{"id":33781,"date":"2022-10-15T12:03:47","date_gmt":"2022-10-15T16:03:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=33781"},"modified":"2022-10-15T12:03:47","modified_gmt":"2022-10-15T16:03:47","slug":"junkyard-gem-1986-lincoln-town-car","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=33781","title":{"rendered":"Junkyard Gem: 1986 Lincoln Town Car"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ford’s Lincoln<\/a> Division applied the Town Car<\/a> name (originally the Anglicized name for a coup\u00e9 de ville<\/em> horse-drawn carriage<\/a>) to new cars<\/a> beginning with the 1959 Continental<\/a>, but it wasn’t until the 1981 model year that the Town Car became a Lincoln model in its own right (earlier Town Cars were Continentals<\/a>). Those boxy, sharp-edged Town Cars were built throughout the remainder of the 1980s and sold well, but they’re almost extinct today. Here’s one of those cars, found in a Denver-area self-service yard<\/a> recently.<\/p>\n

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The Town Car was built from the 1981 through 2011 model years, with a complete redesign for 1990<\/a> that kept the same chassis but added a less angular body and rear air suspension. In 1998, the Town Car got the full “whale” body treatment seen on its Ford Crown Victoria<\/a> and Mercury Grand Marquis<\/a> siblings, and production of that version<\/a> continued until the end. In China<\/a>, Hongqi built a version badged as the CA7460 Qijian<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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All 1981-2011 Town Cars lived on the versatile and sturdy body-on-frame Panther platform<\/a>. For a 1970s design, the Panther stayed relevant for a surprisingly long time.<\/p>\n

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This car was closely related to the Ford LTD Crown Victoria<\/a> and Mercury Grand Marquis<\/a>, not to mention the Continental Mark VI<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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The interior is full of “wood-tone appliqu\u00e9s” and the gauges come straight from mid-1970s Lincoln<\/a>–Mercury products<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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These “twin comfort lounge” seats<\/a> were just as comfy as they look here, and the Nearly Velour\u2122 fabric just needs a cleaning to be in like-new condition. Of course, the optional Cartier package<\/a> had much classier upholstery<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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You’ll find one in every car<\/a>. You’ll see<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Every 1980s Town Car had some sort of padded vinyl roof as standard equipment.<\/p>\n

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This roof has not fared well beneath the Colorado sun.<\/p>\n

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It’s a shame that opera lights have gone out of fashion.<\/p>\n

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Every 1981-1990 Town Car got a 302-cubic-inch (5.0-liter<\/a>) Windsor V8 under the hood. 1986 was the first year that electronic fuel injection replaced carburetors in the Town Car; this engine was rated at 150 horsepower and 270 pound-feet.<\/p>\n

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The jarring mashup of typefaces on the HVAC and radio controls of mid-1980s Fords<\/a> always makes me uncomfortable.<\/p>\n

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This car has the optional “wire-style” hubcaps<\/a>, which cost an extra $341 (about $920 in 2022 dollars). Several flavors of aluminum wheels were available on the ’86 Town Car, but no true wire wheels.<\/p>\n

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The MSRP on this car was $20,764, or about $56,130 today. The Cartier Edition would set you back $25,235 ($68,215 now).<\/p>\n

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What replaced the Town Car? Trucks<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

Rich people at the valet stand argued endlessly over identical-looking Cadillacs<\/a>, Oldsmobiles, and Buicks<\/a>, according to this commercial. The 1986 LTD Crown Victoria<\/a> and Town Car looked pretty similar to each other, of course.<\/p>\n\n

They’re\u00a0dealin’<\/em> Town Cars in Mobile!<\/p>\n\n

No wonder over 91,000 Cadillac owners have switched to Lincoln in the last five years (perhaps the Cimarron<\/a> and V8-6-4 engine<\/a> had something to do with that).<\/p>\n\n

Even though the Panther Town Cars were smaller and lighter than their massive predecessors<\/a>, they still rode like waterbeds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ford’s Lincoln Division applied the Town Car name (originally the Anglicized name for a coup\u00e9 de ville horse-drawn carriage) to new cars beginning with the 1959 Continental, but it wasn’t until the 1981 model year that the Town Car became a Lincoln model in its own right (earlier Town Cars were Continentals). Those boxy, sharp-edged […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33782,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}