25-05-2025
1959 Lincoln Continental on Bring a Trailer Is Full On '50s Exuberence
Here's a late-'50s land yacht with all kinds of angle-eyed, pointy-finned, chrome-plated charisma.
It's crammed with features including ultra-cool, reverse-canted, power rear glass for summer breezes.
Expensively restored, it's a former AACA winner.
The 1950s was a decade that saw the widespread adoption of television, the building boom of America's suburbs and the Interstate highway system, and the physical expansion of the United States with Alaska and Hawaii's admission to the union, all set against a backdrop of a rising standard of living for most people. It was a time to dream big—and to drive big.
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The cars reached their zenith in size and outlandish style at the decade's end, as epitomized by the offerings of America's three luxury-car brands. Cars like this 1959 Lincoln Continental Mark IV four-door hardtop, up for sale on Bring a Trailer (which, like Car and Driver, is part of Hearst Autos). This is a sedan so big it should probably have "SS" painted on its bow. Spectacular in Cameo Rose, it glitters with chrome and mid-century optimism in equal measure, just shy of nineteen feet of opulence.
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This example was refurbished in the early 1990s, going on to win a national prize with the Antique Automobile Club of America (AACA). The restoration looks to have been thoroughly comprehensive, more than $60,000 worth of ground-up work—and that's in 1990s money. After earning 100 points in judging, it then spent two decades in long-term storage, surfacing in 2016.
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If you think this car's big on the outside, check the interior. There's enough legroom for an NBA forward, two sofa-sized bench seats, and a voluminous trunk that gets the seal of approval from the Springfield Legitimate Businessman's Social Club.
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There's also a surfeit of options including six power side windows and the power-retracting "breezeway" rear glass, a power seat, central vacuum door locks, and an automatic headlight dimmer. Everything works, and the air-conditioning has been overhauled and blows cold.
Although you'd probably want to keep all the windows down when summer cruising in this majestic land yacht, especially with that opening rear glass. Under the hood is a huge 430-cubic-inc V-8 that put out 350 horsepower and an unstressed 490 pound-feet of torque when new. That elephantine torque and three-speed automatic should make this Continental an effortless tourer.
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Lincoln threw everything it had into this generation Continental in a desperate attempt to outdo Cadillac, and it shows. But the effort failed to break Cadillac's lock on the luxury-car market. So, while the similarly outrageous '59 Caddy has become a visual shorthand for the decade that spawned it, the lesser-known, less-often seen, but every bit as exuberant '59 Lincoln arguably carries a bigger visual wallop today.
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The auction ends on May 29.
Brendan McAleer
Contributing Editor
Brendan McAleer is a freelance writer and photographer based in North Vancouver, B.C., Canada. He grew up splitting his knuckles on British automobiles, came of age in the golden era of Japanese sport-compact performance, and began writing about cars and people in 2008. His particular interest is the intersection between humanity and machinery, whether it is the racing career of Walter Cronkite or Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki's half-century obsession with the Citroën 2CV. He has taught both of his young daughters how to shift a manual transmission and is grateful for the excuse they provide to be perpetually buying Hot Wheels. Read full bio
