Looking at acquiring this beauty

[RyPow]

This car has been for sale locally for a while, and I'm going to look at it soon. It's a '77 Continental Town Car with 75k, in the rare Cinnamon Gold Moondust Metallic. 460/C6, leather and sunroof. Only used to drive to their cottage in the summer. I've been yearning for a barge TC ever since I sold my '77 Town Coupe (never put on road when I had it). If this one has a clean underbody and hasn't been monkeyed with (hopefully the wonky rear door trim is just the adhesive going bad), it will probably come home with me. It should keep good company with my '87 CV in the garage

[sly]

hmm... rear driver door looks like it's been hit... but other than that... looks pretty good. 460 can be tooled up nicely too.

[RyPow]

hmm... rear driver door looks like it's been hit...

You may be right, however if you compare all the pictures with the door visible, it looks like it's just the bodyside trim "sagging" and the door skin is ok. I wonder if it came off once and they did a mediocre job of gluing it back on.

[sly]

still a nice car though.

[gadget73]

Looking at the reflections, it doesn't look like the door is caved in. I'd also guess that its just the trim. Its probably the stick-on stuff, not mounted with clips.

[79lincolnlover]

Being sold by the original owner? Any maintenance records included?

[RyPow]

Being sold by the original owner? Any maintenance records included?

After talking to the owner last week before I headed north on a canoe trip for the long weekend, I learned a few things about the car:

- Current owner bought it from a dealership in mid-2000s, was shuffled around between a few dealers trying to sell. Was traded in by the original owner, so it is a 2-owner car not including the dealers
- Allegedly not winter driven, before and including current owner
- About 120k on the car, higher than I usually look for but I'd prefer a regularly driven and maintained car over a garage queen.
- Runs well, according to owner. Not too concerned about that as it would likely get the 1990 EFI 460 and E4OD I was going to throw into my Mark V
- Allegedly one repaint, and a bit of bubbling around the front and rear glass (a.k.a. needs the vinyl roof pulled off, roof cleaned up and new vinyl)
- Garage-kept by the current owner and only driven short distances in the summer (a.k.a. likely needs carb rebuild and a good Italian tune-up)

I will probably check it out on the coming weekend. I'm keen on the car as long as the bubbling not covered by vinyl is minor, as I can do the sheetmetal cleanup under the vinyl myself without involving an expensive professional painter.

[RyPow]

About 120k on the car

The ad listed the odometer as "122000 kilometers" so I assumed the owner had converted from miles (75,800 miles), but after talking with him I found out this was not the case, and the car actually has 122,000 miles on it.

[RyPow]

I'm also going to be looking at this '77 in the next week. While it has the red interior (I'm so-so on this) and doesn't have a moonroof, the story behind it is definitely more appealing:

- Has been in the family since new
- 41k miles
- Town Car with opera window and fender script delete options, not very common (has Town Car interior, coach lamps and power mini-vent windows)
- original body/paint, Dove Grey on Cordovan velour
- garage-kept since new

[gadget73]

Just be aware that the roof under that vinyl rotted really badly on those things. I don't think they painted it first. The 80s cars actually held up much better in that respect. Poke around first and run away if you find squishy spots.

Mileage is not as big a deal as people make it out to be. Low mileage old cars are often more problematic in all honesty just because most of the crap is original and just dead from age. Then again this comes from someone who bought a well maintained car at 225k and is driving it without any undue BS at 243k. My 120k mile Towncar was a mechanical disaster when I got it, and it took years and stupid amounts of money to get it reliable. It was very badly neglected when I got it though.