Mike Maez, courtesy of Gooding & Company

  • One of the finest Continentals in existence; restored to original specifications
  • Hand-built at the Wixom Continental Division Assembly Plant
  • Award-winning Mike Fennel restoration
  • Offered with order sheet, manuals, restoration records and photos
  • An outstanding example of mid-century American opulence

SCM Analysis

Detailing

Vehicle:1956 Continental Mark II
Years Produced:1956–57
Number Produced:2,994
Original List Price:$9,695 (1956), $9,966 (1957)
SCM Valuation:Median to date, $42,400; high sale, $330,000 (this car)
Tune Up Cost:$350
Distributor Caps:$25
Chassis Number Location:Body tag attached to the driver’s door frame or left side of the chassis under the voltage regulator.
Engine Number Location:N/A
Club Info:Lincoln & Continental Owners Club
Website:http://www.lcoc.org
Alternatives:1957–60 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham, 1957–61 Imperial Ghia limousine, 1956 Lincoln Premiere 2-door hard top and convertible
Investment Grade:C

This car, Lot 37, sold for $330,000, including buyer’s premium, at Gooding & Company’s Pebble Beach auction in Pebble Beach, CA, on August 20, 2016. It was offered without reserve.

Well-built as Edsel intended

In 1955, the newly formed Continental division of the Ford Motor Company sought to bring that nameplate back to the market with a sense of dignity and style that befitted the man who commissioned the original — the late Edsel Ford.

With Edsel’s untimely death in 1943 and his son Henry Ford II’s ascent to the head of the company before Henry’s passing in 1947, the Ford Motor Company of the past needed to be cleaned out to make room for new ideas. So the Continental was discontinued in 1948.

Lincoln in the early 1950s — not unlike today — was searching for its place in the industry. The post-war car evolved into a big, higher-performance Mercury. However, the old money that was Lincoln’s customer base wanted the return of a style leader, and at a meeting of the fledging Lincoln Continental Owners Club in Dearborn on October 16, 1954, it was announced by Edsel’s youngest son and chief of the new division, William Clay Ford, that they would get it in the form of the Continental Mark II.

From high style to dud

In an era of ever-growing tailfins, the Mark II was devoid of gimmicks and instead had reserved, clean lines.

Assembled at their own new plant, the cars were hand-built from bare bodies supplied by Mitchell-Bentley. While the auction catalog stated that this car was “hand-built at the Wixom Continental Division assembly plant,” Continentals were actually built farther south at what was to become Ford’s Pilot Plant along I-94 in Allen Park.

After passing final inspection, including a road test, the cars were shipped to dealers in a fleece-lined car cover (the improper use of them by the haulers being the bane of dealers, with cars arriving with paint damage from the covers flapping in the slipstream).

Priced at $10,000 and available with only one option — air conditioning — the Mark II was squarely aimed at those who could afford to make a statement. As such, the list of owners reads like a Who’s Who of industry and the entertainment world. However, after production ceased in 1957 and the cars hit the used market, many ended up with less-than-caring owners. Combined with some unique maintenance issues, by the mid-1960s, Mark IIs developed a reputation of being duds, which lowered their resale values further.

The collector’s Continental

By the mid-1970s, when interest in these cars began to pick up, they could be found as anything from ratty parts cars for a couple hundred bucks to drivers for a couple grand. Nice well-kept originals might have set you back as much as $10,000. Today, the Mark II is seeing a renaissance. The car has now appreciated in interest and value.

Two decades ago I had the chance to buy a running but well-used example in dark green metallic for just under $6,000. On the other end of the spectrum, I’ve been exposed to private sales among Lincoln-Continental Owners’ Club members that have been well past $100k — yet not three times that, as we saw here in Monterey.

Domestic post-war luxury cars are typically very labor intensive to work on, with all the bells and whistles plus added sound deadening and interior materials. Mark IIs take that up several notches, with such things as exhaust routed through the rocker panels.

Our featured car was purchased from the second owner by the consignor, then restored by a Mark II specialist. Upon completion, it was judged to first place in the Primary class and was also awarded a Lincoln Trophy at the LCOC 2015 Western Division meet in San Diego. Since then, it was tweaked ever so slightly based on the judging results, and presented here essentially as a faultless example.

Just get it bought

While the quality of the restoration sets this example apart, part of what makes this sale spectacular is the way in which it was sold. Offered on the first night of the Gooding auction at Pebble Beach, it had a good time slot as Lot 37. I looked it over and was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the restoration.

When it hit the block, it was off and running at $50k, leaping by $25k bids. Things began to slow a bit past the $225k point, and the $190k to $240k auction-house estimate looked spot-on. When it hit $245k and the auctioneer was looking for a quarter of a million, the eventual buyer really stepped it up with a big-dog bid of $300k — much to the entertainment of the crowd and consternation of the last few bidders.

While this establishes a new world record at auction for a Deuce, don’t expect all current $100k-plus cars to move up to a quarter of a million dollars overnight. Sure, those in Mark II circles will be very cognizant of this sale, but I don’t see it as the lead bull in the stampede through those gates.

For this car to get to the point of being a $330k sale, I’d suspect that the restoration costs were close to the bid. Still, sources close to the consignors indicate that they were “very pleased” with the result, so I’m assuming the sale price paid all the bills.

I have no doubt the buyer wanted a no-excuses Mark II — money not being an excuse, either — and was hell-bent on getting it. Unless an example that has top celebrity provenance gets done up to this level and is put into the general market at a high profile venue like this — or is quietly offered among those in the know — this should be considered well sold.

(Introductory description courtesy of Gooding & Company.)

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