The documentation library A big thank you to Jim!
-1964 Specs and Equipment
-1964 VIN tag identification
-1964 vacuum schematic
-1966 MEL 462 specs
-1961 quality control
Exploded views from 1960-64 Master Parts Catalog These are the exploded views for the 1964 model from the 1960-64 MPC. That means I've left out exploded views for the other years but they do often overlap.
1964 Owners Manual (scans) Try to find one of these in nice condition....!
-1964 data book
-1964 Color and Upholstery
-1964 Lehman-Peterson article Source: the May/June 1964 issue of the Continental Magazine.
-1964 Lehman-Peterson Press Info
-1929 French magazine add
Article: The New York Times.
Published: November 26, 2004.
A 60's Star Is Reborn
By JOE BARGMANN
On a hot summer day more than three years ago, my wife and I were driving west on Route 78 in New Jersey when in the rearview mirror of our black 1964 Lincoln Continental I saw a motorcycle speeding up behind me. The motorcycle raced past us in the fast lane, then slowed and pulled up next to the Lincoln. The big man at the controls of the bike smiled and nodded his approval, mouthing "nice car" before hitting the throttle.
As it turned out, the biker was headed to the same party we were. We approached him as he stood by the table full of hamburgers, hot dogs and grilled corn. "Cowboy Curtis," I said, extending my hand, "I thought that was you on the motorcycle."
Laurence Fishburne — who played Cowboy Curtis on the TV show "Pee-wee's Playhouse" — smiled broadly and shook my hand. "That is one helluva car you have," he said. "A star car if I ever saw one."
Apparently, Mr. Fishburne, who shared screen time with a black mid-60's Continental in the original "Matrix," isn't the only one who feels that way. The 60's Continentals are making a comeback. Known popularly as the "suicide-door" Lincoln or the Kennedy Lincoln, they have appeared recently on HBO's "Six Feet Under" and "Entourage" shows. "The suicide-door Lincoln is right at the top of the list of cars rented for movies, TV shows, and commercials," said Michael Kopilec, 51, of Los Angeles-based NationwidePictureCars.com, who has been supplying cars to movie producers for 20 years. "The popularity of these cars in Hollywood goes in cycles, and the Lincoln is definitely coming into its own again," Mr. Kopilec said.
The value of 60's Lincolns — known by fans as "slab-sides" for the smooth, gently arcing steel of their doors and quarterpanels — is rising, too. A 1964 convertible fetched $43,200 in July at the annual Barrett-Jackson auction in Los Angeles. That's perhaps the most ever paid at public auction for a '64 Continental, said Jerry Capizzi, a collector and president of the nascent Lincoln Motor Car Foundation. Doug Mattix, 62, of Dallas, the president of the 4,200-member Lincoln Continental Owners Club, said that a '62 convertible recently sold on eBay for $23,000, sight-unseen. Over the last five years, Lincoln aficionados say, the price of a 60's Continental in good to excellent condition has risen about 25 percent.
Speculation is always a factor for people who buy classic cars. But money appears to be a minor consideration for the enthusiasts lifting the Lincoln to a new level of prominence and working to preserve its place in history. They seem simply to enjoy riding around in a very cool car.
"I like having a joke car because I have a joke career — I'm an animator, I do cartoons," said Steve Oakes, 49, of Manhattan, a partner in Curious Pictures. Mr. Oakes glides through the city in his black 1963 Continental convertible, which once belonged to his grandmother. "I get a lot of gawking and thumbs-up from people," he said. "It's such a mythic car."
It is also a very big car, about 6,000 pounds and 19 feet long. He discovered the precise length of his Lincoln when he tried to pull it into a garage he had built for it at his Berkshires country house. "The garage is 18 feet deep," he said with a laugh. "I stood there dumbfounded as I looked at the car's rear end sticking out of the garage."
The suicide-door sedan, of course, also has a strong presidential connection, named for Lincoln, produced by Ford and forever associated with Kennedy. "The Lincoln was J. F. K.'s car of choice," said Cal Beauregard, 78, of Gallatin Gateway, Mont. "He set the tone and established the car's stature and mystique."
Mr. Beauregard's job for two decades starting in 1956 was to keep the Lincoln in the limelight. As transportation manager for the Ford Motor Company's public relations office in New York, he had a fleet of Lincolns at his disposal. Whenever the president or another high-profile politician or celebrity came to town, Mr. Beauregard supplied Lincolns and drivers for the motorcades, free of charge.
The most famous — or rather, infamous — Lincoln, the 1961 limousine in which President Kennedy was assassinated, is now at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich. That car was designated the 100-X, the X denoting a Presidential automobile. Its cousin, the 297-X, a limousine built by Ford for Mrs. Kennedy and used by the White House from 1962 until 1969, will be auctioned Jan. 28 at the Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa in Phoenix. The car is estimated to sell for between $500,000 and $1 million.
Another Lincoln connected with Kennedy — the car that carried him from his hotel in Fort Worth to the airfield for his flight to Dallas — is owned by John Reznikoff, 44, a Connecticut collector. Mr. Reznikoff bought the car six years ago for $17,500, restored it at a cost of about $100,000, and recently offered it for sale on eBay with a reserve of $1 million. It did not sell. "If it sold, I would have had seller's remorse," Mr. Reznikoff said. "I feel kind of like, maybe, it will be worth quite a bit more in 10 years."
Maybe, but the amount of money that a Continental enthusiast will spend to restore a car can exceed the car's value by tens of thousands of dollars. At a recent Lincoln show, at the Nevele Grande Resort in Ellenville, N.Y., Steve Widener, 51, a building inspector supervisor from Tacoma, Wash., stood proudly beside his black 1964 convertible. He said that he had acquired the car from his father in 1988 and spent seven years restoring it before he began showing it. "The car is effectively built by hand," he said. "I replaced every screw, every bolt in it." The final tally, including eight coats of paint: $60,000. "And that's with my doing a lot of the labor myself," Mr. Widener said.
THE first three years of these Continentals, from 1961 through 1963, earned a team led by designer Elwood Engle a medal of honor from the Industrial Design Institute. The 1961 Lincoln represents a stark departure from its immediate predecessor, the 1960 Lincoln Mark V, which is laden with chrome and ornate details.
The Mark V harks back to the '59 Cadillac, one of the most over-the-top, automotive designs ever. By comparison, the '61 Continental has the spare lines of an Eames chair and the modern elegance of Eero Saarinen's Gateway Arch in St. Louis. "I'm not sure you could have a more drastic design change between the '60 and '61 Lincolns," said Steve Ouellette of Baker's Auto, in Putnam, Conn., one of the foremost Lincoln restoration outfits in the country.
Many of the cars that Mr. Ouellette restored, or at least provided parts for, were on display in Ellenville, including a 1966 limousine that won best in show. That car belongs to Gordy Jensen, 49, of Bloomington, Minn., perhaps the most fanatical collector of 60's Lincolns. He owns a total of 155, and says, "I have an incurable disease." The lengths to which he goes to make them "correct" are astonishing.
Once, while dropping off my car at Mr. Ouellette's shop, I saw on a lift the chassis and engine of what would become Mr. Jensen's gray 1965 convertible. Mr. Ouelette had initially spray-painted the frame of the car, leaving it perfectly smooth, with no paint drips. This was historically inaccurate — on the assembly line the frames were dipped in paint, not sprayed — so Mr. Jensen commanded the restorer to add the paint drips by hand.
My wife and I never reached that level of fanaticism about our '64 sedan. Though I must admit, when we were particularly hard-bit by the Lincoln bug, we briefly owned a white '64 convertible to go with it. (His-and-hers Lincolns, in Manhattan?) We ended up investing more than $10,000 in parts and labor, not to mention the money spent garaging the giant cars. Not too long ago we were forced to sell the Lincolns and we rode in silence in our rental after taking the sedan to its new owner. Parting with the car was an emotional experience.
"I've thought about getting rid of mine," Mr. Widener said. "But I thought, `What would life be like without it?' I can't let it go. It's part of me now."
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