I rant about bad photos a lot here on Barn Finds, and craigslist ads seem to be the worst. My apologies for that. Here’s a listing for a 1984 Lincoln Continental with a BMW turbodiesel engine, and the car looked so nice that I had to grab the tip sent in by turbo-powered Tony P! The car is posted here on craigslist in Veneta, Oregon, and they’re asking $6,500. Here is the original listing.
Maybe my favorite Lincoln Continental design since the classic fourth-generation cars (I had a ’66 Continental Coupe, some of you may remember), the seventh-generation Continentals were made for model years 1982 through 1987. Maybe I like them so much because, for me, between 1982 and 1987, I went from parking and washing cars to owning a successful business in my early-20s. I’m also a bustle-back fan, and this body style is great, in my opinion.
The Light Sage paint color is gorgeous, in my opinion, and the matching Sage Green fabric seats look as nice as the exterior does. I don’t see a flaw in this car yet. The bustle-back design was meant to go head-to-head with Cadillac’s bustle-back Seville, and it was a very much toned-down version of that unusual style. The seller is fairly light in photos, and the first photo was a very small vertical; my apologies for how pixelated that one is.
The back seat is shown here, and this is all we see of it, sadly. It’s more for showing the sagging rear headliner, so that’s nice that the seller doesn’t appear to be hiding anything. Their listing is incredibly short, though: “runs and drives good has around 91,000 miles BMW turbo diesel strait 6 engine.” That’s it, no punctuation, no capital letters other than BMW, just bickety-bam, here you go. Here’s a fun brochure of the ’84 Lincoln Continentals.
Still, all is not lost when a craigslist seller takes the time to pop the hood and show an engine photo! Some surface rust is visible here on some of the fasteners and other parts, but the big deal here is the 2.4-liter OHC inline-six, fuel-injected turbodiesel engine! It was jointly designed by BMW, Motoren, and Ford and was rated at a mere 115 horsepower and 155 lb-ft of torque, for a 0 to 60 time of 14.5 seconds, so hit those on ramps hard. It has a fuel-conditioning system with a water separator, a fuel heater, and a water level warning light. It’s backed by a ZF 4HP22 four-speed automatic sending power to the rear wheels. We know it runs well, and this car looks great to me. Popping the hood would ensure a crowd at any Cars & Coffee-type event. Would any of you drive a BMW diesel-powered Continental with a bustle back? I sure would.
You would also have great fun hanging out with the boys at the truck stop!
How sensible it was for Ford to “co-develop” with BMW, instead of writing off the entire two year belly-flop.
Once again, I’ve learned something new. I did not know you could get a mid 80’s Continental with a Diesel, and one that BMW had a hand in its design nonetheless. Really cool. Those numbers may not sound like much, but I’d be willing to wager dollars for donuts that the torque starts at a nice low rpm, probably cruises somewhat effortlessly. Thanks for teaching me something new today Scotty.
Beautiful Continental, with a garbage engine. Probably wouldn’t be worth a 302 swap, unless you’re planning on keeping it for a while.