We found the Lincoln at a Honda dealer, tucked away in the back lot with its hideaway headlights stuck open like a red-eyed insomniac. It wasn't even for sale. Some tech had stuffed the car back there because there isn't a landlord on the planet who will tolerate the drag on property values that is an 18-foot long, inoperable coupe with a manifold leak. At 12 years old, I wanted that '71 Continental Mark III more than the oxygen in my lungs.
Dad raised me on a stack of Hot Rod and Hemmings magazines, and while I couldn't be bothered to raise an eyebrow at a Porsche of any ilk, big, American iron did the trick. The Lincoln was perfect, so dark green it was nearly black, the car sulked on its wheels. Those massive chrome bumpers and the big, vertical grille only helped bring the machine's visual mass lower to the ground. And then there was that profile. The car's shoulder line was a beautiful, graceful thing with a simple, organic swell over the rear wheels.
It was three inches shorter than our family Suburban, but over two inches wider and had just two doors. It was all hood, and for good reason. It packed the last of the pre-emission 460 cubic-inch big-block V8s with 365 horsepower and more torque than a small bulldozer.
After a few phone calls to the dealer, we found the tech with the title, and brought it home for $1,600. Every Christmas and birthday for the next 13 years included Lincoln parts of one variety or another. Even so, I never put more than 1,500 miles on the car in all that time. It got 8 mpg, and was plagued by carburetor and cooling issues. It also had a passenger side exhaust manifold with a split big enough to slide a folded dollar bill through. When the windows don't go down and the car's pumping carbon monoxide into the cabin with every revolution of that big V8, each stoplight is an exercise in not blacking out.
Not that I would have complained if I'd met my sleepy end behind the wheel. Even after years of leaky weather stripping and sun fade, the interior was opulent. Thick green leather, deep pile carpet, and real mahogany wood trim dominated the cabin. It smelled like a library with a leaky roof and a gas leak.
None of that changed how the car looked. I didn't realize it at the time, but my '71 Continental Mark III was one of the last truly beautiful Lincolns ever made. It was an outlier in the company's lineup even when it was new, and '72 brought us the gaudier, less powerful Mark IV. It only got worse from there.
Now, the new Continental Concept rises from the plastic ashes of the Town Car pyre. It's a handsome machine, borrowing cues from Audi and Jaguar, but there's no mistaking that greenhouse as anything but a Lincoln. It's not a heart stopper, but I'll take anything with even a hint of a pulse after watching the brand stumble through the past five years, as confused and directionless as its advertising. The anonymous "MK" naming structure, the half-hearted attempts to badge-engineer a luxury brand out mediocre Ford models, and the unfortunate build quality of cars like the latest MKZ—it all felt like so much dirt on the company's coffin lid.
I hope like hell Lincoln builds the Continental Concept, not because I think a full-size sedan will save the brand, but because the company deserves better than to fade into obscurity as a cut-rate Buick competitor. I have a hard time imagining anyone, 12 years old or otherwise, hyperventilating at the sight of a derelict MKS in the back of a car lot 25 years from now, but the new Continental? Yeah, I can see it.
In the end, I traded my Lincoln away, but not before keeping it for 13 years. I drug it around the southeast like an iron albatross well after I knew I had neither the resources nor the inclination to give it what it needed to survive. I suspect Ford knows the feeling.
