1938 Lincoln Zephyr limousine 35K miles San Antonio 65K OBO

[StillOutThere]

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/730414961758060/?hoisted=false&ref=search&referral_code=null&referral_story_type=post

 

1938 Lincoln Zephyr Town Sedan Limousine. This is an amazing example showing only 35,000 miles. This car is almost completely original. The interior is all original and the exterior is mostly original paint with only a small amount of touch up. The car runs and drives like new and everything works as it should. Only 130 of these were made with very few remaining. The Zephyr is powered by a V12 flathead engine with hydraulic lifters that produces enough power to make the car capable of 90mph.

 

Not mine.  True division glass limousine.  How many '38 Zephyr limos were built?

 

 

Edited January 15, 2023 by StillOutThere
add price in (see edit history)

[StillOutThere]

Appears to be the same car?   

https://classiccars.com/listings/view/942291/1938-lincoln-zephyr-for-sale-in-essex-junction-vermont-05452  

[Fossil]

Tidy profit. 

 

 

[TerryB]

14 minutes ago, Fossil said:

Tidy profit. 

 

 

I hasn’t sold yet so….

[bryankazmer]

Interesting car - why would Lincoln build a limo on the Zephyr platform instead of the big Lincoln?  If for commercial use, you'd expect a seven passenger sedan instead of a limo.

[m-mman]

5 hours ago, bryankazmer said:

Interesting car - why would Lincoln build a limo on the Zephyr platform instead of the big Lincoln?  If for commercial use, you'd expect a seven passenger sedan instead of a limo.

Because it is 1938 and the era of what today we call the big Classic is over.  

Too big, too heavy, too difficult to maneuver in traffic, especially when most cars are now owner driven. The depression is almost a decade old and employing a chauffeur is becoming rare and even seen as gaushe in many circles. Nobody is buying the dinosaurs. 

 

Pierce Arrow is dead, Packard's 12 will be gone within a year, Cadillac's 12 is gone. Yes their new 16 is out, but it is a low cost version and shares the chassis of the V-8 series 75.  Lincoln's K series is 6 years old and like most all the Classics it is technologically obsolete.

 

Then comes the question; What kind of car do moneyed buyers want to buy?  The age of town cars is long over. Owner driven seems to be the future but there is still a small market for long wheelbase 7 passenger versions. 

 

Cadillac has a variety of bodies and wheelbases it can share with other divisions.

 

Packard is working on adapting their (economy) 120 cars into the high line 160-180 versions. They are a frame-body construction  and can be lengthened.

 

Unfortunately Lincoln's budget and technologically current model, is built with a unibody design that is difficult to stretch. They are working on making a 7 passenger version but it wont be ready until 1941. (Lincoln did build ONE 1938 Zephyr town car using the convertible sedan body). But just in case somebody did want a divided Lincoln that can maneuver and park within New York city, they offered this "Town Limousine".  Production and sales proves that nobody did. 

 

HOWEVER, Lincoln does have a winner in the pipeline. Edsel directed his best stylists to channel the Zephyr convertible, make the top look like a convertible victoria, square off the back end, and then to give it a European look, go against current trends and mount the spare outside the the trunk.  Behold a desirable car who's focal points will be imitated for the next 15 to 20 years. 

 

One era was over and the next was still very unclear. Edsel pulled a rabbit out of his hat keeping the Zephyr current. 

 

 

[58L-Y8]

On 1/15/2023 at 6:20 PM, bryankazmer said:

Interesting car - why would Lincoln build a limo on the Zephyr platform instead of the big Lincoln?  If for commercial use, you'd expect a seven passenger sedan instead of a limo.

There were still 7-passenger sedans and limousine Model K Lincolns catalogued but as m-mman describes, the market was turning its back on the grandiose large Classic luxury sedans both because it was socially less acceptable to flaunt one's wealth as the Depression lingered and because smaller owner-driven luxury sedans were being embraced.  Lincoln still had a customer base who employed chauffeurs however diminishing, a Zephyr Town Limousine gave them a ready alternative.  Edsel Ford, who was a savvy auto man would have recognized this, had the Town Limousine added to the model selection to fill out the choices as well as add a dash of further luxury to the upper-medium-priced Lincoln-Zephyr.  As the Lincoln K sales dwindled, there were still plenty of craftsmen at the plant available to do minor custom work on production cars.

[m-mman]

Before he died in 1943, Edsel was asked why he (FoMoCo) stopped making the big Lincoln K 12s. 

His answer. . . . "We never stopped making them, people stopped buying them!"   

 

He was ready to keep going with production (the base car had not changed in years) but each year, sales kept dropping and dropping and dropping.