1978 Continental Mark V - All You Can Eat Shrimp

I made a trip to the Cleveland Pull-A-Part recently in search of windshield wiper fluid nozzles for my wife's 2004 Mitsubishi Eclipse and, wouldn't you know it, ended up spending more time looking at tasty treats than literally "pulling parts". Tastiest morsel I found was this 1978 Continental Mark V. 

Under the thundering flight path of JFK where I grew up in the 1970's, if you wanted to show off you "had it" or make it seem as though you did, you drove one of these two-and-a-half ton brutes. The hoity-toity's on the North Shore had moved over to Mercedes-Benz' and Bimmers but for us slobs "down there", we aspired to Continental Mark V's. 

Lincoln built these from 1977 to 1979, and they were a, no pun intended, massive hit selling more than 70,000 each year despite the automotive press citing how slow they were, how poorly they handled, the amount of gas they used and for their shoddy assembly. Mattered little as Ford rode these land yachts all the way to bank. 

The designer series editions, Givenchy, Pucci, Bill Blass, Cartier were quite popular, our green giant here is I believe a "Pucci". It may also be a "Diamond Jubilee" edition celebrating the 75th-anniversary of the Ford Motor Company's founding. 

Sadly, the most distinctive and polarizing feature on these cars, the trunk lid with the fake spare tire hump, was gone; someone actually need that or did end up as garage art? Those trunk humps were an homage to the 1956 and 1957 Continental Mark II's that had them. The trunk hump on those cars a tribute of sorts to Edsel Ford's legendary 1939-1942 and 1946-1948 Lincoln Continentals. 

Her Rolls-Royce-esque, "waterfall" front grill was missing as well. That I could definitely see on someone's garage wall or man-cave. The trunk lid though? 

I was surprised she still has the 460-cu. in. V-8 she was born with. Is it seized and won't turn? The air cleaner top is gone, that would be cool on a garage wall. Maybe not. 

Despite selling like all-you-can eat shrimp, with government mandated, corporate-average-fuel-economy standards going up to twenty-mpg for 1980, from 18 in 1978 and 19 in 1979, the Ford Motor Company had no choice but to shrink ray these cars for model-year 1980. 

The Ozempic they put these cars on resulting in the 1980 to 1983 Continental Mark VI, coincidences of coincidences, a 1983 was on the yard as well, humped trunk lid and waterfall grill intact. Ford designers duplicated every styling gimmick and doo-dad of the Mark V, albeit smaller, but these cars sold about half as well as the Mark V did. 

The Ford Motor Company actually marketed these cars as "Continental Mark's" and not Lincoln Continental Mark's. Stemmed from the 1956 and 1957 Continental Mark II's that were not Lincoln's but, technically anyway, a separate make. Subsequently, all Mark's through 1985 were "Continental Marks".