I was a teenager when my parents rented a beautiful burgundy 1980 Versailles from Budget Rent-A-Car. I thought it was a really nice car back then. The stereo sounded great, especially when "Sailing" by Christopher Cross came on. My parents also rented a Lincoln Continental and Town Car sometime later. Those were really nice, too.
I inherited my parents '77 silver blue Versallies in college during the late 80's. I remember polishing it as a youngster. Nice interior with a higher quality than most cars of the day. Super clear coat paint and chrome. The wire wheels took a lot of effort to keep clean for mom. I called it her BRIDGEMOBILE as she drove her bridge playing ladies around in it. The 302 was weak, had a funky early electronic ignition. and a narrow rear end that is valued today. The disk breaks were good. A hail storm did in the padded vinyl roof roof. The weird thing was it took about six months before all the round "cracks" split open and were visible. Luxury ride was OK for the day
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.
My Dad had a Granada Ghia coupe that was fun to drive and the dove gray leather interior was beautiul! He never liked to let the pros handle the service so it didn't last forever....
I believe they stopped making it early 1980 as sales were way off. Before the roof change in 79, the Lincoln dealer told me they never parked one any where close to a Monarch on the lot, usually opposite ends of the lot . In 77-78 they were really dealing on these, not many people were excited about these like the 76-79 Cadillac Seville
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
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.
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.
you fail to mention they were also AHEAD of their time...1st US car to use base coat/clear coat paint, 1st US car to use halogen headlights. 1st US car to use aluminum hood, 1st US sedan car to use 4 wheel disc brakes. Thats considerable advanced features !
@@TDBash First computerized electronic ignition, that used a special engine block to house the electronic sensor for the flywheel. The EEC1 computer controlled variable venture carburetor did not work well and many were replaced with conventional units.
This is probably about as good as Ford could have done with the resources it had available in the mid-'70s. GM beat them to the party with a much better Cadillac Seville. Remarkably, both the Seville and Versailles pretty accurately portended what the companies' luxury sedans would look like during the next decade. I think both the Seville and Versailles are very handsome cars, even today.
The platform dated back to the original 1960 Ford Falcon, believe it or not. Ford did a lot of work stiffening the chassis to make it suitable as a high-end luxury car. Unfortunately, they didn't change the exterior enough from Granada/Monarch (the new roof in '79 helped a lot) but main issue was the excessive price. Should have been priced as an entry-level Lincoln but Ford was full of hubris in trying to compete with Cadillac's Seville. Still in all, I always liked these.
