August 23, 2022 Update – The winning bidder ended the auction one day early by selecting the “Buy Now” option of $7,500!

August 10, 2022 Update – After not meeting the seller’s original reserve price during our first auction of this Lincoln in June, the seller just agreed to lower their reserve price and is having us conduct a second-chance auction.  Don’t let this cream puff get away a second time!

Guys With Rides is excited to offer this 1988 Lincoln Town Car in a reserve-style online auction on behalf of the private seller. Bidding opened Wednesday, August 10, and will continue for fourteen (14) consecutive days ending at 3:00 PM Eastern time on Wednesday, August 24, 2022.

The private seller reports their Lincoln Town Car has only 56,330 original miles, and he has owned it since 1990 when he purchased the car with only 20K miles on it.  We personally photographed the car, and our detailed pictures can be reviewed in the galleries below.

This 1988 Lincoln Town Signature Series is part of a collection near Scranton, Pennsylvania.

(NOTE: Click on the picture to stop the slide show and expand the pictures. Scroll down to see all photographs)

Winning Bid: $7,500

For 1981, the Lincoln Town Car was introduced, consolidating the Continental and Continental Town Car into a single model line slotted below the Mark VI.

Largely similar to the 1980 Lincoln Continental, the Lincoln Town Car was offered as a two-door and four-door sedan (the Town Coupe nameplate was discontinued). Largely overshadowed by its Mark VI counterpart, the Town Car two-door was discontinued for 1982. As the Mark VII was introduced for 1984, Lincoln pared its full-size line down solely to the Town Car four-door sedan.

At the time of its launch, the Town Car had been slated for replacement by front-wheel-drive model lines (in anticipation of further volatility in fuel prices); as fuel prices began to stabilize, demand initially rose for the model line, leading Lincoln-Mercury to produce the Town Car through the 1980s with few visible changes. Over 200,000 were sold for 1988, the highest ever for the model line. However, this increase was mostly due to an extended 1988 Town Car model year which ran from March 1987 to October 1988 instead of the usual 12-month period. Conversely, the 1987 Town Car with its shortened model year only had sales of just over 76,000. Although remaining Lincoln’s top-selling model, calendar-year sales declined each year for the Town Car between 1986 and 1989. This decline was mostly blamed on its aging design and the increased popularity of the Continental which had been fully redesigned for 1988.

The 1980–1989 Lincoln Continental/Town Car utilized the Panther platform shared with Ford and Mercury. Delayed to the 1980 model year due to engineering issues, the Panther platform meant radically different exterior dimensions for the Lincoln models. Although extended three inches in wheelbase over its Ford/Mercury/Mark VI coupe counterparts, the 1980-1989 versions would have the shortest wheelbase ever used for a full-size Lincoln at the time (ten inches shorter than its 1979 predecessor). The 1980 Continental/Town Car was the shortest Lincoln since the Versailles. In the interest of fuel economy and handling, the Panther chassis reduced weight by up to 1400 pounds compared to the 1970-1979 full-size Lincolns. As the lightest full-size Lincoln in 40 years, the 1980 Continental/Town Car came within less than 200 pounds of the curb weight of the compact-sized Versailles. The new Panther platform meant reduced overall size, better suspension geometry, and upgraded power steering with a reduced turning diameter by over 8 feet (compared to the 1979 Lincoln Continental). For 1984, gas-pressurized shocks were added.

To achieve better Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) results, Ford discontinued the 400 and 460 big-block V8s in its full-size cars. In 1980, a 130 hp 4.9 L V8 (the 302 Windsor, marketed as a “5.0 L” V8) was the standard engine.  In 1986, the 302 V8 was revised to 150 horsepower, following a redesign of the fuel-injection system with the introduction of sequential multi-port fuel injection. These engines are identifiable by their cast aluminum upper intake manifolds with horizontal throttle bodies (vertical throttle plate); this replaced the traditional throttle body with a carburetor-style top-mounted air cleaner previously used. Introduced in the Lincoln Continental for 1980 and marketed in all Panther-platform vehicles in 1981, the Lincoln Town Car was equipped with the 4-speed AOD automatic overdrive transmission, the sole transmission of 1981-1989 examples.

The second owner purchase this 1988 Lincoln Town Car in 1990 when the car had only 20K original miles. In the three decades since, the seller used this Town Car as his Sunday driver. As a result, he’s only added 36K more miles, or roughly only 1,200 miles annually ever since.

The complimentary CarFax® below documents the car’s regular service and mileage since new.  To review the CarFax, please click on the picture below. When finished, click on your browser’s back button to return back to this listing:

Based on our personal observations of this survivor-quality 1988 Lincoln Town Car, we completed the following Pre-Purchase Inspection (“PPI”).  Click on the picture below to review our findings. When finished, click your browser’s back button to return to this page:

To help you make informed bids, we’re providing a link to Classic.com, the analytics and search engine for the Classic Car market, that provides an interactive graph of recent comparable sales in the past two years. By clicking on the green dots, you can navigate to each comparable car sold as a way to help you make an educated bid on the car we are featuring for auction here:

Here’s the Exterior Photograph Gallery.  Click on a desired picture to expand it and then navigate between all of the other pictures

Here’s the Interior Photograph Gallery.  Click on the desired picture to expand it and then navigate between all of the other pictures.

Here’s the Underhood and Undercarriage Photograph Gallery.  Click on the desired picture to expand it and then navigate between all of the other pictures.

Here’s the Tires & Wheels Photograph Gallery.  Click on the desired picture to expand it and then navigate between all of the other pictures.

Here’s the Convertible Top & Windows Photograph Gallery.  Click on the desired picture to expand it and then navigate between all of the other pictures.

Here’s the Documentation Photograph Gallery.  Click on the desired picture to expand it and then navigate between all of the other pictures.

If you have any questions about this 1988 Lincoln Town Car Signature Edition, please leave a comment below or feel free to call Rudy directly at 877-468-6497.  Thank you for looking and happy bidding!