Missing Continental
Dear Classic American, Please don’t think that I am complaining. I am just registering my disappointment that the promised ‘next instalment’ of the Lincoln Continental story has not appeared in the July edition of Classic American , and my hope is that it will appear in the August issue. I have thoroughly enjoyed the series, and have fond memories of the Lincoln Continental Mk IV, as featured in the
Quinn Martin TV series Cannon from the early Seventies.
In the early episodes the corpulent private eye drove a Mark III, which I have never really liked the look of – the wheel arches just don’t do it for me. Then he switched to a Mark IV, and I just thought it the best-looking contemporary Yank by far (okay – I hadn’t seen a boat-tail Riviera at that time). It always delighted me that he would take a corner hard during a car chase, and the front wheel-cover would fly off, yet it had ‘grown back’ by the time he brought the car to a halt. Continuity!
If ever Cannon borrowed or hired a car, you were pretty assured that it would be involved in a smash. I can’t recall him ever pranging the Lincoln. Anyway, a Mark IV is far too large a car to attempt to drive on the roads where I live, so despite the fact there is a 1972 for sale in the pages of Classic American (the best year for looks) I will pass on that. However, I do rather like the look of the Mark VII, and was looking forward to the feature this month.
Based on the Fox platform it should be much more usable size-wise, and despite the typically 80s US plastic-egg-carton interior trim, it definitely has the look and the proportions. Will the feature be coming soon please?
Michael Hooton Holyhead, Anglesey
Unfortunately, we ran out of space in the July issue, so rather than try and shoehorn it into fewer pages, we took the decision to carry it over.
Anyone growing up in the Seventies would have been fed a weekly diet of Frank Cannon’s Lincolns (and Jim Rockford’s Firebirds) and later these were superseded by Starsky and Hutch and their Torino and LTD. Ford were particularly good at product placement in detective TV shows and were usually credited at the end with ‘Vehicles supplied by the Ford Motor Company’!