1959 Lincoln Capri - The Struggle

Lincoln, a division of Ford, had all new "unibody" designs for 1958

I took "writing for television news" in college and struggled with it. Part of the problem was the stuck up, stick in the mud professor but my biggest challenge was with my being an expressive, creative writer, I found it hard to just let the pictures "do the talking".
 

 

That unibody allowed for a cavernous interior

 

I'm guilty of not letting the pictures do the talking with my blogging as well. I will sit on a blog for weeks before I publish it because I can't find anything significant to add to a picture. I can't leave well enough alone that there isn't some deeper meaning in something that is little more than an appliance.  While there is  certain nobility in those appliances, anything more than that, as is such the case with '59 Lincoln, is completely contrived. After all, this is just a car. Those cars that are more than just a dishwasher are few and far between. Try as this car might, and this is true of most cars not just these juke box like '50's designs, it falls short of being anything more than just pretentious.

 

46 inches of leg room combined front and back. These cars were the largest unibody cars ever made.
 

That's why with this (weird and gruesome) old Lincoln, I've given up on writing about the car and instead focused on the struggle of writing about it. It's been one of the tougher cars I've found to write about; it's that way with most cars I've found that were new before I was born. By the time I became aware of cars, say between the age of 8 and 10, most cars like this were long gone to the crusher. This blog came to gather quickly after my decision to focus on the writing of it versus writing a boring, mechanical piece about unibody design or Lincoln's decades long losing battle with Cadillac. You can find that information in Wikipedia after all.

 

 

And at 227 inches long they were one of the largest automobiles ever made as well.

 

So, just sit back and imagine rubbing your cheek on that cold, damp, grimy 56 year old hood and feeling the damp dirt dribble down your face. Why your cheek? Anyone can put their hands on this car; go for something a little more personal.

  

 

These cars sold poorly and Lincoln replaced them with a more conventional looking automobile in 1961.

 

It's only after all these years that I've grasped what it was that professor was actually talking about; the nobility of simplicity.