(EXPANDED FROM 8/2/2021)
Some buyers of the 1977-79 Lincoln Mark V waited up to eight weeks to receive exclusive designer-series models . . . that turned out to have defective paint. At least that’s Jack Shea’s story. He has commented on two Hemmings articles about the Mark V (2020, 2015).
Shea wrote that he sold a handful of designer-series Mark Vs while working at Northgate Lincoln-Mercury in Tampa, Florida. Most buyers ordered them from the factory rather than buying off the lot, he recalled. Despite the wait, many of the cars arrived “with defective paint, necessitating complete resprays in our own body shop.” Shea added that the owners were “livid” (2015).
This is anecdotal evidence of how in the 1970s American automakers put too much emphasis on making their cars big and fancy rather than well made. One result was that Mercedes-Benz saw its U.S. sales increase from roughly 29,000 units in 1970 to almost 53,000 in 1979. That may not have represented an earth-shattering increase when you consider how Mark V output almost hit 73,000 units in 1979. Nevertheless, it was a sign that the market was shifting.
Also see ‘1971-78 Cadillac Eldorado: Collectible Automobile tells only part of the story’
A big reason why an increasing number of American luxury car buyers turned to Mercedes may have been its reputation for superior engineering and manufacturing quality. A page from a 1979 brochure illustrates the brand’s marketing pitch.
What happened to Lincoln’s commitment to quality?
David Halberstam noted that the Ford Motor Company’s quality control deteriorated during the 1970s partly because of a management-level focus on decontenting. Meanwhile, President Lee Iacocca pointed a finger at assembly-line workers. He said that management no longer had the leverage to maintain quality standards at the factory. Iacocca’s solution? “So what we’re going to do at Ford is create a dealer organization that will fix up the cars and guarantee that they’ll function right” (1986, p. 461).
The irony of Ford’s manufacturing challenges was that this occurred during a time when Lincoln was arguably surpassing Cadillac in the lavishness of its interior designs. “Even the exalted Cadillac Fleetwood was beginning to look a trifle plain by comparison,” wrote automotive historian Thomas E. Bonsall (2004, p. 147). He did not mention Lincoln’s quality issues, but noted that the brand’s production surpassed 191,000 units — an all-time record. This was far higher than in 1961, when only 25,000 suicide-door Continentals were built.
Also see ‘1961-63 Lincoln Continental was not as iconic as often described’
The so-called “Kennedy” Lincolns didn’t sell all that well, but they did rebuild the brand’s tattered reputation. In response to quality-control problems with the 1958-60 Lincolns, manufacturing processes were upgraded and the new Continentals were “put through the most stringent testing procedures in modern times,” Bonsall stated (2004, p. 90). An unusual amount of attention in the 1961 Lincoln brochure was devoted to discussing how cars were built.
Perhaps Lincoln would have better competed against Mercedes in the 1980s if it had maintained the Kennedy Continentals’ quality standards.
NOTES:
This story was originally posted on June 9, 2020, and expanded on Aug 2., 2021 and April 5, 2023 . Production figures were drawn from Flammang (1992) and auto editors of Consumer Guide (1993, 2006).
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Auto editors of Consumer Guide; 1993, 2006. Encyclopedia of American Cars. Publications International, Lincolnwood, IL.
- Bonsall, Thomas E.; 2004. The Lincoln Story: The Postwar Years. Stanford General Books, Stanford, CA.
- Flammang, James M.; 1992. Standard Catalog of Imported Cars: 1946-1990. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- Halberstam, David; 1986. The Reckoning. William Morrow & Co., New York, NY.
- Shea, Jack; 2015. Commentator in “Hemmings Find of the Day – 1979 Lincoln Mk V Givenchy.” Hemmings. Posted August 22.
- —— ; 2015. Commentator in “Hemmings Find of the Day: 1977 Lincoln Mark V Givenchy Edition.” Hemmings. Posted June 8.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES:
- wildaboutcarsonline.com (Automotive History Preservation Society): Mercedes-Benz (1979)
- oldcarbrochures.org: Lincoln Continental (1961); Lincoln Continental Mark V (1979)
Those Continental buyers were lucky it was only defective paint…
This comment from Hemmings reader Jim in 2013 should be filed under, “This Could Never Happen to a Lexus Owner”:
Jim 8 years ago
On Aug 31 1972 Eddie Campos had finally had it with his brand new (1971) $10,000 Lincoln Mark III.
It was a lemon of the highest order. He had returned to the dealer 20+ times for repairs to most every system on the car. A/C, brakes, ignition, alignment, power windows etc.
Finally he parked it on the front lawn of the Ford assembly plant in Pico Rivera CA and SET FIRE TO IT I!! Burned it to the ground.
He continued to make his $130 a month payments on it so he was not charged with arson or insurance fraud.
It kept the burned shell and trailered it around with a lemon tree planted in it. FoMoCo never apologized or offered him any reimbursement.
His actions helped to start the consumer movement and exposed the quality of American cars beginning in the 1970s. A few were OK, most had problems related to both design and build. The modern lemon laws were the result of Eddie’s protest and others who did similar stunts.
https://www.hemmings.com/stories/2013/04/24/hemmings-find-of-the-day-1969-lincoln-continental-mark-iii-2
CJ, you inspired me to update this article. What’s striking about Lincoln “lemon” stories is that the cars were not built in just any old plant. So if things were this bad for a luxury car, imagine the kind of problems that may have plagued lower-priced Fords.
Happy to inspire you, Steve!
Ironic, isn’t it, that as American car makers were de-contenting, they flat out ignored the efforts of Mercedes, BMW and Toyota, who were doing just the opposite. Fast forward to the 1st-gen Lexus LS400 which scared off Cadillac & Lincoln from building luxury CARS and is the primary reason why today they are little more than purveyors of fancy Ford & Chevy trucks.
I wonder if the paint problems were related to Lincoln’s use of clear coat on certain models (the 1978 Diamond Jubilee editions used clear coat). This was the first use of clear coat on a domestic car, if I recall correctly. Speaking of “defective paint” – without specifying the exact nature of the problem – makes it harder for us, over 40 years later, to determine what, exactly, had happened.
I do remember looking at a few 1982 Lincoln Continentals at the Harrisburg Auto Show and thinking they had the best paint job of any domestic car I had ever seen up until that point. By 1982, we were all aware that Detroit had some catching up to do regarding quality control, so I was looking at the “latest and greatest” with a more critical eye. Lincoln must have gotten its act together with paint by the time the Continental debuted.
Regarding Mr. Campos’s Continental Mark III – there was a problem with a main fuse related to operating the car when it was hot. The fuse would be tripped, and ALL of the accessories would stop operating (that is what happened to him while on a trip to Las Vegas). Ford did issue a bulletin to correct the problem, but apparently the dealer missed him, or he had given up working with the dealer by then. (A good dealer can make the difference between a Mr. Campos and a satisfied customer.)
I have a book on 1955-66 Thunderbirds, and the author lists the running changes Ford made each year on various models. One can either look upon this as Ford failing to do it right the first time, or Ford taking extra steps to ensure that its vehicles worked as they should. The danger is that some customers often “missed out” on the product updates. That is apparently what happened to Mr. Campos.
To some extent, all manufacturers did this (and still do – today we call these updates TSBs, or Technical Service Bulletins). I have a 1968 issue of Consumer Reports that details their problems with a long-term Mercedes-Benz. One problem involved the brakes, which was corrected by a running change – which the magazine derisively called “customer engineering.” As in, the early paying customers were doing the final development work and testing.
Imports were often nothing to write home about regarding long-term reliability. The magazine, in the same issue, drove a 1968 AMC Ambassador, a 1968 Peugeot and and a 1968 Volvo for roughly 15,000 miles. All three had some problems, but the Ambassador had the fewest problems (although the two it did have were serious), and ended up wearing better than the imports. So it wasn’t just the domestics who needed to be taught a lesson by the Japanese.
Quality control has been the bane of Detroit iron since the end of W.W.2. Some brands built the cars right the first time, usually after a careful development period. Yes, the post-war demand for new cars with new features meant that more and more, the development process fell to the consumers of the vehicles. The 1955 Buicks, for example, were on-paper great cars, but their lack of development (weak brakes) and the record production hurt Buick sales from 1957-onward until the mid-1960s. Chrysler’s breathtaking 1957s was again, too much styling / innovation too soon, for which Chrysler was paying into the 1960s in terms of sales. Quality went downhill for all American manufacturers into the 1970s, bottoming in the 1980s ! Remember the G.M. corporate TV ads, proclaiming how “G.M. Sweats the Details”, only to have another series of front-wheel drive cars (X-cars, J-cars, N-cars, etc.) replace the rear-drive full-size and intermediates and have teething problems that continued into the 1990s. Then too, how many 1980s and 1990s American cars have we seen on the roads with flaking base coat paint only a few years after leaving the factory ? Lee Iacocca may have been a sales / promotion genius, but I think part of the reason Hank The Duece fired him was not only Ford’s dead-end vehicles but the overall lapse of quality.
In retrospect, K.T. Keller was the real deal. Development comes first, then production !
James, you make some really good points. For example, a big part of Buick’s downfall in the late-50s may have ultimately resulted from all-too-many buyers feeling like they had paid a premium price for a car that ended up having too many issues. I recall reading somewhere that in the early-60s Buick, much like Lincoln, put in place a new program to improve manufacturing quality. Alas, it turned out to be just another Detroit fad. If George Romney had stayed at AMC I suspect that the single biggest contribution he might have made to the U.S. auto industry was a steady emphasis on quality control. He was among the few auto executives of that era who really got its importance.
Your point about Keller is an excellent one — and one that doesn’t get enough attention among automotive historians.
As an owner of two
Plymouth compacts I can tell you that their paint was not up to par. Especially the Neon. They were using a water based paint and it started to pit and peel off after about a year or so.
As a former Lincoln Mercury dealer in the 70s and 80s I can tell that I never had to redo factory paint….but, there were plenty of other issues though.
RK, welcome to Indie Auto. What kind of other issues did you see?
No wonder Henry Ford II lost faith in Lee Iacocca. If I were H.F.II and heard those comments about not being able to affect quality in the assembly plants and shoving the problems downstream to the dealers, I would have hit the ceiling. Quality is in the province of the President of the Ford Motor Company, not the local Ford, Mercury or Lincoln dealer. The companies that practiced stopping the assembly line to fix the defects were on the right track. Design flaws could be fixed when they became apparent, like the 1939 “drooping” Buicks that needed reinforcements and additional rear frame pieces. You would have thought Ford would have learned its lesson from its early problems with the Edsel !
SB stopped by to say the following:
I bought a 1973 Mark IV, from Joe Kurley Lincoln-Mercury, San Jose CA, white on white. Beautiful solid car with a 460 engine. I owned it 10 years and had very few issues, much more elegant than any Mercedes. In fact, Mercedes used the speed control systems from Ford during those years. Serviced properly, the Mark series cars were very reliable. The government put severe emissions restrictions on the engines from 1976 through 1979 but that was not the fault of the car.
I was around the dealerships then and I remember very few problems with the paint. Maybe out of one of the factories, I don’t remember that though. The oil embargo-gas prices were their main demise. An era of cars that were distinctive and stylish, Lexus and Mercedes did not command near the attention of the big Marks. The proof is in the sales, The competitors were not even close.
None had created distinctive designer series with great names like the “lipstick edition,” the Bill Blass edition, the Cartier edition, the The Givenchy edition. Many are kept as collector cars to this day.
Most cars at this date have no distinctive qualities. Most parking lots are filled with boring silver, white, black cars, the beautiful colors no longer a choice. In 1970 Cadillac offered 23 exterior colors, 12 interiors. Today dealers will laugh you out of the show room while they show you there 6 colors for the year and 3 interior colors! Most are considered cookie cutter cars that all look similar.