In my quest to be the worlds greatest blogger, I've clearly forgotten about what the 'Net can do. Take that all you other picture-less posts!
Here's car #2, the fabulous Lincoln Continental Mark VII LSC. The "Luxury Sport Coupe" was Ford's attempt to compete with the Germans. Or so I remember my dad saying about all the reviews in the car rags of the time. They apparently said it was their equal at some fraction of the cost. That fraction might have been 7/8, I'm not really sure. I do remember dad writing a very large check as I waited with him to pick up his new '86 LSC in what I affectionately referred to as "metallic shit brown." It was actually a nice looking color, but at the time I thought "who buys a brown car?" Apparently when you get older, not only do you like white cars, you like brown cars too, because both the Carrera (remember that
post?) and Mini Clubman comes in a wonderful shade of shit brown.
This became my car shortly after I started driving, and the family decided to do some sort of crazy car shake-up. The Peugeot was history, dad had a new Explorer 2 door, and mom had a Mercury Capri XR2 convertible. Damn, I forgot about the Explorer, another Retro Review for me to do. I got the Lincoln.
Where the Peugeot was the antithesis of a gear-heads car speed-wise, the Mark was the antithesis of a sensible 16 year-old's car. And not just because it's a Lincoln. This was a
hot rod lincoln, spec'ed out with the Mustang's 225HP 5.0 V8 HO engine. And I didn't drive it much differently than that's song pro(an?)tagonist. For the time, it was quite fast, 0-60 in 8 seconds (we all laugh at that now - I currently don't own a car that won't do it in under 7). It had a fancy-dancy air suspension that was supposed to keep the ride nice and taut when cornering, and nice and smooth when cruising. But under it all, it was yet another Ford based on the Fox chassis - rear drive with a live axle, and approximately a 95/5 front/rear weight distribution.
But despite those humble underpinnings, its performance was nothing to sneeze at. While not as fast as a 635 CSi, it was plenty fast, faster than most cars I was likely to find next to me at a stoplight, and fast enough to merge into highway traffic with ease. And that air suspension? Well, it worked to a degree. It did cruise nicely, and on big sweepers the suspension firmed up nicely. But quick steering inputs threw it off, and some road undulations could send it into a classic American car wallow. It could also eat up most speed bumps without the need to slow down.
Where the Mark could really boast was amenities; it had
stuff. 8 way power leather seats, trip computer, auto dimming mirror, auto on/off lights with auto bright dimming, moon roof, a sweet climate control, power closing latch on the trunk. Probably missing a few things. Dad may may have purchased the car for the climate control. We were about to move to Florida from Ohio, and the A/C blew cold, and pretty quickly. You just set the temp to 72, and that's what it did. In my experience it's only been bested by Saab, who's climate control in my '96 900 was the bees knees.
I drove the Mark through the rest of high school. I managed to wreck it twice within about 6 months by being a stupid 16 year old. It was not the much worse for wear, although with the 2nd wreck, the entire car was repainted, and the guy doing it said he added extra metallic sparkle for free. Gee, thanks dude. It now looked like a metallic shit brown bass boat. And it was referred to frequently as "the bass boat" by my friends. There were many great exploits in this car, most of which I'd better not write about.
I like this car a lot. It had the speed that I wanted, it was big enough to put 5 guys in, and comfortable enough for 3 of us to drive it 5 hours north to Alabama to buy fireworks and then turn around and drive 5 hours back home after a 30 minute shopping spree. It was great fun on highway ramps where you could set it into a turn and accelerate through. And it was classic Q-car - I never got a speeding ticket in it.
It was handed down to my sister, who also wrecked it 2 times, the final one leading to the Mark's demise (UPDATE: Sis followed up in comments, only 1 wreck, but that's what did it in. Not trying to disparage ya sis, just a bad memory!). These wrecks were all fairly significant, and nobody was ever hurt, so it proved to be safe as well. While this was probably not the best car for 2 16 year olds, it fit the bill pretty well, and we certainly rode in style. Just not the style we wanted.
