7 reasons why I am glad that I own a 20 foot long 1978 Lincoln Continental Mark V

I have owned my 1978 Lincoln Continental Mark V since April 18th, 2014. And I have loved every minute of it. Here are 7 highlights of my ownership.

#1: Community.

Throughout my ownership, I have taken my car to many car shows and cruise nights. At them, I have met many amazing people, that also share an interest in the larger automobiles. What makes them amazing is that none of them ever start p*ssing wars or fights over “Who’s better? Chebvy or Ferd?”.People like us also never bounce off the rev-limiter for 17 minutes straight in an attempt to show off, or we never block a thoroughfare to do reckless burnouts when leaving a car show.

#2: It's drop dead gorgeous

Cars used to have been designed by designers, and not the accountants or the guys that need to make them get 1,473,823 miles to the gallon. Every curve or angle in the car feels like it should be there.

#3: Everything is very easy to use and find.

There is nothing more dreadful in my mind than a car where EVERYTHING is controlled by a single touchscreen in the dashboard. “#%^@ I WANTED TO ADJUST THE A/C NOT THE #&!@^$% SATNAV” will never be said in my car. Everything is controlled by it’s own little switch, button, or knob. If texting and driving is illegal (which it is), so should having to exit out of the climate control and satnav menus in order to change from one radio station to another.

#4: No stupid safety features

While I was on vacation, my family rented a 2014 Chrysler 200C. Although it is a very nice car, There were some things I hated about it. The biggest being that, If you get into the passenger seat, and don’t have your seatbelt on before the car is in motion, it comes to a grinding halt. We came to know this because we picked up my uncle from his house once on vacation. He gets in, and my dad takes off (we were in a residential area, not a main road). about 7 seconds later we were cruising at about 20 or so. After another .033 seconds,we were hardly moving at 3 miles an hour. WHY DOES A CAR NEED TO DO THIS? Imagine if we were in flowing traffic. Would the person behind us have expected us just to randomly come to a crawl?

#5: Nobody cuts you off.

I had to put my Lincoln away for winter storage this year.It was just too big to fit in a community college parking lot covered in snow and moron drivers . So I bought my neighbor’s Oldsmobile Intrigue to drive for the winter or however long i need to. When I started driving said Oldsmobile, I noticed that people almost never cut me off in traffic, while driving my Mark V.

#6: It runs in the family

My father owned a 1978 Mark V from 1980-1984. My dad worked as parts counter staff for Ford for 37 years. How could my first car not be a Ford product?

#7: Its got some cool features

Standard on all Mark V’s is a dashboard mounted Cartier timepiece (To the left of the speedometer, view #3 for reference.). It also has Cornering lights, Which are lights mounted on the bottom of the fenders, pointed in the direction that you will be traveling. It has an 8-track player, and a then state-of-the-art lighting system that would turn on all of the interior lights and the lights surrounding the exterior keyhole(pictured), which happens when you lift up on the door handle. My favorite kooky feature is the powered Mini-vent windows. These are windows that are separate from the main glass of the door, but they do roll down. So you have a choice of if you wan a little wind in your face or all of the wind in your face.