I’ve recently been thumbing through a library copy of Nick Georgano’s Art of the American Automobile: The Greatest Stylists and Their Work to get some learnin’ about American car design. It’s a pretty great book and has opened my eyes to a lot of styling cues that I, the automotive cretin, hadn’t quite processed. However, there is one thing that I’ve loved on older cars since I was a teenager: Suicide doors. So for this episode of “Would You Rather…” I went to my favorite corner of the classifieds—CraigsList in California’s Inland Empire—to find a couple of suicide-door-laden project cars: a ‘65 Lincoln Continental and a ‘68 Ford Thunderbird sedan.
We’ll start with the Continental, one of the dream rides for my degenerate friends and I in high school. Not only was the Continental huge enough to live in, it also would have a big-block Ford that, coupled with the nautical suspension, would float the slab-sided boat over the crush-and-run rural Illinois back roads at highly extralegal speeds. Most importantly, nobody else cruising the strip in the nearby college town would have the Zazz of suicide doors when it came time to swap back-seat rides. Unfortunately, even in the late 1990s, the Rust Belt had returned most of these back to the earth.
However, Inland Empire seldom fails to deliver and this complete ‘65 Lincoln looks great with one side primered and the other carrying a nice patina. The seller claims the car is complete and runs; we’d expect the 430 cubic-inch engine to make the fantastic racket that we, the late-1990s high school kids in Buick Centurys and Ford Tempos, lusted after. The $5,500 asking price exceeds all the money I ever made in high school, sure, but this Lincoln has real essence.
The other side of the coin is something so rare that I didn’t know it existed until looking up whale-shark Thunderbirds for Hooniverse’s weekly CraigsList Crapshoot. I was delighted to discover that not only did Ford make “crew cab” Thunderbirds with this body style, the Blue Oval also put suicide doors on the second set of entryways. Add in the 360-horsepower version of the 429 and I have a new aspirational goal.
This one doesn’t have much information, but the seller claims it’s complete and runs. For a $800, it sure looks like a good start and the owner clearly has some other treasures stored next to it.
So which would you rather: The Hot Rod-able Lincoln or the muscle-car-era Thunderbird?
Conti please. We rehabbed a 64 convertible in vo-tech in HS. I’ve always wanted one built old school pro street. 6-71 blown , stroked BBF. No hood, polished blower and ultra detailed engine compartment. Mini rubbed for fat rolling stock and keep the times to high 11’s so the interior can stay stock (no roll bar) a/c good tunes and a starring role at Drag Week !
I’m bitter that they ever made a 4 door thunderbird. It was supposed to be Ford’s answer to the corvette.
Thunder what? That t-bird is uglier than a 4 door Avanti – no small feat.