Ethel, You Are Sorely Missed

Behold, my first car, a 1971 Lincoln Continental Mark III.

Unfortunately, it never ran; because someone in it's life decided to overhaul the electrics in it and did it completely wrong. Since there is probably close to a mile of wiring in it, there was no way for me to easily fix it.

But how I miss this car. We had to sell it when me moved.

Though it's been designed with a ruler, it still has some style. Chrome, but not too much of it. Unfortunately, the headlight covers are missing from mine.

The hump at the rear is a styling cue that goes back to the original Continental. It's meant to suggest a spare rear tire, also called a continental kit.

This is the heart, a 460 cubic inch displacement(or 7.5 liter) V-8 engine.

That engine was rated at 365 horsepower, which I would say is a very conservative number. Why? Because the torque figure is at 500ft-lb. It was common in the sixties and early seventies for companies to intentionally lower their official figures for insurance purposes.

So what happened to her? We sold her to a friend, who was going to take the engine out and put it in a smaller race car. The body was going to get crushed, most likely.

That saddens me, because the body was almost perfect and it had most of the trim.

I want another one of these.

I can see it cruising down the highway, fading red sunlight glinting off the chrome, where overdrive is necessary.