Junkyard Find: 1983 Lincoln Continental
In 1982, the 7th-generation Lincoln Continental went to the Fox Platform, elbowing the Fox-based Lincoln Versailles aside. These cars didn’t hold their value so well, which meant that you won’t see many these days.
Here’s a reasonably solid example I saw at a San Francisco Bay Area self-service yard two months ago.
I thought about pulling this digital dash for my hoard collection, but managed to resist.
It’s the good old Windsor 302 V8, which made 130 horsepower in the ’83 Continental. Not too bad for the final year of the Malaise Era.
Look, no carburetor!
The early 1980s may have been the low point for faux-classy “gold” plated plastic emblems on Detroit cars.
Auto-reverse was a futuristic option on 1983 cassette decks.
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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My 2003 IS300 has a tape deck. It would auto reverse like this Lincoln, except like the factory 6disc CD changer, it is also broken. I think the only people that like cassettes (tapes) are kids who are too young to have experienced the "water ear" playback quality and haven't realized how much it sucks to rewi d or fast-forward. I've seen a few new bands releasing their music on tapes. They'll learn.
I need to buy this car for parts is it still available? puresouthent@gmail.com