Conveniently I am spared the indignity of incremental physical immobility by having preserved throughout the past 45 years an undying fondness for the North American passenger automobile. It gets me going when almost nothing else will. The opinion of my physicians and specialists is that I am in decline but as yet the front sight of the shotgun is only on impending doom not current or complete failure. The inescapable additive “old age” is proving to be the more common though equally dismissive diagnosis. The implication naturally is, “Live with it!”
And that precisely is what I intend to do! This summary battle cry marks my daily objective. As I am about to ’round the corner of the last leg of this ineffable quest it is irrefutable that life is to be basked in! Nor am I confounding my expiation by useless absorption in measureless mystical advantage. Instead i cloak myself with the blunt but heady automotive tenor that affords a handy mechanical and spiritual transport into senescence.
The automobile is an expensive (and some would argue wasteful) hobby. It is by any ruler not a prodigality for the pusillanimous. I am however guided in this pursuit by the adage, “If you do what you like then you’ll like what you do”. I begin my adventure into this esoteric playground by limiting my personal interest to automobiles of domestic manufacture. The bias is further narrowed by embracing not only traditional North American productions from the so-called “Big Three” (Ford, GM and Chrysler) but specifically the creations of Henry Ford & Co. And the preference is additionally qualified by the Lincoln brand.
Lincoln (formally the Lincoln Motor Company) is the luxury vehicle division of American automobile manufacturer Ford. Marketed among the top luxury vehicle brands in the United States, Lincoln was positioned closely against its General Motors counterpart Cadillac. The division helped to establish the personal luxury car segment with the 1940 Lincoln Continental.
Lincoln Motor Company was founded in 1917 by Henry M. Leland, naming it after Abraham Lincoln. In February 1922, the company was acquired by Ford, its parent company to this day. Following World War II, Ford formed the Lincoln-Mercury Division, pairing Lincoln with its mid-range Mercury brand; the pairing lasted through the 2010 closure of Mercury. At the end of 2012, Lincoln reverted to its original name, Lincoln Motor Company. Following the divestiture of Premier Automotive Group (Jaguar, Land Rover, Aston Martin, and Volvo) and the closure of Mercury, Lincoln remains the sole luxury nameplate of Ford Motor Company.
Lincoln and Cadillac brands have forever constituted for me the acme of the passenger automobile. It is I confess a predilection of my youth, a veritable social contract reflective of the age and time. Certainly there is appeal from BMW, Audi, Porsche and other exotic productions of Europe and Asia but I hold fast like a United Auto Worker to the stock attraction of my childhood a half century ago. I yet recall those days long ago when Max (my prep school friend) and I would challenge one another to guess the make and model of every passing automobile as we traipsed alongside the dusty road from school into town. The cars were an assortment of playing cards in a deck; we discarded the inferior ones and focussed our attention upon the most recent and expensive models. Our commensurate attendances upon the football fields of Bishop Ridley College, Trinity College and Upper Canada College ensured that we maintained deliverance of the most recent productions – Carr Hatch’s parents’ sleek black Ford Thunderbird with green, red and white stripes on the tyres; the stately Chrysler Imperial that Sebastien Lockwood’s family owned; and the massive Buick Wildcat of some hedonistic parent from Toronto. We routinely afterwards consummated the intoxication by equivalency at the local golf club lounge with the parents of one of the boys.
I have always acknowledged the limitations of the North American automotive industry. There has been a perceptible graduation of the erstwhile domestic approbation towards the more exotic renditions. But nothing has succeeded to estrange me from my ritual choices. As far as I can recollect I have known four people who have owned new Rolls Royce automobiles. It warrants repetition that one of those owners casually observed when I proclaimed my admiration for her vehicle, “It just looks like a Mercedes!” This acute and disparaging comment does not diminish the quality of the car but impresses upon me the utility of local accommodation; that is, the strength and satisfaction of knowing that nationwide service and replacement is available for domestic models. This I found was an advantage when contemplating our snowbird jaunts to the Gulf of Mexico.