 186,000. Old body architecture did indeed catch up with Ford.
Funny though that Ford would stick it's finger in GM's eye when they've always had platform sharing using basically the exact same methods. If Gm had run an ad in modern times comparing vehicles of the same color like the Ford fusion, Mercury Melan, Lincoln MKZ -it could've had the exact same effect. A commercial like that would probably never get made now -almost a shame really🙂
I remember seeing that ad back then. I always wished Lincoln would have offered the 5-speed transmission from the Mustang GT in the Mark VII for a true “hot rod” Lincoln.
My Mon's Lincoln, rode WAY: Better than my '96 Chevy Caprice Classic, and I did enough improvements to make it get : 24Mpg Hwy, and 16 mpg City, as long as you didn't keep your foot into it! It was a great car, rode so good, so quiet.....but, because of the room I have , where I live, I don't regret selling it, had I MORE ROOM, I'd "NOT" ever sold it!
I was a paint and body man for years and in the mid 80s I went to work at a GM dealership ( one of my first jobs in paint and body ) and I cant tell you that GM cars then were absolute junk. The fit, finish and mechanics were just awful. Those FWD J bodies were the worst.
@@RareClassicCars Yep we had many repaints to do right off the transport trucks. A lot of paint had spots in them they claimed was from acid rain . Funny thing was it was only GM cars so I guess acid rain only fell on them.
Great comment on the right TV spot at the right moment as well as the evolution of the sheer look. The funny thing is - Ford used the only "sheer look ripoff" vehicle, the Town Car, that they had left in the Lincoln lineup to do such an effective beat down on General Motors. This was when the long slow slide to GM's bankruptcy really began to gain momentum. Lookalike cars on several vehicle platforms seriously eroded divisional identity and was a gaping slash in their sales and marketing causing GM's eventual bankruptcy by a thousand such bad decision cuts.
GM was real stupid killing off its performance brand Pontiac at a time when that end of the market was really exploding. Killed her off little by little before finally holding a funeral. What does GM has only one affordable car for the youth market now, competitive only against the Ford Mustang. Nothing to answer the Japanese or German market leaders. GM still acts like they've got one main competitor and that's in Dearborn, period.
I love Lincon Town Cars! I have a 93 Jack Nicklaus Edition and have owned a 95 Mark VIII as well. I preferred the Town Car to the Mark VIII, but the Mark had more power and better handling.
Unfortunately Ford frequently did the same thing with Mercury, sometimes they were unique and sometimes they were simply slightly different Fords. The GM cars were good looking but simply too similar to each other.
Remember when Ford made the Versallies which was a Ford Granada and fooled no one? GM took a Chevy car with the Seville and sold the living hell out of them. Go figure. It also had to do with Chevy and Caddy rarely were sold in the same dealership while Mercury and Lincoln were almost always in the same dealership so people would see Lincoln's then see it's Mercury equal in the showroom and ask themselves why pay twice as much for the Lincoln.
Adam, although new, you should do a video on the 79-11 Panther Platform. I would love to know your thoughts on Chrysler doing away with the 300 and Dodge Challenger/Charger. Again another great video. Anthony
I love these, had the opportunity to buy my first three last year unmolested survivors all with under 100k, a 88, and two 89 Signatures, I am keeping on of the 89's and letting the other two go to new care takers. Took one of the 89 to car shows over the summer and boy do they command attention!
The sheer look made alot of General Motor's cars look very elegant and not everyone loved the "bubble cars; Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable". Maybe it's true the design was copied for a very long time but i honestly think it worked wonders for the company despite the negative publicity made by the auto critics.
You really have to ask yourself where were the GM ad men ...because many Ford products looked similar as well and they could have easily pulled an alternative stunt. 1987 Ford Thunderbird Turbo Coupe & Lincoln Mark VII LSC ..case in point. bring me my Mark 7- no that's a Thunderbird ...or maybe it isn't.
Some takeaways for me - which many may not agree with, but here goes: - 76 to 79 Seville wheelbase always looked off-kilter to me with such small front overhang. I personally feel it would be have been way more attractive with the wheelbase set back several inches. I realize the look it had was the point. - 86 Seville I really like 🤷🏻♂️ and it’s my favorite of all the Sevilles since the 67-68 models. - The Lincoln Town Car was an incredibly nice and luxurious, reliable car. In a perfect world, I would shave about 8” off that ridiculously high dashboard for a fully open view of the road. People watch the road - not the dashboard - when driving and to have 1/3 of it blocked is a huge design flaw! 😂
I had driven my parents' Mercury Marquis, and I grew up on their Buick Electra Estate station wagons so when I graduated college in 1990, my very first, brand-new, special ordered car, was a gunmetal grey, 1990 Buick Electra/Park Avenue Ultra. In the MANY intervening years, I've owned more Buicks, Cadillacs, and finally, Lincoln Town Cars, 4 of them, before my present Lincoln, a 2019 MKZ...actually, a Zephyr, but I won't mince words. Out of ALL the American luxury cars I have owned....that 1990 Buick P/A was probably the BEST, most reliable car I ever owned; I often wish I still had it, but I digress. My last 2 Buick P/A were garbage, total LEMONS, so....I was talked into "stepping up" to a Cadillac. What a F--KING BIGGER lemon than those last 2 Buicks; I GAVE AWAY my LAST Buick, the 1997 P/A....blown engine and total electrical system FAILURE...by the time it hit 55,000 miles! That car left me STRANDED on a dark and lonely highway, and I was done, so enter the new, 2007 Cadillac DTS....NOWHERE NEAR ANY BETTER OF A CAR. I finally jumped to Lincoln, then two more after that first one. I currently own a 2019 Lincoln MKZ, like I said earlier, and while it will never be anywhere near those Lincoln Town Cars I had just before it, I have GOT to admit it, this MKZ does indeed remind me of that 1990 Buick, and I LOVE THIS CAR.
I have owned a 76 Mark IV, a 77 Continental, a 86 TC, a 89 TC, and a 98 TC. I now have a 2013 MKS and have fallen in love with the tech and comfort. It's still a large car.
To be fair, while this Lincoln ad was very impactful in laying the smack down... the Fortune magazine took aim at those A-cars and they were really damn successful. Also one of the main guys in that Lincoln ad was in a few episodes of the Golden Girls.
Excellent vid. I find vintage ads/archival footage very interesting as they serve as a barometer of what was going on in the industry at that time as well as consumer trends.
Hey Adam, this is Marcel, in Yuma, Az, . My mother had one of these at the time of her death, and I came about it. It was a beautiful '86, with a 5.0/ 2 , into 1 exhaust.... When I got it, still under 100K, back in '05 I drove it down from mom's house to mine, with a trailer and some old stuff that I've gained . The car was quite something, as I later realized. At that time, I owned a 1996 Chevy Caprice Classic Sheriffs car that had a 263cu in. V-8, that wasn't that powerful, but :WOW, great hwy gas mileage. My moms Lincoln,,,,, not so much!
I've viewed this ad 10+ times.😅 Brilliant, and totally proof against retribution! No word or image could be attacked as anything beyond stating truth. It should have won awards.
Ye, though being correct, blaming the GM cars for their equality. The shown Town Car looks way more dated than the shown GM models. With its edges and straight lines, it mirrors directly its origin from the seventies... (About the Continentals, it's a whole new tale...)
The criticism wasn’t merely about the upright backlight or “sheer look.” It was more specifically that platform sharing had metastasized so whole bodies were the same across makes, differences reduced to fascia treatments and rear glass surround. Aero fixation and cost reduction metastasized until the mid80s large front-drivers were identical from a side approach.
I've owned both of the platforms discussed, an 81 Lincoln Mark VI and an 85 Impala. The Impala was a better handling car, but the Lincoln rode like a cloud.
Stiffer springs and better shocks make Ford's panther platform perform quite well. They actually not very different from GM's full-size platform of the same era
The mark VI though sold like a dud as the Eldorado/Rivieria/Toronado destroyed it in sales. Then GM got greedy and downsized those cars, Ford came out with a very stylish Mark VII and reversed the tide.
@@tenfourproductionsllc GM could've kept those 3 cars in thier line up for several more years. Why the hell would they change such a good thing, especially with thier high sales numbers?!?!
I remember the ad well and saw it when holidaying in the US. I thought it was excellent. The main issue was all those C bodies looked the same rather than just employing the Seville’s more squared off lines - as the Town Car also did too but in a much larger and more distinctive way. Those C bodies reminded me more of Volvos at the time. Like a 740 or 760.
I remember when Cadillac went to the 110 inch wheelbase front wheel drives. There was no back seat room. People in droves went and bought Chevy Suburbans, thus a whole new breed of luxury trucks quickly followed
I just noticed that the hood on the 75-70 Seville is too long! The distance between the back of the wheel arch and the bottom of the windshield is out of proportion, in an otherwise very nicely proportioned car.The Seville needed a cab-forward design!
The Seville was based off the Chevy Nova platform. The Nova and it's cousins all had a long lower body panel between the front door and the front wheel opening on the lower fender.
Boy, how I remember that commercial. Even the owners couldn't tell their cars apart. ("That's my Buick!" "No, that's my Oldsmobile!" etc., etc. Poor souls.
I think it's odd that having a sloping rear window isn't redundant, or copying, while the very functional vertical rear window is. I loved the vertical rear window for many reasons. The window stayed cleaner and was less prone to glare, it gave a roomier feel and more headroom, the extended roof threw shade on rear passengers and kept the car a little cooler. GM should have explained all the advantages of an extended roof while varying the design of the C pillars profile from model to model.
I remember loving the formal appearance of the GM vehicles growing up and we had them in our family. I absolutely loved the vertical rear window on the Park Avenue, Ninety Eight, and Deville. The Taurus on the other hand, I despised its aerodynamic looks, I thought it was so cheap looking and I remember people making fun of them saying they looked like a giant bug going down the road.
I remember this ad really well. The G.M. lineup for the time was stiff and boxy looking. Granted, the Lincoln Town Car was boxy as well, it just looked more elegant than the slimmed down Cadillacs. For G.M. to go from the head turning, early 80’s Seville, to the boring mid 80’s model, it makes you wonder who they were trying to appeal to. When Lincoln introduced the mid to late 80’s Continentals, it was clear Lincoln was the best choice. In 1987, I began dating an economist at G.M. I recall on one occasion, him telling me in one of the meetings he attended, Ford was actually congratulated for the impressive sales numbers that had been released. I myself miss the days when luxury cars were luxury cars. Now there is nothing to capture your attention on the road. The SUV is no different from entry level to “luxury”. Everything looks the same. I never thought after being loyal to Ford for over 25 years, that I would admit my husband and I now drive Mazda and VW.
That Lincoln TC looked exceptional in that parking lot full of trash. The original Seville was great looking though. Also was that Richaed Roat looking for his caddy ?
I had never bought new cars but being a vehicle/aircraft mechanic I worked on new cars in a dealership. I actually like the GM cars from that era as they all used the same under hood parts and they were actually simple and easy to work on. The Fords of that era were like working non dinosaurs and since I worked on vehicles I worked on them but the thing was they started with some of the worst problematic engines and transmissions
Not only did GM have a look alike problem, they also had a FWD problem. Full-frame rear wheel drive was still a Lincoln selling point...much more pleasant to drive than the heavily-front-end-laden Caddies or Buicks.
@@billolsen4360 All the more reason for Lincoln to release that frankly really stinging zinger of an ad. It's clever in that it's not actually "mean" as such, at all. You could say it was in a passive-aggressive way, but Lincoln never got their hands dirty here. They let the genuine GM look-alike problem do all the dirty work for them.
I remember back in the 80s their was a national survey of Americans of what their dream luxury car would be if they could buy one and the top two were the Mercedes S Class and....the Lincoln Town Car.🙄
Though I was about four when that ad came out, and thus could potentially have seen and remember it, I dont. Before today, I never saw that ad before. It's great; very funny, witty, clever. Brilliantly done, perfectly executed, completely memorable. I should have remembered it, but I don't think I've ever seen it before, despite its overt familiarity. Incidentally, I had a 1985 Continental sedan, which was pretty much just like Lincoln's answer to the bustle-backed Cadillac Seville of 1980-1985 (with some front end flourishes borrowed from the Buick Riviera), in 2012.
Great video and commentary! A couple notes though... Cadillac debuted with its Fleetwood "Bubbillac" for the 1993 model year; the 1992 Cadillac Brougham still had the 1980 body style.
Cadillac managed to sell just 19,098 Seville sedans for all of 1986, with that total dropping even more, down to only 18,578 units moved in 1987. Such dismal sales precipitated an early refresh for 1988, which saw sales slightly improve. I would say that Lincoln was quite effective at torpedoing Cadillac sales. After years of subpar sales, I'm truly shocked that Cadillac somehow was able to remain in business.
Anyone notice how Lincoln didn't show the 1988 Cadillac Fleetwood? It had a distinctive look. But the kids at Lincoln wanted to shame Cadillac and ONLY show the models that looked alike...
@@runoflife87 Town car at this point was even more dated than the RWD Brougham. Base Town Cars still included a dial dash clock standard, when literally everybody else had a digital clock in the radio display or somewhere else.
In that era, Lincoln was blowing away Cadillac, and I am not just saying that because of my love of vintage Lincolns as I look at it objectively as well. That Town Car was overall a much nicer car than the downsized Sedan DeVille or the Seville that came out then. The Mark VII was far better than anything Cadillac had, period...when the Mark VII came out, it was the best car the USA produced, and especially by 1988. Cadillac could not match or better it until 1992 when the Mark VII was in the last year of production and was already eight years past the car's introduction. This ad not only resonated because it was so well done but because it was the truth. All that said, the Continental released in 1988 in hindsight was a step backwards and Cadillac was actually was actually much stronger competing with that vs the Town Car or especially the Mark VII. That Continental in a way became indicative of Lincoln's downfall, and by the mid-2000's, Cadillac was blowing away Lincoln as the found a way to produce excellent modern cars without selling their soul like Lincoln did. That CTS that off-hand came out around 2006(?) is a very attractive, excellent car which most people could never mistake for anything but a Cadillac, while Lincoln while producing stuff like that stupid looking MKX that I used to call a short bus. I remember driving past one in my '77 Mark V and jokingly said to my car something like, don't look, it'll be ok as if my car felt disgrace. 😆
GM probably stuck with the 1976-79 Seville design because it was clearly superior to all the other American made cars of that period. The 1979-85 Cadillac Eldorado was particular stylish and one of the nicest designs ever. The car sales speak volumes.
I live in England, and since I was 7 (1976) I always wanted to own one of the big American beasts from tv and film in the 70s. A saloon or town car, four doors, by age 10, I'd settled on the idea of a 1971 my III Continental, preferably in black. Then, a year later, a man moved into a house round the corner from my folks house, and he owned a County Squire. This thing thing was a land yacht! And I've never seen a car have such trouble negotiating the roads of our estate! Right then I knew I needed a plan B! Ain't thought of one yet... and I'm 53!!!
Yes, but downsizing did a number on Ford, as well as GM and Chrysler. The Town Car was so successful, but Ford decided to cancel it, and went on to destroy the Lincoln design insisting copying the boring German prototypes was what American buyers wanted. Nothing could be further from the truth. Lincoln’s were destroyed. The 1970’s pre-downsizing were the most beautiful.
