A Continental Hero Is For Sale In New York

Photography by Christie Grotheim

While not your typical car seen on Petrolicious, we’ve always loved seeing cars from this era of Lincoln floating through our streets—they’re hard to miss! You may recall the series of 15 articles this car appeared in called “The Continental”, and now after a few years of service it’s time to pass on the car to someone else. We highly recommend checking out those articles. As it sits today, the owner describes the car like so:

Large and luxurious, this “boat” of a vehicle is fully-equipped with all the bells and whistles Lincoln made available in 1979. It has plush, quilted leather seats with leather piping, carpeted flooring, vent windows in front and oval opera windows in the rear.

Other features include power steering, electric sunroof, fully electric seats, power windows and antenna, a “quadraphonic” 8-track tape player (not to mention more than 30 8-tracks thrown in for free), cruise control, and a CB radio. The car is equipped with a powerful 6.6 liter V-8 engine, and in great condition, with only 58,500 original miles.

The exterior is in good condition with well-preserved, original shiny golden beige paint and chrome, no rust. The beige vinyl top is in good condition as well. The car is accident free and has never had any body repair. The only minor flaws are two tiny dings in the trim above the wheels on the left hand side and a crack in the back left taillight (which could easily be replaced) due to NYC city street parking.

The interior upholstery and is clean and almost like new. Only the passenger side seat has slight cracks in the leather from normal wear and tear, but the interior wood paneling, the dash cluster, and all other elements are in perfect condition down to the last detail. A couple of the electric locks don’t work and one window motor is weak, but in the right hands with a few minor adjustments this car could easily be restored to concours condition.

Purchased in 2012 from a collector and hobbyist, the car had 38,000 original miles. Over the last three years we have put on 20,000 more—first driving her across the U.S. on a 10-week road trip covering the parameters of the country, and now on a weekly basis doing errands and cruising around in NYC.

The brake system was recently serviced including replacement of the master cylinder, the carburetor has been rebuilt, and new fuel pump and shocks have been installed. The AC has been upgraded from R-12 to current R134A standards and blows cold. She’s running better than ever, passed her last inspection, and ready for her next road trip! I highly recommend it for a very smooth and comfortable ride.

This All-American Classic Car gets photographed constantly, thumbs up all over, and makes people smile. She has been featured in articles on this very website, starred on the Fox show The Americans in 2013, and even appears on the Wikipedia page under ’79 Lincoln Continental (no joke; and we didn’t post it!).

This Continental Town Car has been much-loved and well-cared for—and is just steps away from becoming a collector’s car of exhibition quality.

If you are interested, you can reach the owner by email: cg[at]artdepartment-nyc[dot]com

Offered as-is for $5,900 (OBO).