It’s strange, but cars like the Lincoln pictured above don’t really exist anymore. Displaced by the “European-inspired Handling” trend, those big, comfy, floaty cars never made much of a comeback. There are comfortable cars being made today — Mercedes makes them, Rolls-Royce and Bentley do, too — but the approach is different. Those cars start with a stiff chassis, competent-if-not-great handling, rubber band tires, etc., and add tricks like Magic Ride Control and active suspension to gobble up the bumps.
The Lincoln and its ilk — well, the idea was that you shouldn’t necessarily know there’s a road at all. Are you a mass of steel, glass and rubber, rolling along a paved surface? Or are you floating as if suspended on a breeze? No way to know. The idea of wending through a line of little orange cones, slaloming? Finding the apex? Slamming on the brakes? Relax, buddy.
These cars were dirt cheap and somewhat common when I was a kid, which meant that not only were they still reasonably common among fastidious grandparents, but a few of my friends and classmates drove big, wallowing, comfy American cars. We took them on road trips, hooned them around and generally luxuriated in bench-seated, soft-sprung, torquey American comfort.
Lately, the idea of a big, cozy personal luxury car has become appealing to me — like maybe I’ll skip my looming midlife crisis and go straight to my Golden Years phase. Get some slacks and start playing golf again. Which is why I was reading this listing when I began to wonder, “Wait, is there possibly a large portion of our readership that missed the comfy car era completely?” According to the demographics listed in the Jalopnik media kit for potential advertisers, I’d say it’s more than possible.
Please, someone hop in the comments below and tell me they’ve known true driving/passengering comfort.