Update, 21 January 2001: Mr. Carr has sent in yet more pictures and information regarding this unique Lincoln. The pictures shown below were published in Special Interest Autos in December 1980, Issue #80.

According to Mr. Carr, the article was written by Walter E. Gosden and is titled, "Stainless Reputations, The Ultimate Rust Free Cars". The article mentions all stainless vehicles Ford produced, the six 1936 Fords, two 1960 Thunderbirds, and the three 1966 Lincoln Lincoln convertibles. Here is the text from the article concerning the Lincolns:

"The last stainless cars to be ordered by Allegheny and built by Ford were a trio of Lincoln convertibles made in 1966. These Continentals carried many of the factory options available at the time: power vent windows, power door locks, power antenna, power everything!"

"The cost was about $30,000 each. Allegheny got two of them and the Lincoln-Merucry division of Ford kept the third. Each had the regular production drivetrain and weighed 5680 pounds, just about what the production car weighed. The two cars Allegheny oens were updated to 1967 specifications and appearance, and later Alleghney bought the third stainless steel convertible from Lincoln-Mercury after it had been damaged during storage. This last car eventually went to the Crawford Museum in 1978."

The Crawford Museum mentioned in the last paragraph is the Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum in Cleveland, Ohio. As far as we know, they still have the third car.

The article also has some interesting information concerning the 1960 Thunderbirds. They are made out of 302 stainless steel and cost a total of about $25,000 each (1960 dollars, no doubt). The Budd Company built the bodies, as they did the regular production Thunderbird bodies. This means that that the Thunderbirds were seen by people "coming down the line". Once the Lincoln bodies were ready, were they then added to the production line at Wixom? The article does not state what type of stainless the Lincolns were made of.

Mr. Carr finishes by noting that the car in the above picture has a '67 grille, but still carries the Lincoln compass on the fenders. He notes that it would have been difficult to patch the holes left behind in the stainless if it were removed to look like a '67 model. He believes the one spotted at the 2000 Woodward Cruise was the unconverted '66. Was it on loan to Federal Mogul from the Museum?

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Update, 27 January 2001:Our Director, Scott Anderson, sent in the following two pictures this week.

Although he didn't supply any comments with them, they appear to have been taken in the late sixties, probably around the time the last stainless Lincolns were built.

Thanks, Scott! We are sure many people will be happy to see these rare photos.