While war clouds were clearly on the horizon in 1941, Americans were still shocked by the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7 of that year.  The idea that we were isolated from hostilities by two great oceans was shattered. Still, the attack forged a terrible resolve in all Americans to strike a mortal blow to our enemies.  To do so meant sacrifice.  Americans would shift all non-essential production of goods to manufacturing war materials.  This included our beloved automobiles.  Whoever originally took delivery of this 1942 Lincoln Zephyr club coupe for sale on Craigslist in Madison, Georgia managed to secure a beautiful luxury car that would have to last the duration of the war.  Now, 83 years later this well-kept survivor with just 43,461 miles on the odometer is looking for a new caretaker.  With an asking price of $44,500, would you be interested in this twelve-cylinder luxury car?

America was a weary country at the start of the 1940s.  Americans had struggled for over a decade with a crippling economic depression that left no part of the country untouched.  Then, just as Americans got back on their feet, war clouds began to loom in Asia and Europe.  There was little stomach for entering another conflict of this magnitude with the crippling effects of The Great War still on the minds of many.  Isolationism was rampant and the hope was that Europe would solve its problems without our getting involved this time and that the Japanese could be contained and managed.  The Roosevelt Administration did not, however, believe that we could avoid becoming entangled in this conflict.  Work began behind the scenes to put America on a war footing.

The luxury of preparing for war at our leisure was brutally snatched away on December 7, 1941.  Japanese planes sank a majority of the Pacific battleship fleet and the hopes of isolation sank with them.  America was at war and the entire country focused on defeating Germany and Japan along with their allies.  This not only meant drafting tens of thousands of Americans for military service.  It also meant that most companies, from small-town machine shops to all the automobile manufacturers, would begin building the items needed to win the war.  In his book A Call to Arms: Mobilizing America for World War II, historian Maury Klein goes into great detail about how American industrial might was mobilized to fight the war and how it was a deciding factor in our eventual victory on September 2, 1945.  The scope of the whole effort was staggering in size and incredibly complex.

The 1942 Lincoln you see here is an exceptionally rare automobile from that pivotal year.  Lincoln produced just 6,545 1942 models.  Of which just 253 were club coupes.  The seller tells us that it was an older restoration, but it still presents well. The paint, brightwork, and interior are all very presentable. A perusal of the pictures reveals that someone has installed seat belts, implying that whoever owned it planned to drive the car instead of just trailering it around.  While everyone fawns over the Continental, that special model is just a restyled Zephyr and all of the positives of getting behind the wheel are exactly the same.