Friday, October 8, 2010

Lincoln Continental Mark III

The Lincoln Continental Mark III of 1968 (which is not to be confused with controversial 1958 Mk III) was built to fill a niche nobody realized was there before, the fully equipped “Personal Luxury Car”. When it was in its initial success became apparent, Lincoln wasn’t the only American car maker wondering why it hadn’t thought of trying to fill the gap in the market before.

With its long stylish bonnet and short boot, its two door styling was an evocation of the Mk II of the 1956, but where that car had achieved good taste and some public interest in its early stage, on some levels, the new car missed the mark by a mile.

The fake neo classic grille was intended to give the car some up market gravities, but it only succeeded in looking totally crass, while the retractable head lights and continental spare wheel hump were pure gimmickry. Yet the buyers loved it very much, and the car was sold 30,000 Lincoln Continental Mark III in the first year of production. Lincoln knew they were in to a good thing and followed it up with the Continental MK IV in 1972, which had more of everything except horsepower, emission controls were beginning to take their toll on Detroit’s big V8s.

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