1980 Lincoln Continental Mark VI
The 1980 Mark VI took the successful styling cues of the much larger 1977-79 Continental Mark V and adapted it to the new downsized Panther platform. It basically looked like a boxier, Mini Me Mark V. The sedans looked pretty good, but the coupe’s shorter wheelbase did not translate to good proportions.
1986 Mark VII
The all-new 1983 ‘aero’ Thunderbird and Cougar forecast Ford’s new styling direction, The Mark got the same treatment for 1984. The Designer Series and chromed-up standard models were back, but the big news was the LSC.
1986 LSC
Intended for the serious driver, it included a 5.0L V8, P215/65R15 Good Year blackwall (gasp!) tires on light alloy wheels, perforated leather bucket seats, fog lamps, black cladding in lieu of chrome trim and a specially tuned version of the air ride suspension. Analog gauges replaced the digital ones used in other Marks. The big news for 1985 was anti-lock brakes, added to the already-capable four wheel discs. In 1986, the 200 hp High Output (HO) version of the 5.0L V8 became standard equipment in the LSC. It would do 0-60 in 8.3 seconds.
1991 LSC SE
The 1990 Mark VII was updated with a new instrument panel and driver’s side airbag. The LSC received attractive new BBS alloys. A new Special Edition package was available on the LSC. Available only in Midnight Black or Garnet Red (Dark Titanium was also available, but rarely seen), it featured special exterior accents. All chrome, save the grille shell and badging, was now monochromatic.
The HO 5.0L was now producing 225 hp and 300 lb ft of torque. Sharing a powertrain with the Mustang GT, the LSC and Bill Blass Mark VIIs were banker’s hot rods for the late ’80s and early ’90s.
You could also get a special sport cloth and leather interior, as the ’90 or ’91 featured here today shows. This replaced the all leather interior that was standard. It was not an SE exclusive though.
I saw this particular car way back in March of 2012, parked in front of a small repair shop. I wasn’t sure if it was a running vehicle, but it moved to a garage about a block away, a week or so after I took these photos. It was in decent shape, though it could have used a buffing out, as the paint was oxidized on the hood, roof and trunk. While it looks like one of the air bags is going out, I wasn’t 100% positive because it was parked on some pretty uneven pavement.
When I was in grade school, my grandparents had a 1987 Continental in rose quartz metallic (much like the ’87 above, only theirs was not a Givenchy), which was basically a four-door Mark VII. Between about 1986 and ’94 my grandmother frequently took me to lunch, and then we would go to Sexton Ford and South Park Lincoln-Mercury to look at the new cars. In fact, the ’92 brochure I used for some of these photos came from one of those trips. I remember these Marks very well.
While the most obvious competition to the Mark VII was the Eldorado, the Mark, although much smaller, didn’t get the serious shrinkage the Eldo got in ’86. The Cadillac wasn’t really a bad car, in fact I’ve driven an ’89 Eldorado and it rode and handled nicely, but I’d take a ’90 Mark VII over a ’90 Eldorado just for the styling alone. Unless we’re talking a triple Cameo Ivory 1990-91 Biarritz…
’89 Eldo, test driven by your author in 1999!
Other than the rare 1982-85 Eldorado Touring Coupe, there wasn’t really a direct competitor to the LSC model, but the Lincoln was much sportier with its wind-cheating sheetmetal. 1988-91 Eldos were much more attractive than their 1986-87 brethren, though. Cadillac didn’t reintroduce the Touring Coupe until 1990, but the similar albeit four-door Seville Touring Sedan had been around since 1988.
I’ve always liked the Mark VII, especially the SEs. One in the metallic red would be perfect. They just looked tough, and could back it up with the High Output V8. Very different from the opulent Mark IVs and Vs of the ’70s, for sure!
They never made a ton of Mark VIIs. Despite being in production for nine model years, only a little more than 190K were made during a period when Town Cars were selling between 90-100K annually. I rarely see them these days.
The Mark VII was the first Mark that could seriously be called a driver’s car. The styling is pretty timeless, and doesn’t look dated even today.
I always liked the direction that Lincoln went with these, but unfortunately the coupe segment died out and there was never a follow-up Hot Rod Lincoln sedan or SUV. Nice find, I have seen an LSC on the road in years.
I always wanted an LSC. I would love to find a 91 or so LSC in black to park beside my black 14 CTS coupe. Similar idea in cars 20+ years apart.
There was a period of time in the early mid 1980’s that Ford was making a lot of cars I really liked. This car’s styling shared a concept with the contemporary Thunderbirds and Cougars, bestowing those cars with a lot of gravitas. I had a couple of 5.0L powered Fox bodies back in those days I would have loved to have been able to pull the lever on one of these. But, I had too many things chasing my Reaganomics dollars back then and I had p!ssed away far too much money on cars.
If I’m honest, I was never too jazzed about the Mark V or VI, they just seemed like tiny shrunken Lincolns, almost like headhunter-style shrunken heads. This car seemed right sized, right powered and right for the times. It had the image of an athlete in a tailored suit, and the performance to match. To me, the successor to this car veered back to a Mark IV-esque caricature, big, bloated and lumpy, like the athlete had indulged in his love of Twinkies and Kool Aide. Since then, the market for coupes has evaporated and I believe that these cars will never exist again, at least for the masses.
As much as I love Cadillacs, one of these is still in my MM garage.
I’d drive one of those Tom. I had a ’94 Eldo for a few years and it depreciated as fast as I could pay it off. And the interior started falling apart. Other than that, and that they replaced the engine on warranty for a loose wrist pin in that Northstar, I did like the quickness of the car.
The Mk VII could sit alongside my (imaginary) Mk VII Spitfire fighter plane and look dang good 🙂
This trumps the Eldorado easily, because it’s not just a very well-proportioned and good-looking car; it has presence.
I remember seeing one of these some ten years ago near Hessing, which used to be the official Dutch importer for all American Fords the regular importer wouldn’t touch. By 2010 however, Hessing was the go-to address for Lamborghinis, Maseratis, Rolls-Royces and what have you. And there this Mk VII was, parked next to a Quattroporte GTS, probably brought in by the owner who bought it new in 1986 and had brought it in for a service like he’d always done. This car was still being cared for properly instead of being run into the ground as a ‘mobile pharmacy’ – and it was cared for by a company which had stopped selling American metal years ago, yet didn’t just whisk the man away for bringing a car to the shop with a market value that wouldn’t buy you a set of tyres for a Murcielago. Brilliant.
Except of course in sales, where the Eldo outsold it in this period as a whole. This is in sharp contrast to the 1970s Marks III, IV, And V which handily outsold the Eldo. In average sales it was even far below the Mark VI. I understand this car had it’s fans, but the idea that moving the car to being a streched, half formal Mustang would bring in the young while keeping the old is just not supported by sales. And why not, compare a 1989 Bill Blass with a 1979 or even an 1983 and contemplate which was receiving more design attention.
You draw a picture of a chump who is still getting his luxury car serviced with the high end Italian stuff. When the owners are retrieving their cars at the end of the day, I bet the Lincoln guy will win the gold chain wearing battle. The battle being won by the man wearing the fewest of course.
I loved these from reading about them in Car and Driver and Automobile Magazine, but then I drove one in 1988 or 1989. The idea that any amount of additional power would have turned it into a good car is the sort of thing that a person who has never appreciated a good car might have. I will say that the styling made it far easier to take seriously than the Mark VIII that replaced it.
I had a 1987 Mark VII LSC in Midnight Blue and it was a really nice car in its time. The seats and dash were a huge departure from typical Detroit iron at the time and the car compared somewhat favorably to the BMW 635 CSi. I even wrote a paper for my MBA program comparing the MK VII to the BMW as well as the Mercedes 500 SEC intoning that Lincoln should go after that market. I remember that car fondly and it’s still one of my favorites.
While today 200 HP is available today from many 4-banger engines, the 200 HP in the Mark VII was the same as was available in the Mustang GT at the time and seemed like a mountain of horsepower and torque. The Mark VII was one of the first (if not the first) US car with ABS and I constantly had to explain the occasional buzzing noise as the ABS pump was refilling the system pressure.