We usually think of a barn find as a dusty old pickup or a 1940s or 50s sedan that has been hiding for decades, often used as housing by mice, and is in poor condition. This 1987 Lincoln Town Car is said to be a barn find, and you can find it posted here on craigslist in Cottage Grove, Minnesota, and they’re asking $3,995. Here is the original listing; it may not last too long at this price.
The seller says that this Town Car is “grandpa’s old car that was taken out of storage last year, and fixed up to make it drivable again.” It’s showing some scratches and paint issues, and they say there isn’t much rust for a car of this age. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Some underside photos would be handy here, as Minnesota uses a lot of road salt in the winter months. Hagerty is at $3,000 for a #4 fair-condition example, which may be on the money here.
The first-generation Town Car was made from 1980 for the 1981 model year through 1989, and you can see that this car isn’t perfect by any means. In fact, parts of the rocker panel areas and wheel arches look pretty rough. That demon snow, I’ve had my share of it over the decades. This car is almost four decades old and we don’t know how long it was parked, but clearly it has been driven in the winter months.
The interior looks nice with dark blue leather seats. Lincoln seats seem to show deep wrinkles more than most for some reason, and these are no exception. Maybe they can be dyed. We saw a similar-age Town Car recently here on Barn Finds, and it had 100,000 fewer miles, but had similar seat wrinkles; that’s strange. The back seats look equal in quality and use to the front seats.
You can see the back seating area here, since there was no engine photo in the listing. The engine is Ford’s 302-cu.in. OHV V8 with 150 horsepower and 270 lb-ft of torque. Backed by a four-speed automatic sending power to the rear wheels, this one is said to run and drive well. A lot of work has been done since taking it out of grandpa’s storage, including: “Battery, Starter, Fuel tank, fuel pump, sending unit and filter; Front brake rotors, pads, calipers, steel lines and hoses; Front coil springs, sway bar links.” Would you take a chance on this barn find Town Car without seeing it in person?
Being from Minnesota I would like to see under hood and undercarriage pictures. Steel brake lines changed out means rusted out to me.
Too much possible rust although the rest looks fine.
It would’ve been helpful if the person had provided a frontal dash photo to determine whether the car has an Analog or Digital instrument panel. Normally sellers don’t think about that factor when advertising these Town Car’s with that particular option on models from 1980-89.
Which is better on these models?
Well I’m a little partial being that my cousin first had a 1980 T-Bird “Town Landau” he bought in 1981 with the digital dash also the “keyless entry” with the push button combination entry option which really had me flabbergasted because in 1981 at 15 years old I never thought I would ever see something like that in my life! Ha! Then in 1983 my cousin traded his T-Bird in for a 1980 Lincoln Continental Town Car with the same digital instrument panel ie: Speedometer & Gas Gauge. And although I’ve owned a 1981 Lincoln Town Car “Coupe” 2-door back in the mid-90’s but unfortunately with the analog dash. Personally, I would prefer the Digital dash on the Town Car. It’s so innovative and classy even on the last year of the big one’s model Town Car’s of 1989.
I’ve had both digital and analog and the digital is fine until something stops working. After that it’s like putting tooth picks back in the box. I would go for analog every time now.
I bought an 81 like this several years ago off a donation lot. It looked nice but had a boatload of issues. starting with replacing most of the heater hoses. Then I found the computer was fried. At the time I worked for an auto parts distributor. We had a source for computers. They couldn’t anything with an 81 Lincoln. I found a shop to change the fuel injection to a carb. I drove it for a while longer till the timing chain blew. I would like another in better shape. Very neat cars.