You’re looking at my mill stone. I’ve had this car for 10 years now — through four educational institutions, six domiciles and more girlfriends than I care to think about. It’s a ’71 Lincoln Continental Mark III, powered by the thirstiest engine Ford ever produced, a 460 big block. I’ve never driven this car. Partly because it terrifies me, and partially because this car wants to be dead. Every time I thought I had it straight enough for a maiden voyage, something else sprouted up to suck my bank account dry and cause me to curse the ghosts of FoMoCo engineering. Once, just as everything was buttoned up and ready to go, the passenger side door latch broke as a buddy hopped in. Try finding a door latch for a two-door ’71 Lincoln. Another time the trans cooler in the radiator erupted, mixing coolant with tranny fluid and archaic radiator stop leak. That was a mess. Read on for a tale of resurrection.

About two months ago I vowed to put it on the road come hell or high water, as they say in these parts (Da South). A new radiator, lots and lots of CLR, brand new water pump and most importantly, a Holley 4160 carburetor were all part of the mix. Why the new carb? For those of you fortunate enough to have never suffered through 70’s Ford engineering, the original Autolite carb was good for all kinds of things. You could hit yourself in the face with it. You could use it to block your wheels, to shoot at or as a hideous paper weight. Pretty much anything but putting fuel and air into the motor.

Why did the car’s radiator give way? Because the shitty carb on top had the car running lean. Lean=Hot. Hot=bunches of expensive parts to replace. To fix the problem I stopped eating for a month, saved up some scratch and handed over fistfuls of dollar bills for the new bits. I ripped out the diseased radiator, pulled the old water pump and flushed the block with CLR to ditch any nasty radiator stop-leak deposits (never, ever use that crap). Lumps of green and rust colored slime came pouring out of the block in a perfect recreation of some serious horror movie special effects. Think ebola virus. You get the picture.

After bolting up the front of the engine, I set about dropping a traditionally GM carburetor on a pure Blue Oval engine. Full disclaimer time: I know jack about carburetors. For all I know there’s a tiny voodoo doctor down there sacrificing chickens and shrinking heads. Would you be surprised to hear there were complications? I thought not. A home-made spacer, bunches of brackets, linkages, lots of time searching forums and more curses later I had the Holley sittin’ pretty on top of the motor. In the past, the car drank about a quarter can of ether before firing. I jumped behind the wheel, pumped the throttle and listened to the unbelievable song of all 8 cylinders firing. It was nirvana. I’m going to name my first child, male or female, Holley. You watch.

Of course, with gas prices the way they are, finally resurrecting an 8 mpg (downhill) leviathan is more than a touch ironic. I’m half deaf in my left ear thanks to an exhaust leak on the passenger side and an unexplained high-pitched whistle (I’m looking your way, homemade spacer) and my left hand is bruised in the shape of the car’s air horn thanks to some serious suction action (using your hand as a choke is a bad choice) Still, it feels good to know I kept the car out of the scrap yard and on the tarmac. Now we get to see if it’ll make the 300 mile hike to Tennessee. Keep your fingers crossed, and I’ll keep you posted.