I got the car home and started doing an inventory of the good and the bad. From a distance, the car looked great. Up close, not so much. The previously mentioned paint blemishes were disappointing given the description from the seller and while the interior had new leather and new carpet, it did not include any fixes to or maintenance of the dash or switchgear. The seller’s kind inclusion of a fire extinguisher in the foot well of the passenger seat was not awe inspiring either.

Of even greater concern were the mushy brakes, wailing power steering pump, rattling exhaust manifold, imprecise shifter (What gear am I in? Will it stay in that gear?), an odd stance of the car indicating that there were suspension issues on one side (probably both) and noticeable lack of power being produced by the motor – climbing hills required crushing the go pedal to the floor in order to maintain speed. With 430 CID, the car should have propelled itself easily.

Popping the hood revealed an engine compartment that looked in fairly good shape for a 51-year old vehicle, but it had clearly not seen a tremendous amount of love. On a quick check, the radiator and fan looked new and there were clearly some wiring changes, but everything else looked pretty much stock. It looks like they spray painted the air cleaner housing and the tops of some of the dipsticks – a crappy job to say the least. The vacuum lines looked in bad shape. I could immediately see where several of them had been just pinched off. That’s going to be a problem since these cars use vacuum to do a lot. There was what looked like coolant on the block between the carburetor and the firewall. I’m going to have to look at that. Oh yeah, when I opened the hood, I could hear metal shards moving around inside it as it went from horizontal to vertical. Rust? Probably. More indication of the cursory paint job that had been applied.

A quick look under the car revealed leaks at the oil pan, transmission and differential. Oy vey! On the plus side, I couldn’t find any rust on the chassis at all on. The exhaust pipes and mufflers didn’t look original, but not new either. The brake lines I could see did look original, but appeared to be in good shape.

I had purposely put off the moment of truth – testing the windows and top – mostly because I was scared of what I would find. The windows worked, albeit slowly, but two of the door locks didn’t. They are vacuum controlled and given the problem with the vacuum lines I found in the engine compartment, I think this may be a harbinger of some major vacuum issues in the car. I found the switch for the top and with fingers crossed, I flipped it. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. No clicks, no whirring, no complaining. Just silence. Shit. Maybe I bought what will be a permanent open-top car. Gonna have to come back to that.

The rest of the inspection went no better. Brake lights didn’t work, nor did the reverse lights, the dash lights or any of the instruments. In fact, the only thing that worked in the dash was the radio (although not the antenna). Who knew that music was still being broadcast on the AM band?

To even get this car inspected and on the road I was going to need brake and backup lights. The shifter would have to be addressed and probably the brakes. I had certainly paid for a car in better shape than this. It’s amazing how one can be both excited and depressed at the same time.

I called the seller who told me how to get the convertible top going, which I have yet to do, and claimed he knew nothing of the other problems, of course. As I rewound our previous conversations in my head, I realized that I never asked the specific questions that I should have. The guy marketed the car well; he never made an specific claims about things aside from the working top and windows, new paint, lack of rust, overall maintenance and new leather. The car did, in fact, run. I feel like an idiot. Let my mistake be a warning to anyone reading this. Ask specific questions or, even better, go look at the car yourself.

I belong to a local car club and told my story to many of its members. For the most part, the responses were like, “yup, that’s what happened to me the first time I bought a car online.” Or, “I’ve already made that mistake three times and I’m hoping not to do it again, although I suspect I will.” Their comments made me feel better. Misery loves company. This appears to be how these things go down frequently. Still, no excuse.

Today, the car arrived. The driver of the carrier called ahead of time, fairly early in the morning, and since getting down my circuitous driveway would be impossible for a 40′ trailer, I told him where to park the truck near my house. Since I live in a very small town that swells to almost 3X its population with vacationers this time of year, even finding a place to turn a truck around is difficult. Unfortunately, he missed the parking area (the high school) and called me telling me he was parking on the street in the center of town. Really? I hopped in my car and headed over there.

Sure enough, he was occupying about 6 parking spaces on the side of the two lane main street. In about 20 minutes, there wouldn’t be any parking spaces in the center of town. OK, no room for error here. I watched as he opened the big rear door and saw my new 1964 Lincoln Continental for the first time. Well, I saw part of it anyway. It was parked on the upper deck and the top was down. I asked the driver why it was down, fully expecting him to tell me the top didn’t work. Instead, he told me that the car was so wide, he couldn’t open the doors to get out of the car after driving it into the truck, so the top was never closed so he could get out of the car once it was in place. Hmmm. I got it, but it didn’t feel right . . .

I rode up on the rear door (the door swings down and turns into the elevator for the upper cars) and walked to the car. It looked very clean. The paint looked good, the interior looked nice and I breathed a sigh of relief. The driver then told me I would have to drive the car off the truck while he unlatched it and guided me out. Great, The car had about 6 inches of clearance on either side of it and I had no idea how the brakes were going to work.

On the bright side, the engine started right up. Right away I could tell there were problems with the exhaust manifold, but dying of CO at this point was the last thing on my mind. The brakes were, in fact, supremely mushy and it turns out that car carriers do move when you shift 5,400 pounds of vehicle around inside them. Additionally, the steering has about 20 turns lock-to-lock and the power steering pump was wailing away just trying to make small adjustments in the direction of the car. The list of potential problems was growing quickly. Not good. But all that pales in comparison to my apprehension about backing the big car onto the door/elevator that has no rails or any indication of where things start and end.

The car reached the ground just fine and I drove it off the door/elevator. I then got out to inspect things in the light. I became immediately less happy. The paint, which looked fine in the darkness of the carrier, looked decidedly less nice in the light. There were bubbles and drips that were completely noticeable including a huge bubble – 4″ X 2″ – behind the passenger side back door handle. A handle which did not function, by the way. I inspected the car for any damage that might have been related to transport and it looked clean in that respect.

The driver asked me how much I paid for the car. I told him. He laughed. I think that’s a bad sign, no?

I signed all the paperwork and tried to guide the driver verbally to a place that he might be able to turn around. I then got in the car and headed home. Immediately, people started waving, giving me the thumbs-up and honking at me. Instant recognition of the car. I was afraid of waving back because that would have required me taking my hands off the wheel. The steering was so lose and the brakes so soft that I wondered if I was going to make the three mile journey home. I felt elated and disappointed at the same time, but I had the piece of automotive history I wanted. It was a long journey.

For years I dreamt about buying a classic car and bringing it back to glory. Of cruising the streets and taking the family on an ice cream run. The emphasis here is for years. I really haven’t seriously worked on a car in, well, forever. Since high school, actually, and that was a long time ago. Yeah, sure, an oil change here and there and a brake job from time to time, but no real projects. In the meantime, many of the classics I had fantasized about became financially impractical. For example, that 1967 Corvette 427/435HP Tri Power quickly grew out of reach and the late ’60s Mercedes Benz W113 (230SL variety) started to get appreciated by more people, relegating it to the high-bidding car auction set.

There was always another car that I loved though. Unique and outrageous and, in my opinion, gorgeous. That is the 1960s Lincoln Continental Convertible. The fourth generation of Lincoln’s flagship. Yeah you know it, the one with the suicide doors (the rear door is hinged in back), immortalized during the assassination of John F. Kennedy (and for the younger crowd, on the TV show Entourage). Let’s face it, how many four door convertibles have you ever seen? The slab-sided car looks like it goes on forever. And somehow, the car is yet to be appreciated by the collecting masses. They didn’t make loads of them, only 3-4K/year of the convertible during its 9-year production run from 1961-1969, but the prices are still reasonable as classics go.

After searching for several months, I found a car that was very close to what I wanted – a triple black model (black paint, black interior and black convertible top) on eBay. Even better, it was a car originally delivered in Southern California that, apparently, spent its entire life there. I actually had set my sights on a ’65 with its minor upgrades from the original, but the ’64 was still very cool and the year difference was less important to me than the condition of the car.

The description was enticing. A second-owner, sub-60K original mile car in reasonable running condition. Never in an accident. New, high quality paint job with loads of clearcoat, new leather seats, a new top with fully functioning mechanicals and working windows (I had read that a fully-functioning top and windows were classic problems for non-restored Lincolns of the day and that getting them working was a pain in the ass). No rust and well maintained with all original and maintenance documentation.

The seller posted the Warranty Number (sorta like a VIN number, but specific to Ford) for the car and it was easy to look up Ford’s Warranty Number format of the time.

While, in retrospect, I should have asked for a photo of the ID plate, the numbers were as advertised.

As you may know, the current VIN numbering system didn’t come into being until the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of the United States standardized the format in 1981. So online resources that report the repair record or any history of a car given its VIN do not apply to cars prior to that time.

I did more research online and called the owner with my long list of questions. Unfortunately, he had very few direct answers and I had to continually reword my questions to get the information I was looking for. I should have taken this as a huge red flag, but my excitement about the car and what he was telling me grew every minute I was on the phone with him. Still, I tried to let logic prevail and called him back a few days later with more questions. His answers weren’t exactly what I wanted to know, but they served to get me more interested in the car. I was in love, what can I say?

So, I bid on the car. My bid was the highest for about a day and then the bids started moving up fast. I thought my bid was reasonable, but others were, apparently, more in love than I was. Or maybe they knew more? The things that go through one’s head in an auction are wild. I didn’t bid again.

A few days later, I got an email from eBay telling me the car didn’t meet its reserve. It was then that I discovered the owner had the car listed on several sites including Hemmings. It was naive on my part to think that someone wouldn’t do this. FWIW, checking other sites for a car, especially non-auction sites, is a good idea. The non-auction sites will give you a much better idea of how much the seller is really looking for.

I called the owner back and asked him what he would take for the car. He shot high and I shot low. Well, low-er. We settled on a number and agreed to a process for moving forward (more on that in another post). Was I paying too much? If the car was as he described, I wasn’t getting a bargain, but was in the range of what these cars went for in very good condition – the top of the range. I was cool with that. After all it was a triple-black California car with a new top, solid mechanicals and some restoration work. What could go wrong?

You might reasonably ask why I didn’t actually go and see the car or, at least, hire someone do take a look for me. It was, after all, 3,000 miles away. I thought about it and I checked on resources to do it. I even went as far as contacting a couple of people. The bottom line is that no one could get to it for a few days and with the post-auction process still going, I was worried about losing the car and I was in love. Yes, absolutely stupid. Too risky. As you’ll read in subsequent posts, my gamble didn’t pay off.