Isn't she lovely? (dial-up warning...pictures)

ForrestGump

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Thu Jun-07-07 05:38 AM
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Isn't she lovely? (dial-up warning...pictures)

Forrest's new Forrestmobile (or, maybe, Elvismobile), I mean. :D

In this thread, a while back, I waxed rhapsodic over my burgeoning desire for this '70s classic and now 'tis mine. I flew to California on Tuesday to check it out and, I hoped, buy it and drive it back (to be honest, I had no real plan to get back to Vegas otherwise, which is very unlike me).

Here it is somewhere north of Barstow, on some side road in the desert amidst a bit of a sandstorm (the whole ride was a sandstorm -- very high winds -- and I had my window down the entire time). The antenna retracts but I forgot to make it so when I stopped:

Oh, and for reference -- he had a few of them, and gave away many -- here's one of Elvis in a Mark IV (complete with police light!) in Memphis in July of 1974:

Nice color on that car, E. :D

Mine's a 1973 Lincoln Continental Mark IV. It has somewhere over 61000 miles on it and the second owner replaced a lot of the crucial parts, I assume because it sat somewhere for 20 years or so as did many of these '70s cars you'll find for sale. It's the second year's model, with the federally-mandated '5-mph' bumper up front (the '72 model, that I came thiiissss close to winning on eBay recently, has slightly more pleasing lines up front because the bumper's so much more sleek) but with the supercool original '72-style raked back and contour-hugging bumper behind (it was also replaced by the battering-ram style rear bumper in 1974). It's a long car, at a few inches over 18', but most of it's hood -- the passenger compartment isn't much different than any Japanese midsized car and the trunk's way smaller than those on the Camrys I've had before. The car's actually a couple of hundred pounds lighter than the similarly bodacious Lincoln Mark III that preceded it, though it's bigger. The Mark IV looks to me like a muscle car grafted on to a luxury car, like someone took the high and short tail of a late '60s of early '70s muscle car and merged it with the front of a Rolls Royce. It's actually a design by Lee Iacocca, I believe, who was charged with delivering a car based on the Ford Thunderbird that was basically a more luxuriously-appointed and very quiet Thunderbird with a Rolls Royce grill. It feels like a hybrid of those two cars, too: it's a pretty luxurious ride but it's got the kick and attitude of a muscle car, compared to a '70s Cadillac that feels pretty much like a luxury car all the way. It's kind of like a mullet: business up front and party in back. :D

It's a heavy beast, at over 5200 pounds, but it's got a massive V-8 engine (460 cubic inches, or 7.5 liters, with dual exhaust standard) that propels it along pretty darned hellaciously. It's not a Ferrari, fairly obviously, but once all that weight gets moving, it's a feeling to behold. This car at 80 mph feels like it's doing 35 mph, and it's preternaturally quiet and smooth. On the outside it rumbles and on the inside it whispers. It's even fairly quiet and turbulence-free with the windows down at 90 mph through sandstorms with severe crosswinds...certainly far more so than my Mercedes is on the daily commute along 45-mph surface streets here in town. It is incredible to ride in. Americans really made cars back then. It's not especially economical, but that was a different era -- just before the '70s oil crisis -- and the sad truth is that there're brand new cars and vans (and, certainly, SUVs) out there today that have smaller V-8 engines, have not a fraction of the innate coolness of the behemoths of old, and yet that feature gas mileage consistently worse than that of this car.

It's got shag carpeting inside, and in the trunk. Far out. :D

On the way back to Vegas, through all that desert, I had a few moments of anxiety related to the myriad of things that could go wrong with any car, let alone one that's 34 years old (actually, 35), and began wondering how old some of the seals and hoses are, if the fuel pump was okay, and whether I should've taken the time to stop by a Goodyear for a quick oil change. It did fine. The engine is robust. There're a few things I need to fix -- air conditioning is the big one, lack of cool air seeming to be a pattern not just in my cars but in my life these past several years in the desert and tropics and subtropics -- and it needs a good detailing inside and a few minor non-mechanical/electrical fixes at some point, but it's overall in apparently great shape and I got it at an excellent price. Tomorrow I'm taking it in for a going-over by a mechanic, so I'm hoping they won't have any bad news for me.

Now, I didn't know anything about Elvis back when I was a little kid, but I did know about detective Frank Cannon, and this distinctive Lincoln with the fake tire hump was a car I always associated with him. It was as tied to him in my mind and as iconic as the Batmobile, Hong Kong Phooey's conveyance, and Bullit's Mustang.

They really don't make 'em like this any more. Cars today, even luxury cars that had distinctive looks like Jaguars and Mercedes (and, of course, Lincolns and Cadillacs) tend to look very much alike these days and are designed with the same CAD software and wind-tunnel tolerances. And most of the gas-guzzlers today, apart from a few with undiluted muscle car lineage, do not have the panache of yesteryear's: they tend to be either utilitarian work vehicles (Chevy, GMC, and Ford Econoline vans and SUVs that are actually used for their intended purpose) or repulsive pieces of junk that are without any redeeming value (Hummers).

I may own other cars in my life, but it's hard to imagine too many cooler, given that I'm not especially (yet) into classic sports car and muscle cars and the like. I love this car already. :-)