Junkyard Find: 1974 Lincoln Continental Mark IV
Big, Detroit-made Malaise Era personal luxury coupes still keep showing up in the big self-service wrecking yards, more than 35 years after the last one rolled off the assembly line. Yes, the diminished-expectations Mark VI, the “What Oil Crisis?” Mark V, and the rococo Mark IV— examples of each of these will appear in your local U-Wrench yard from time to time.
Here’s a worn-out Mark IV from the year of Nixon’s resignation and Haile Selassie’s banishment from his throne in a lowly Beetle, now awaiting The Crusher in a Denver yard.
It’s dirty and rusty and doesn’t smell so good, but you can still make out vestiges of the swank this car once possessed. I’m sure some bitter tears will flow from Sajeev’s eyes when he sees these two-tone leather seats. This car appears to have the prestigious Gold Luxury Group option package, which included a moonroof with gold glass and gold shag carpeting.
I already have a genuine Cartier (not really made by Cartier) clock from a Mark IV, so I didn’t buy this one.
Engine power levels dropped significantly starting in 1971 as federal emissions regulations kicked in, and this 460-cubic-inch (that’s 7.5 liters, for those of you who don’t use Freedom Volume Units) V8 produced a mere 220 horsepower. The respectable 355 lb-ft of torque sufficed to move the car’s 5,362 pounds well enough, though.
Not much Midwest-style wheel well rot here, but the vinyl roof (standard equipment on the ’74 Mark IV) trapped rain and snow and allowed some pretty nasty rust to take hold. This could have been fixed, but it wouldn’t have been worth the investment.
Here’s the exquisitely middle-1970s deep shag carpeting, which would have been just the thing to put a Mark IV owner in the mood to hear the biggest schmaltzy hits of 1974. I’d like to think that the original owner of this car preferred the better music of that year, but we’ll never know.
If you were buying a luxury car for resale value in 1974, the Mark IV was your best choice.
The ’74 Town Car looked pretty plush, too.
If you like these junkyard posts, links to more than 1,700 of them may be found at The Junkyard Home of the Murilee Martin Lifestyle Brand™.
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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Hello, I need a series of other accessories from Lincoln. Do you have front window, front and rear lights, etc. from the 1972 and 1976 models
2019 had better comments than 2023 😉