Some say it was because he couldn’t fall asleep. Others say it came to him in a dream. But automotive legend has it that while traveling on business in Europe (the Continent) then Ford Motor Company President Lee Iacocca made a late night call to Ford designers in Detroit.
”Go get a Rolls Royce grille and figure out a way to put in on the front of a T-Bird.”
That was the night the Lincoln Continental Mark III was born.
Click here to see the showroom brochure for the 1968 Lincoln Mark III Brochure Link
…to the Silver Screen.
In the 1971 hit movie, The French Connection, Gene Hackman played detective Popeye Doyle who stumbles upon a drug smuggling job that would bring $32,000,000 worth of heroin into the United States.
The drugs were believed to be hidden in a 1970 Lincoln Continental Mark III that was being shipped to New York from France.
Looking for the drugs, the New York police completely disassemble the Mark III with no luck and put the entire car back together. Still convinced the drugs must be somewhere inside the car, the police weigh the car and see it scales in at 120 lbs. more than Ford records indicate.
Another disassembly ultimately finds the drugs inside the car.
Which parts concealed the drugs?
Need A Clue? This picture of the actual Mark III used in the movie with one of the parts visible.
