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That time Lincoln built a land-speed Mark VIII and set a 182 MPH record at Bonneville


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When I was in Ford Asset program, I heard that story. They said the Mark VIII had more computer power and communication networks than a space shuttle. 
Another thing I saw that the guys at Ford did, was put on a video making fun of the Chevy trucks. It was called “like a crock” it had a Chevy truck with fenders falling off. Very funny. My instructor showed it to us. They took the song like a rock and changed the lyrics. Wish I got a copy. 
Those were good times for sure! 

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MARKs and their cousins, the MN-12s were some of the finest cars Ford ever built. They were ragged on for their fat ass barely under 4000 lb curb weights, but they handled, rode and drove very well. Did a 97 T-bird with full urethane suspension and Bilstein shocks, a Mark center section (aluminum vs steel) and filled it with 3.55's and limited slip, Mark rear lower control arms (aluminum vs steel), the "260 hp" 2V Mustang cams that someone was practically giving away after a cam swap, a PI intake, elbow and throttle body, shorty direct fit headers and topped it off a full "J-Mod" to the trans and aluminum driveshaft. Cost was minimal due to mostly stock parts. Thing handled like it was on rails and seriously woke up, power and shift wise. An absolute HOOT to drive. More fun than my very lightly modded 5 speed SC, but don't tell the guy who owned the 97... 

 

MARK was FULL of performance potential. 4 valve 4.6, fantastic suspension for its day. Through some jacking around we discovered that they seriously pulled power during the shifts to keep it smooth. That was easily fixable. :)

 

You had to be careful with gears on the Birds and Cougars. The long ass single piece driveshaft had a tendency to turn to spaghetti at high speed with deep gears. Most Marks got aluminum shafts or had 2 piece. I imagine the "lock out 4th" in the article was more for this reason as well as the AOD family tends to hate WOT into and in OD.  

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Ford used to produce special videos for meeting that were very creative and very funny, not necessarily making fun of the competition but of their own products. There was one years ago that was a take off on the Ford Festiva that was a commercial for the Ford Adobe... a Festiva that was made of adobe showing the driver demonstrating the body contouring seats... literally squishing into the adobe seats and then demonstrating the cupholders with the driver pushing a cup into the top of the adobe dash. I don't know if they still those types of videos for in-house and dealer meetings as I stopped going to the meeting years ago but they were very entertaining.

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16 minutes ago, ice-capades said:

Ford used to produce special videos for meeting that were very creative and very funny, not necessarily making fun of the competition but of their own products. There was one years ago that was a take off on the Ford Festiva that was a commercial for the Ford Adobe... a Festiva that was made of adobe showing the driver demonstrating the body contouring seats... literally squishing into the adobe seats and then demonstrating the cupholders with the driver pushing a cup into the top of the adobe dash. I don't know if they still those types of videos for in-house and dealer meetings as I stopped going to the meeting years ago but they were very entertaining.

 

Wasn't that an SNL skit called The Adobe? I vaguely remember that one.

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