1982 Lincoln Continental Mark VI - Thanks, Blogger!

It's embarrassing for me to review my blog stats and see blogs that got good traction, like this one about a 1982 Lincoln Continental Mark VI, only to see that the reader experience has been somewhat diminished by Blogger. It's because Google, which runs the clumsy Blogger app, deleted a large part of my Google Photos library without so much as a warning. Thanks, guys. Well, you get what you pay for. 

It's not all bad. In my fervid attempts to not look like a complete amateur, one by one I'm rebuilding those "damaged blogs" and in the process reviewing them top to bottom and in many cases, in my opinion, making them better than they were originally. Thanks, Blogger! The photos in these updated blogs are uploaded directly to each entry and not linked to what appears to have been a separate server. Bit more work for me but my photos are now secure. Well, as secure as they can be unless Blogger either shuts down or they shut me down for some reason. Hey, you never know. 

Although I did an internationally acclaimed and award winning blog in the recent past about Lincoln Continental Mark's that dealt with the entire model range's history, hey, who fact checks anymore anyway, this one here I did deals exclusively with the one Mark that was the Rodney Dangerfield of the marque, the infamous 1980-1983 Mark VI's. Our subject hails from model year 1982 but it's all but indistinguishable from a 1980. A 1981 and 1983 while we're splitting hairs as well. 

Whether it was because they lacked the money, the know-how or a combination of both, Lincoln was not fashionably late to The Great Downsizing Epoch that General Motors started in 1977. They were just flat out and rudely late. Wisely if not ironically, they even marketed that their wares as "traditionally" sized as an indirect attempt to draw attention to GM's full size cars that some buyers may have deemed too small. Understand at that time, the size of the car in the garage still mattered. To some at least. However, the gig was up; come 1980 new government mandated corporate average fuel economy standards would kick in and the big Lincolns wouldn't have been able to pass muster. 

And the shrink-ray version of prior Mark's, above is a 1979 Mark V "Bill Blass" edition, is what awaited in showrooms for Mark V buyers looking to trade their gas-guzzler in for a new Mark that could get twenty-miles per gallon. Careful what you wish for, Grampa. Well, to be honest, in retrospect, I don't think Gramps cared that much about fuel-economy. The problem was the ten to twelve miles-per-gallon the Mark V got was averaged in with the rest of the lot so, sadly, the big ole Mark V had to go into the dumpster. 

             1978 Cadillac Eldorado                       1979 Cadillac Eldorado 

Sales just didn't implode year-over-year, they cratered. Granted, sales of 1979 Mark V's were extraordinarily high but given that luxury car sales are usually recession proof, 1980 saw a nasty second dip to a recession that went all the way back 1974, and worse yet, the Mark's arch-nemesis, the Cadillac Eldorado saw an increase in sales, when sales drop off seventy-three percent under those auspices, the product clearly was to blame. 

Given that sales of the Mark V were so strong, on one hand, you can't blame Lincoln for liberally cribbing off their old work when it came to drawing up the Mark VI. However, whereas Cadillac's new-for-1979 Eldorado looked nothing like previous renditions, it somehow kept the same emotional ethos whereas the Mark VI was a shameless mini-me of its former grand self. 

Over a thousand-pounds lighter and more than a foot-shorter than the 1977-1979 Mark V, the new-for-1980 Mark VI was in every manner, save for design, a vastly superior automobile. And buyers could have cared less for the simple reason the Mark VI not only wasn't a "Mark" in the Lincoln tradition, it didn't break enough new ground with buyers. Especially considering that Lincoln charged more for a VI than they did for a V; then again charging more for literally less, percieved less or otherwise, was a major challenge for the Big Three once the "Great Downsizing Epoch" got underway. 

In a vacuum, honestly, these aren't bad looking cars. Slab sided, yes. Cliched design cues, no doubt. But if you're not that familiar with the leviathans it replaced, you might be so inclined to think this a fine looking luxury automobile from two-generations ago. Problem was, back then, these cars weren't sold in a vacuum and their sales literally sucked. 

Lincoln moved the Mark off the fulls-size "Panther-platform" come 1984 putting it onto the "Fox-body" chassis it would share with all of the Ford Motor Company's mid-size offerings including the then new-for-1982 Lincoln Continental. Thunderbird, Cougar and the sporty-compact Mustang and Carpri too. 

It's interesting to look at the trappings of the wealthy from years ago, isn't it?  Have you ever looked at photos of first-class accommodations on the Titanic and thought they may not have been worth the money spent over, for instance, second-class? We'll draw the line at "third-class" or "steerage"; says one-hundred percent Irish me who had relatives on the doomed liner. That's easy to say now given that all of the accouterments of what made first-class, "first-class" trickled down to lesser "classes", save for actual location on the vessels of course. Same for luxury cars from years ago. I mean, we look at a Lincoln Continental Mark VI now, which, again, shamelessly emulated the Mark V that came before it, and we wonder, well, at least I do, what were people paying more for over a very similar Mercury or Ford? 

Same could be said for any of the "Mark's" that came before it as well.Those ill-handling oafs that did one thing and one thing only - show off how well off the owner was or portended to be. These were the cars that my parents generation, the so-called "Greatest Generation" aspired to. When their children, the "Baby Boomers" came of age where they had enough disposable income to buy a prestige car, they eschewed the frivolous cream cheese of cars like this and instead bought sharp performing and even more expensive wares from Germany.