From The Classifieds: 1978 Lincoln Continental mark V

The story goes that the Continental originally appeared as a one-off, V12-engined luxury convertible designed and built specially for Edsel Ford in 1938.

The car was based on the aerodynamic Lincoln Zephyr model and was the launching pad for limited-production models built from 1939 to 1941 and, briefly before US involvement in the war, in 1942. Post-war, the car went into production as a regular model line, continuing through to 1948 before it was dropped from the Ford lineup.

A second-generation Lincoln Continental, now V8-powered, came in 1956 and it was not just your average US auto. At the time, the two-door luxury car with the internal spare wheel moulding the shape of the boot lid was one of the world’s most expensive, and reportedly highest-quality cars. It was also remarkably good-looking, with more styling restraint than was common in US cars at the time.

Getting the Continental right unearthed interesting obsessions among designers and dealers. Much attention was made getting the car to sound as it should. Late in development, a lot of work was put into correcting the note emitted by the twin exhausts: it was deemed to sound more like two four-cylinder engines than a 6.0-litre V8. And dealers are said to have screened customers to ensure they were the right sort of people to be seen in Lincoln Continentals.

After a lack of sales success with the Mark II, Ford went down a more brazen styling path as the car got bigger and more garish, right through to the fifth generation in 1970 that, for many people, defines the Continental today. It went through numerous running changes until making way for a more compact version in 1980 and was dropped altogether during a major culling programme by Ford in 2002.

With its aircraft carrier bonnet, knife-edged extremities and the defining boot lid featuring a circular bulge supposedly denoting a spare wheel (the 1956 Mark II Continental actually did have a spare residing behind the bulge) the fifth-generation Continental made a definite statement -- even if it could hardly be viewed any more as among the world’s most exclusive quality cars -- and probably rivals the 1959 Cadillac today as one of the most familiar symbols of US styling excesses.

Powerplants displaced either 7.5 litres or 6.6 litres and the car measured close to six metres long with weights up to 2.5 tonnes, depending on model. The Continental was available in the US as a two-door coupe or as a four-door hardtop.

All of which leads up to this 1978 two-door model from Banora Point in NSW that is listed on carsales.com.au.

Described lavishly as a stunning example of this most luxurious of big Fords, the left-hand drive, 6.6-litre two-door is claimed to have been acquired as a one-owner car from Oregon in the US, only used during its lifetime to drive to church every week. Claimed mileage is just 36,000 and, to be honest, the photos tend to confirm it. The car looks, in a very American way, positively opulent.

The asking price for the two-tone Burgundy-Silver Continental is $21,999 (without a roadworthy certificate), which doesn’t really sound like a lot of money for such a gleaming slab of pure American 1970s iron.