I'm lusting after a Lincoln Mark IV...

[ForrestGump]

For a while now -- actually since I began the search that ended with me finally buying a car (on eBay) last December -- I've been seriously considering the idea of buying a '70s Cadillac or Lincoln, basically (at least in part) as a 'prop' for my Elvis gig. They are cool cars, though. Elvis owned all sorts of cars: a BMW (he picked it up in Germany when he was in the Army and later gave it to Ursula Andress), one of those little Messerschmitt bubble cars, a Mercedes limo (he got some strife for it from xenophobes who felt he should only 'buy American,' his response basically being that they should go f*** themselves), a Rolls Royce (regularly attacked by his peacocks at Graceland...he just kept having it repainted rather than get rid of the peacocks), a 1975 Dino Ferrari, five Stutz Blackhawks (including the first produced), a Ford Pantera (he bought it for his girlfriend for something like $3000 but used to drive it for fun, though it was extremely unreliable and one day when it died by the side of the road, I think outside of Vegas, he pulled his gun and shot it repeatedly as one might put down a horse), and a ton of other cars. But it's Cadillacs that he's always associated with -- I think he bought about 200 of them, giving most of them away (sometimes to strangers) -- starting with the 1955 pink Fleetwood that he got for his non-driving mother. Lincolns were probably his second most-bought marque -- his very first car was a Lincoln and he had a lot of them over the years, including limos. The local Lincoln dealer in Memphis sold an awful lot of cars to him -- as at Cadillac dealers, he'd go in and pick out a few that he wanted, with no asking for discounts for quantity, or anything of the sort. Elvis paid sticker price. Better him than me. :D

Last week my partner and I flew out to pick up a black '70s Fleetwood Cadillac limousine that's in mint condition, with only 36700 miles on it when we picked it up. We drove it back 1100 miles or so and it ran like it was brand new. It's a remarkable beast (a bit over 20' long) and is truly a work of art. They just do not make them like that any more. It's not the most economical car around, of course, but it's kind of sobering to know that its fuel economy is at least somewhat better than some of these bloated SUVs around now, like the Hummer. Given the choice between a rock solid '70s Elvismobile and a Hummer I sure know which one I'd choose. The thing rips along the highway, too, with zero effort...I've always thought that Elvis must be about the only person who took a Cadillac above 40 mph (like 80 mph above 40 mph!) -- given that they used to seem to be the vehicle of choice of little old ladies who could not see over the steering wheel -- but I drove most of the way and had that baby cruising along smoothly at speeds Elvis would have approved of. We got some interesting looks along the way, of course, and other interactions that were probably a tad surreal for the people involved.

For a while now, I've been leaning toward the Lincolns, though some of those '70s Cadillacs are beautiful. The '70s Lincolns, though, especially the Mark series, are sublime. They look sportier than any Cadillac, kind of like a luxury cruiser front, with a long hood, grafted on to a sportier tail. The Mark IV's lines really appeal to me. The older Mark III (1968-71; the Mark IV was 1972-1976, replaced by the behemoth Mark V in '77) is a beautiful car, too, sleeker and slimmer. Either would be cool. Elvis had both, and gave plenty away...he went on a spree in 1976 in Vail and gave away a bunch of Mark IVs to police officers, for instance.

Here's a mid-'70s Mark IV:



Right now the real object of my immediate lust is a black Mark IV (with black vinyl roof and black interior) on eBay, but I've bid on others and am watching a ton more. I'm patient, and the longer I wait the less I'll be depleting my funds to buy something that is not, strictly speaking, a necessity...though I could always turn around and sell it if I had to.

Anyway, that's it. Just wanted to express my infatuation to anyone who cares or who is nuts about cars or old Lincolns. I'm not a car person, especially, but these are some cool vehicles and I'd not mind being behind their wheels even without the Elvis connection and the possible contribution one of these cars would make to my work. The Cadillac is iconic with Elvis -- and not just the pink one, but the big '70s bruisers -- but my partner's got that market cornered with this immaculate limo and, even if he didn't, I'm really quite taken with these old Lincolns. There're quite a few with low miles up on eBay at any given time. I'll let y'all know when and if... :D

[Squatch]

1. I'm not saying a damned thing

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mpg?

[kay1864]

3. Pretty economical, really

Compared to the Cadillac, that is :P

[ForrestGump]

5. Good comparison

:D

I think it's got a bigger engine, too.

If you look at a lot of the very nice 6-cylinder Japanese and German cars out there now, the fuel economy on them is sometimes not that much better than that of these big, heavy '70s V-8s.

[ForrestGump]

4. Not sure

I think 60 mpg. :D

I'll get the hybrid version.










Hey...it's recycling.

[lost-in-nj]

24. What you said.......

LOL




lost

[kay1864]

2. I always liked the Mark IV myself

Back then not many cars had cool retractable headlights.

Thanks for all the anecdotes! Elvis shooting a Pantera for having the nerve to break down on him. Buying a car for his mom who didn't drive. Dang.

Your Caddy is over TWENTY FEET LONG?? Does that even fit into a parking space at Costco?

[ForrestGump]

9. That Cadillac is a

parking nightmare, just waiting to happen. :P

Actually, I've had no trouble maneuvering it around....its turning radius is way better than I expected, too. Driving it in a straight line is no problem, either, as on a freeway, 'cos all that's in front is a fairly big hood that's not too freaky even for those of us used to smaller cars. Making turns in gas stations (those yellow poles that they install to ding car doors) or drive-throughs (yes, I took the limo to Taco Bell for seven-layer burritos!) is okay, too, as long as I remember that she's got a massive bootie that sticks way out back there. Baby's definitely got back. :D

The steering is responsive and tight, and it rides smoothly but does not float as I remember those big '70s cars doing -- I liked that feeling when I was a kid, but I imagine it's disconcerting to a driver who likes to feel connected to the road, as I do. It handles well, stops well (great brakes), and feels more like a small to midsize Mercedes than a '70s American land yacht. Looks like an aircraft carrier, performs like a windsurfer (okay, maybe not quite that extreme).

The Pantera story is pretty cool. Elvis loved cars but, like motorcycles, he didn't care how prestigious or expensive the brand...he just liked moving rapidly (he even took the governors off golf carts' motors and used to race the carts around Graceland at highly insane speeds, and he put caterpillar tracks on snowmobiles that he'd also tear about on around Graceland, year-round). I heard the Pantera story long ago but in that version the car was a Ferrari that he shot out in the desert beyond Vegas. Here's the story with some pictures:

http://www.panteracars.com/elvis1001.htm

Here's a picture of Elvis in it in 1975, before he put it out of his misery:



Elvis was here:



:D

[guitar man]

6. I had a '72 mark iv

Awesome machine. If I reacall correctly, it was unique among the mark iv's as it was the first year of the iv and the only year that didn't have the "5 mph bumpers" mandated by the gov't in 1973. The absence of the rubber and "stoppers" on the front bumper gave it a real smooth look.

Unfortunately, my wife totalled it :( That was the closest we ever came to getting a divorce.

Here's a '72 model (not mine)

[ForrestGump]

10. So THAT's what the 5 mph bumper is!

I was wondering. I think they first added a 5 mph bumper up front in the second year of production and later put them on the rear, too. I can feel your pain over the machine being totaled. :-(

I even feel bad, sometimes, when I see old cars rusting away in fields or wherever, or being destroyed in demolition derbies or similar (the Vegas Strip, in other words, and any freeway around Chicago). They're inanimate objects but...you know.

Yeah, a beautiful car. That one in the picture looks like the one I'm especially lusting after right now, though that one's a 1974 with the bumpier bumpers.

[guitar man]

13. yep

5mph bumpers, just another great idea :eyes:

It actually worked out ok after she totalled the mark iv, years later, I used it as leverage to buy the mark viii I'm driving now ;)

[Ryano42]

20. DAAAA ROOOOL

:9

Condolences on your loss... :cry:

[jus_the_facts]

7. Lustin' behind the wheel....sing it baby....

Night rider, night rider

You may think that it's the breeze

Whispering through the lonely trees

But its only him aflying round the bend

As the day comes to that end.....



:loveya:



:hi:

[ForrestGump]

11. You made me

smile. :D


I love riding at night, too.

:loveya:


:hug:

[jus_the_facts]

16. You make me...

....smile too...every time!!! :loveya:

[Ryano42]

8. Every once in a great while I take my baby out...

Like a time machine...bought it from my Dad in high school. There is a dent on the tailgate from me jumping into it as a kid...

<sigh> COME ON ALTERNATIVE FUELS! :)

[ForrestGump]

12. Oooooo....

That's (and here I risk decisively revealing how clueless I am about cars) an El Camino, right? What a cool car. I remember, when I was spending a bit of time in Texas, people calling them 'cowboy Cadillacs.' :D

They really don't make them like that any more. I know a lot of things have improved, in so many ways, but cars back then had more -- for want of a better word -- soul. Something like that. I don't think I'm romanticizing, either. And I am someone who's not only not a 'car person' but who's mostly had an extreme disinterest in cars (now, motorcycles have always been a different story). I could doubtless get excited by a Ferrari or Lamborghini, but I've always felt like cars were really only appealing to me as a practical form of transport (hence my predilection for very reliable and well-engineered Japanese cars) and if I wanted performance and all that I had a motorcycle that'd run circles around any car. Now, though, I'm beginning to appreciate cars, especially the older ones from the muscle era and all of that -- that golden age from the '50s through the '70s. My Lincoln and Cadillac fixation has much to do with their Elvisness, relative to my current vocation, but they are still undeniably cool cars from an age when cars really were something quite special and not all designed by the same CAD programs to look pretty much interchangeable. And for you, too, to still have the car that you essentially grew up in...that's pretty amazing.

And, yes, some viably retro-effective alternative sources of energy would be handy!

[Ryano42]

17. It sat garaged for seven years...

Changed oil, purged fuel, pulled coil, wire...cranked until oil pressure...attached coil.

Two pumps on the gas....VROOM! 383 inches and 375 HP of small block Chevrolet nostalgia came back to life.

As did every memory in my teens. I played the Cars and sunk into the soft bench seat...listening to the rumble and music...

For a moment...a simpler, gentler time...soul indeed.



I took it around the block and people were :wtf::wow:

(btw it's low compression so it will run on anything! ;) )

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

14. Get one, get one, get one!

There's a 50-50 chance I worked on that car when it was built. After the service I went to work on the assembly line to make some money and to be able to say I did that job.
They were built at the Ford Wixom plant where we had a car a minute roll off the line. We built Mark IV's, Thunberbirds and Lincoln-Merc Town Cars.
By the way, I worked my ass off. :) The idea of lazy auto workers is a myth......
on edit- This was 1972-73.......

[ForrestGump]

15. A car a minute?

What a bunch of slackers. :P

If I get one, I'll have to have you sign it one day! :hi:

[zonkers]

18. My buddy's got one. Been sitting in his friend's driveway for about two years. Cool car.

Good car. He doesn't drive it much. Pretty hard to park. My favorite old lincoln mark IV was one I saw in NY. Someone took off all the chrome and painted it matte black. You could walk right by it on a dark street and not see it till you were a foot away.

[ForrestGump]

23. A Stealth Lincoln!

Cool. :D

Yeah, I'm kind of wondering about the parking situation. Seems like I remember a lot of places repainting their parking lots during the '80s, making the slots smaller. The Mark IV is just over 18' long, most of it in the hood (makes it not quite as much a trial to park, but I'm wondering how I'll ever pull out of a driveway or side street), which is obviously rather huge but a full 2' shorter than the Cadillac I've piloted recently, that's surprisingly easy to park and manoeuver in tight confines.

I have been thinking about these '70s cars a lot, given there's a massive example downstairs right now and I'm currently (sort of by accident) winning the bid on another one: I think it's absolutely disgusting that these dinosaurs not only have gas mileage that rivals many of the private vehicles on the road today but that is actually better than some (like the Hummer H2). I mean, back in the '50s and '60s and '70s there was an excuse for gas guzzlers, and the American manufacturers who were producing these Nimitz-class cruisers and sedans quickly downsized when the energy crisis really hit and for a while, in the '80s, the Big American car was almost totally a memory. But then came the SUVs, most of them superfluous (yes, some people need them, but most do not), and the new era of gas guzzlers is upon us. They've long had the technology to reduce fuel consumption, but they haven't -- for the most part -- put it to use. I drove a brand new 1985 Lincoln from Arizona to Chicago once and was incredibly impressed by the car (great handling, with front-wheel drive, that felt more like a good European car), that was a vastly smaller Cadillac than its predecessors, and by its digital fuel economy readout showing 40 mpg for much of the ride...I don't think those little Cadillacs caught on (everyone moved to the Lincoln Town cars, that were still oversized), but imagine if they had and the car makers took it further...

If I get one of these Lincoln Mark cars I'll be very cognizant of its fuel consumption and do what I can to maintain it at peak efficiency. I'm selling my Mercedes -- yesterday I discovered that the work I should have done to it will cost me more than I bought the car for -- but when I have the disposable funds again I'd consider buying a more fuel-efficient Japanese car of the Maxima/Camry/Accord kind, or another Mercedes or Audi or Volvo, for most of my purely 'functional' trips and errands and for longer journeys. The Lincoln, though...I just find it kind of sad (and infuriating) that a 30- or 40-year-old V-8 cruiser, a sort of classically American blend of luxury car and muscle car from the days before people really began to realize how limited fossil fuels were, is as fuel efficient as many of the 2007 model-year vehicles around me in traffic.

[GOPisEvil]

19. You have GOT to go Mark IV Cartier Edition

[ForrestGump]

25. Nice!!

In that 1976 model year they had a few designer cars...I do think the Cartier one, in grey and silver, was pretty classic. I think it was designed by Jimmy Cartier. :P


The Cartier clocks in previous Mark III and Mark IV cars, though, seem to have been duds....at least judging by all the examples on which the clock is the only nonfunctioning feature.

[MilesColtrane]

21. Save your money.

Just by a hat with a feather in it, and some platform shoes with goldfish in the heels.

http://www.pimp-costumes.co.uk/pimp-costumes-outfits-suits/pimp-costumes-outfits.htm

[ForrestGump]

27. You mean,

like this?




:P

[Sanity Claws]

22. The Pimpmobile

Are you thinking of a new career?

[ForrestGump]

28. Shhhhhh

What happens in Forrest's Lincoln stays in Forrest's Lincoln.

[Taverner]

26. But how are you going to afford the gas for that thing?

[ForrestGump]

29. See

post #28.

:D