Jay Leno's Garage - "The Massive 1958 Continental Mark III"

"RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht" (ramblininexile) 04/09/2020 at 09:51 • Filed to: None

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“This is the kind of car I want to drive to England and go ‘Hi, I’m looking for McDonald’s. I’m an American. How ya doin’?’”

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 04/09/2020 at 09:57

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As a note, the Lincoln Mercury Old Parts Store he mentions in the video are cool people . They send Christmas cards to customers, and are willing to go the extra mile to do wacky stuff - like making reproduction ‘58 Super Marauder kits to convert a ‘58 for MOAR POWARR the factory way.

ranwhenparked > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 04/09/2020 at 10:10

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I think these late '50s Lincolns were the largest unibody passenger cars ever built. And they were massively overbuilt, too, due to Ford's lack of experience in unitized construction. Really solid cars.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > ranwhenparked 04/09/2020 at 10:20

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You are right. I have a ‘59 I got from Opponaut Jarod Rose, and have yet to really crack into. 3-ton unibody 19 feet long, widest rear seat shoulder room of any regular production sedan ever. The cabin is almost straight up and down at the sides - t he tumblehome is more of a tumblehome’n’t.

(stock photo)

The rockers on the one I have are basically a 5-layer 18ga-16ga multi-box sandwich girder (which are rotted and I’ve had to make pieces for), and there are front torque boxes to the subframe as well as the normal rear ones. The exhaust is tucked up into the tunnel, and the floorboards drop into all available space between the rocker and the subframe, making it as flat as a pool table underneath. They were actually intended to have a factory air ride option - coils all around.

Another wacky note: the fenders are part of the permanent welded structure on the front end - no removal from a fixed liner or anything like that, the whole thing is a 20GA metal pontoon on each side.

ranwhenparked > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 04/09/2020 at 10:55

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Sounds like a mess to repair, but the dent/ding resistance has to be pretty decent. Even '80s Lincolns still had heavier gauge steel, you could practically tap dance on the hood without denting it.

WasGTIthenGTOthenNOVAnowbacktoGTI > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 04/09/2020 at 11:14

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The epitome of fuck you motoring. I love it.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > ranwhenparked 04/09/2020 at 11:15

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The floors need attention (and I need new seat cloth) , and there’s rot in the “eyebrows” over the headlights that I’ve been looking at basically making a die to press new ones with. Trunk is mostly okay, doors are mostly okay, roof is okay... and any vehicle you can nearly do bodywork with a stick welder on is actually easy mode. That, and if I want to put body solder in, what’s the real consequence of using lead-base? I ain’t moving the curb weight up at all...

Some of the chrome-plated pot metal has crazing and pits, so I’ll probably look at drilling and filling with some of the chrome fix solder a couple places. It won’t be back quite original, but it’ll be serviceable.

One obstacle is that previous chucklefuck neighborhood kids throwing rocks destroyed the side glass and did point damage on the windshield. The windshield will likely be possible to stabilize and use as-is until I can be bothered to try to find one, and the side pieces are just flat aside from some mild tinting, so not hard to do, just a pain.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > WasGTIthenGTOthenNOVAnowbacktoGTI 04/09/2020 at 11:18

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True story - when I get my ‘59 back together, I kind of want to take it to Europe and do what I call the Cold War Cruise. If it could be arranged, there’s a pretty direct route through most of the capitals Lisbon to Moscow.

Get this out on the Autobahn, and the Germans will lose their shit. There are a good number of giant barge fetishists over there.

WasGTIthenGTOthenNOVAnowbacktoGTI > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 04/09/2020 at 11:25

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You have to smok e a cigar the whole way, while we aring an American flag fanny pack.

lone_liberal > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 04/09/2020 at 11:47

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It’s not the most attractive car but somehow it just works. I also like Leno’s Garage much more when he’s doing his own cars. When he has a guest t here seems to be an internal battle between  his desire to talk about the car and the need to have the guest talk.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > WasGTIthenGTOthenNOVAnowbacktoGTI 04/09/2020 at 11:55

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I think I ran the numbers, and shipping the car over was actually surprisingly low compared to fuel costs to pull it off.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > lone_liberal 04/09/2020 at 12:18

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It’s also most fun when he’s clearly a little self-conscious about the car and his choice in getting it. “Yes, I know, this is ridiculous and off-putting; but I like it, damn you”.

One of the better guests in some respects was Jeff Dunham talking about his Gremlins, because (a) Jeff didn’t need much coaxing, and (b) the subject kind of spoke for itself.

Jim Spanfeller > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 04/09/2020 at 13:24

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That Gremlin video was fantastic, but my personal favorite episode with a guest was the one with a Ferrari Mondial. You would expect the guy to be perhaps a bit snobby and talk about the car’s excellent heritage, how it’s a work of art, one of the most exquisite and refined classic blah blah blah blah, but no. Not at all. The guy was awesome, and told some amazing stories about his experience with the car. If you haven’t seen that episode yet, I highly recommend it.