Ford built Continentals from the 1940 through 2020 model years (with a couple of pauses during that period), and the biggest and arguably most extreme Continentals of all were the 1977-1979 models. That’s what we’ve got for today’s Junkyard Gem: a 1979 Continental Town Car with Cream paint outside and plenty of Light Gold Jubilee velour inside, found in a self-service boneyard in Sparks, Nevada.
Thanks to the big 5 mph crash bumpers, the overall length of the 1977-1979 Continental sedan stretched to an astounding 233 inches. That’s more than a foot longer than the 2024 Lincoln Navigator, though the Navigator scales in at more than a half-ton heavier than the ’79 Continental sedan.
For the 1980 model year, the Continental went onto the Panther platform and shed 10 inches of wheelbase, more than 13 inches of length and 500 pounds of curb weight. Considering the geopolitical events of 1979 and their effect on fuel prices, this turned out to be good timing … but the downsized ’80 Continental didn’t look as imposing (or as white-powder-dusted) when it pulled up to the valet parking stand at the disco.
When your sedan weighs 4,649 pounds, you want serious power under its hood … and that was a rare commodity among 1979 automobiles sold in the United States. This is a 400-cubic-inch (6.6-liter) pushrod V8, essentially a stroked 351 Cleveland, rated at 159 horsepower and 315 pound-feet. That means that each of this car’s horses had to drag 29.2 pounds, a ratio that’s quite a bit worse than that of the much-maligned-for-slowness 2024 Mitsubishi Mirage (though the respectable torque made driving these cars tolerable enough in most situations).
The interior was all about cushy seats and space to stretch out.
The silver-faced gauges were very classy.
Opera lights? You bet!
This would have been an excellent, if thirsty, long-distance highway cruiser for its day.
There were some 1999 coupons inside, suggesting that the car had been parked for a quarter-century before coming to this place.
The high-elevation desert sun is murder on vinyl roofs.
On January 10, 1981, people associated with this fine luxury automobile played golf at Willow Glen in San Diego. On the same day, Richard Boone died and Jared Kushner was born.
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A standard by which luxury cars are judged.
