Today, your author will be yakking about the 1979 Collector’s Series. This car, and its Continental Mark V Collector’s Series companion model, marked the final versions of the lovely, large and in charge Lincoln Continentals of yore. These special editions celebrated the Great American Land Yacht, whose time was rapidly drawing to a close. Starting in 1980, both the Continental and the Mark would go on a crash diet, never again returning to such grand dimensions.
It was the end of an era, with the big, blowsy Chrysler New Yorker bowing out after 1978 and the muy grande Caddys in ’76 (although the big Eldorado and Toronado carried on through ’78 with their full dimensions, same as the New Yorker Brougham). Ford Motor Company held out the longest, perhaps due to Henry Ford II’s long-held disdain for little cars. Though he did have a customized Pinto at one point.
