Guilty Pleasure: Lincoln Continental Mark V Givenchy Edition

By Murilee Martin

Murilee Martin

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Once pushed an Opel Manta 50 miles using a '63 Impala wagon with tires tied to the front bumper More

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3 2,362 views Nov 16, 2011

1977 Lincoln Continental Mark V

The Continental Mark V, built for the 1977-79 model years, may look like an unutterably horrible, overwrought, self-parodying standard-bearer for an automotive era most of us would like to pretend never happened, but… well, actually, it is just that.

But what puts this two-and-a-half-ton, blinged-out monstrosity into Guilty Pleasure territory is the way FoMoCo managed to get some of the top fashion houses of the era to slap their names on special editions.

Cartier, Bill Blass, Pucci, and--of course--Givenchy. Of these, the Givenchy was the greatest/most terrible, because it came in Midnight Jade paint. Midnight Jade! It's impossible to avoid having some mis-wired junction box in one's hindbrain plead with one's higher functions to find and purchase a clean Givenchy Mark V. Best of all, the Givenchy Mark V came with an interior in "Dark Jade" leather or Majestic Velour. Majestic Velour! You'd need a custom-made Dark Jade Majestic Velour suit made immediately, were you to buy a Givenchy Mark V.

The Mark V scaled in at about 4,900 pounds and came with your choice of 160-horsepower 400M or a 208-horsepower 460 engines, delivering a power-to-weight ratio roughly similar to that of a Tuk-Tuk and fuel economy in the "you don't want to know" region. Who cares? You'd be so unimaginably fly in your Givenchy Mark V that such matters would be beneath your notice.

Image source: Old Car Brochures