I love Lincoln “Mark” cars. They’re so classically silly with their outrageous bulk, fake Rolls Royce grill and mammoth engines. The Mark III and Mark IV may look similar but are pretty different in ethos and execution.
The III is a better car. It just is. It has a pre-smog high-compression 460 that makes 365-hp, real wood and leather in the interior and an overall air of class that the MkIV simply does not have.
But there’s something charming about the sheer 1970s garish styling on the IV. The 460 had been smogged down to around 214 (net) hp by then and the interior was now lined with plastic wood and real leather had been replaced by vinyl and velour. It was also even larger than the III. So which do you prefer? The legitimately nicer III or the iconic and throughly 1970s, IV?