1965 Lincoln Continental Spends Five Years in a Beauty Shop, Ends Up Looking Like $150K

Those who go for a fast approach usually do so as they need the build ready in time for some major car show or auction. It’s not a bad approach, and it doesn’t mean the end product somehow lacks in quality and that corners were cut, but doing things this way means the finished custom car is most of the time just that, a product, and not the work of passion.

Yes, when you hear someone spent five years of their lives tinkering with a six-decade-old car you can bet not only money and time went into making it, but also soul. And we always find these products much more appealing than the ones made lightning fast.

Five years is how much someone (sadly we do not know who) spent on bringing new life to this 1965 Lincoln Continental. And the result is stunning, a Highlander Green over black open-top land yacht for which someone expects to fetch no less than $149,995.

A lot, I know, but do try and keep in mind that the Continental is, after all, a luxury car. Back in its day, it sold for over $6,000 (that’s over $57,000 in today’s money), and on top of that comes this whole restoration work.

The Continental is historically one of the most important nameplates in Lincoln’s portfolio. The name traces its roots all the way back to the late 1930s, when a one-off prototype was put together for Edsel Ford, and doesn’t end until 2020, when the Blue Oval announced it is giving up completely on making cars that even remotely resemble a sedan.

In the years it was on the market, the Continental spawned no less than ten generations, some more successful than others. As usual with historic car families, it’s the members from the first few generations though that still move custom businesses and money.

The one we have here, being a 1965 model year, is part of the fourth generation of the breed. That means a time when everything that existed before as a Continental was significantly changed.

The model didn’t sell like hotcakes to the general public because it was, after all, a luxury car. It did sell just right for the segment, though, in both sedan and convertible variants, and that’s why we presently have a consistent Continental presence on the custom market.

The one we have here is part of a run of just a little over 3,350 convertibles made that year. We have no history as to who it served and how, but we do know back in 2013 it entered a beauty shop garage as a restoration project. Work on it didn’t end until 2018, when it left the place looking all shiny and new, despite the over 90,000 miles (145,000 km) shown on the odometer (just a few hundred more were added since completion).

Visually, the Continental is as faithful as possible to its original self. The imposing body panels, the long hood, and the wheels with their polished caps and Vogue whitewall tires, are all there, spewing left and right 1960s luxury vibes. Helping with that is of course the type of green chosen for the body, that also adds a touch of elegance we rarely see on today’s cars.

When not pulled over the cabin, the beige top lets loose a very well cared-for interior, all leather and black, because that’s how luxury likes to roll. The bucket seats, center console, doors, and dashboard all come with just the right amount of chrome detailing, and no modern-day infotainment system is anywhere to be seen - in its place, we get the car’s push-button AM radio.

The Continental drives courtesy of a 430ci engine tied to an automatic transmission. It’s the engine Lincoln started offering in these cars a generation earlier, and which in its stock and most potent iteration developed up to 375 hp. It was by all accounts the smallest engine in the fourth-gen Continental (the other two were the 460 and 462ci), and it stays like so even now, as no changes in terms of displacement or output seem to have been made to this unit. A new exhaust system was however fitted to allow for easier breathing.

This 1965 Lincoln Continental may not be the most impressive of its kind out there, and certainly can’t compare with other builds of the kind that were released over the years, but it sure comes across as the perfect throwback to a time when a luxury car was almost always driven by someone capable of properly enjoying it.

You can find it on the lot of a Texas dealer called Earth Motor Cars, selling, as said, for almost $150k.