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February 2010 (Archived)

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Saturday, February 27, 2010 9:26:57 AM

Our 1973 Lincoln Continental section is now officially online. Many of you may have previewed this section last night, but we thought we'd mention it again in case you missed it. (We always think the latest updates are our best work ever, at least at the time we put them online. Later, we go back and see things we'd have done differently to make it better, and we usually get around to making corrections so it is better.

Lincoln had a great year in 1973. The new Town Coupé added a new model to the line, and sales of both the Lincoln Continental models and the popular 1973 Continental Mark IV were setting new records. In fact, 1973 would be Lincoln's best sales year to date, in fact the entire U.S. automobile industry shattered production and sales records for the year. But unknown to most at the time, dark clouds were looming ahead. While Lincoln and the rest of the industry was looking forward to another record setting year in 1974, a gas crisis would hit shortly after the 1974 models were introduced. While this had no impact on 1973 sales, it would take a tremendous toll on 1974 sales.

So, let your mind wander back to a simpler time...1973. America was watching All In the Family, Sanford and Son, Hawaii Five-O, Maude, and Bridget Loves Bernie on television. At the movies, we were being terrified by The Exorcist, falling in love with Paul Newman and Robert Redford as con men in The Sting, and remembering the carefree summer of 1962 in American Graffiti. And some of us were going to see those movies in a 1973 Lincoln Continental, the cars judged by a majority of Cadillac owners to have the most comfortable ride.

Friday, February 26, 2010 7:05:21 PM

You're invited to preview the 1973 Lincoln Continental section of AM, which makes an official debut tomorrow. AM Blog readers are being given this special opportunity, and will be among the first to see the new section!

The 1973 Lincolns were and are pretty incredible automobiles. Great looking in a traditional way, and more interior room than any new car owner would know what to do with. A new Town Coupé was added to the line to provide a more formal two door model for customers who didn't want a Mark IV, for whatever reason.

There's a lot to see and read about in this section. We even have a photo of the Cadillac owners Lincoln invited to the Hotel Bel-Air to compare their Cadillacs with the new Lincolns. Care to guess which car won? Read the article!

Enjoy your evening!

Tuesday, February 23, 2010 6:32:01 AM

A faster AutomotiveMileposts.com! Last night, our technicians made a couple of changes to our server configuration that should greatly speed up the site for most visitors. Those of you on a cable connection might not notice a lot of change, but it should be obvious if you look for it. Visitors using dial up connections should receive the greatest benefit, however. Your load times should be significantly reduced.

What did we do? We are now compressing the text-based portions of the site. The recent versions of most of the popular browsers automatically ask for compressed data whenever they send a request for a page. If the server is set up to send this type of data, that's what is sent, and your computer restores it and displays it once the file is received. Your computer can restore and display this data much faster than it can be sent over a network, so it results in much faster page displays for the user.

Our testing showed that in some cases, file sizes were reduced by over 75 percent. We know that no one likes to look at sites with tiny images, and we know that no one likes to sit and wait for a page to finish loading. So, this is a compromise that should allow for a better experience for everyone. If your browser is an older version, it probably won't ask for a compressed file, so our server won't try to send one. You'll still get the normal response, with the normal file size. Most of the popular sites on the internet compress data, so this isn't necessarily something new, it's just something that not all sites have done in the past.

We hope this change benefits everyone and makes it easier to view pages at AM. Have a good Tuesday, everyone! We're working on the 1973 Lincoln section right now, and hope to have it ready to go online soon.

Monday, February 22, 2010 9:08:47 AM

We're pleased to announce the arrival of the 1972 Lincoln Continental. 1972 was a good year for Lincoln, attractive styling updates to the front and rear of the car gave it a fresh look, and the upper bodyside design in the rear door area was changed to give the car a more pronounced "kick up." These changes were apparently pleasing to luxury car buyers in 1972, and sales were up 29% over 1971.

The Town Car (separate page published last week) was added as a full production model as well, and updates late in the year brought new interior upholsteries and an updated list of features for the car. An AM push button radio with dual front and rear speakers and a power antenna was added to the list of standard equipment, and base prices actually dropped slightly. The cost of most options dropped a bit as well, making 1972 an excellent year to purchase a new Lincoln.

In a test of 100 owners of "the other American luxury car," 60 of them said the Continentals had a more comfortable ride. The 1972 Continentals were smooth, steady, quiet motorcars designed to isolate interior passengers from the world outside, which is exactly what luxury car buyers expected of their luxury cars in 1972.

Saturday, February 20, 2010 6:56:18 PM

Sneak preview time for blog readers. We're publishing pages on two Special Edition models introduced in January 1974 for the Ford Thunderbird. They are the Burgundy Luxury Group and the White and Gold Luxury Group. The Burgundy one is very elegant and understated. The perfect car to take to a dinner and dance at the country club, or to the opera. Burgundy inside and out with Gold accent stripes and wire wheel covers! Wow!!

The White and Gold one is pretty spectacular. It has a Polar White finish with Gold Fire along the lower bodysides, under the matching gold wide vinyl insert bodyside moldings. And inside...incredible is the word...White leather seats with Gold Flare vinyl trim. The seat side panels, instrument panel, steering wheel and column, carpeting, door panels, etc., are Gold. Inserts on the door and side panels are white vinyl. Someone at Ford had great vision when they put this one together.

Click the links and enjoy the new pages on Saturday night. We'll tell the rest of the world about them tomorrow (or Monday). Enjoy!

Tuesday, February 16, 2010 6:58:06 AM

The 1972 Lincoln Continental Town Car became a full fledged Lincoln production model, to provide Lincoln with a more luxurious vehicle to better compete with Cadillac. Cadillac's Fleetwood Brougham had been around for years, and was now being heavily promoted by Cadillac as the ultimate luxury car for those times when a chauffeur isn't available. The Fleetwood Series was positioned a bit higher up the scale than the typical Sedan deVille and Coupe deVille, which were Cadillac's bread and butter cars, and that is where the Lincoln Continentals had been targeted.

With the Town Car, Lincoln also could offer its customers something a bit more exclusive than the Lincoln sedan. With a more luxuriously appointed interior and amenities not offered elsewhere, the Town Car was a discreet yet obvious sign that not only had one truly arrived financially, they were actually quite comfortable, thank you.

Initially offered with only leather interiors, two cloth interiors were introduced later in the year. The Town Car line would be expanded in 1973 to create the Town Coupé, although the assortment of interior colors would be more limited going forward.

We hope you enjoy this brief trip back in the time machine to 1972. The rest of the 1972 Lincoln line will be joining the Town Car page soon. Queue up Brandy by The Looking Glass, Garden Party by Rick Nelson, or I Am Woman by Helen Reddy for the appropriate background music.

Monday, February 15, 2010 8:33:18 AM

1961 Lincoln Continental Exterior Paint Colors and Interior Trim Codes page is now online. From time to time, we get special requests from site visitors for information that isn't yet provided online. Normally, we attempt to answer any questions directly, if the data we need to do so is available to us. In this instance, we have made an exception, and will see how it works out. We received requests for some information on the 1961 Lincolns from several regular site visitors. It seems they were interested in purchasing one of the first "slab side" Lincolns, and wanted some specifics as to what colors and trim options were available.

We're happy to honor their request, and may do this again in the future under the right circumstances. We normally schedule time to research and develop the various sections of the site, and find if we deflect to other things too often, we fall behind. To give you and idea of how far behind we've fallen, by now we should be publishing Phase Four of the site. (We're currently publishing Phase Two!) So, had we stuck to our original schedule, the 1961 Lincolns would have already been online, and these special requests wouldn't have been necessary!

At any rate, we hope you enjoy the page. The 1961 Lincolns will have individual pages for everything when that section is published, just like all the other vehicles. But at least we are able to accommodate the requests from a group of visitors who support and enjoy our site. Thanks for your support, and we hope you enjoy this one page until we get to that section. Now...back to work! (The 1972 Lincoln Continental is next in line to be published.)

Saturday, February 13, 2010 9:02:35 AM

Elegance in action for 1968: Cadillac! Automotive Mileposts welcomes the 1968 Cadillac to the site. New styling had been introduced the previous year, and new sales records were set, so changes were substantial—but few—for the year. The big news was a powerful new 472 V-8 engine, designed to provide adequate power for accessories such as power steering, air conditioning, and a larger generator to power electrical accessories like power windows and seats, as well as provide smoothness and extra power reserves for passing at turnpike speeds. It was the biggest, smoothest engine ever put in a production motor car at the time.

There were enough exterior styling changes made so it was easy to identify the 1968 models, such as a new front grille and a new rear bumper. Important new safety features like side marker lights and parking lights that illuminated with headlamps, a redesigned padded instrument panel, larger exterior mirrors, and more made the new Cadillacs safer than ever before.

A noticeably softer ride pampered the lucky passengers, handling was more effortless than ever before, and the interior offered virtually complete sound insulation. Take a tour of elegance in action for 1968...Cadillac is a pleasure unduplicated on the world's highways!

Saturday, February 13, 2010 7:08:50 PM

Regarding the notice from earlier today (above), due to the migration of Automotive Mileposts to new server hardware, we delayed publishing the 1968 Cadillac section, as well as a couple dozen other changes. We are, however, going to publish now. We wanted you to know there was a delay in case you visited the site earlier and didn't see the updates when you were here.

Thanks again for your patience during our server troubles. We hope to have this all behind us soon. Enjoy the remainder of your weekend!

Friday, February 12, 2010 2:25:17 PM

Due to ongoing performance issues with our server, the decision has been made to replace it with all new hardware. The new one is being set up now, and migration of the site will begin once everything is installed, tested, and running. There may be some downtime during this time, although it should be minimal. Our apologies for the inconvenience, and our gratitude for your patience over the last couple of weeks. We will keep you advised on our Site Status page.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010 5:58:47 AM

AM Offline Monday, February 8-Tuesday, February 9, 2010: During the early morning hours of Monday, February 8th, the file system on our server went read-only. Our technicians forced a system utility known as FSCK (File System Check - a file system check) to correct, but later determined a bad disc in the RAID (redundant array of independent discs) needed to be replaced. That was done, but the files were corrupt, so the server had to be restored from back-up. This can be a slow process, as we were doing a bare-metal restore (the process of completely re-installing the operating system and software applications after reformatting).

When the restore reached 28%, the server crashed. We rebooted the server and continued to restore, only to discover yet another bad disc in the RAID! It was also replaced, and the FSCK process was initiated once again. Fortunately, all data restored prior to the crash was intact, so we were able to start where we left off. Once that was completed, we rebuilt RAID in single user mode.

Late on Tuesday night, the server came back online. It is still running a bit slower than it should, which was an ongoing problem for a couple of weeks before we went offline on Monday, and we are continuing to look into that. The most recent usable back up was from Saturday, February 6th, so overnight there have been some images not loading and approximately 37 updates made to the site on Sunday had to be republished. That was done this morning, and our technicians are continuing to monitor the server performance. We will also be checking for any missing or damaged files that need to be fixed, and will take care of those as we discover them.

Our apologies for the down time, multiple hardware failures often can't be predicted, and the manner in which this failure occurred took a lot of time to repair and rebuild the site. Unfortunately, the rebuilding process is automatic and cannot be sped up.

We will be considering our options going forward, including moving the site to a new server, and/or running multiple servers in separate data centers to better balance the load and greatly reduce the likelihood of the site being offline for a long time again. We appreciate your patience during this time, it was very frustrating for us as well.

Sunday, February 07, 2010 12:53:40 PM

Navigational Menu Update: We've finished updating the navigation menu at the top of some pages on the site. We are still testing it, and may be making a few more changes to it in the coming weeks. It appears to be working properly in the latest versions of Internet Explorer and Firefox, which are by far the two most popular browsers visitors use when viewing our site. Once we've completed our testing, we may add the menu to additional pages as well as check the performance in Safari and Chrome, which are the third and fourth most used browsers by visitors.

About 90 percent of site visitors should be able to use the menu now, which is up from about 73 percent a few months ago, so we've made significant improvements with this update. Thanks for your patience, and please let us know if you experience any problems with the menu. (Contact information is available in the menu, or contact to send us a message.

Saturday, February 06, 2010 5:47:58 PM

Classic Car Technical Articles: 1968-1971 Thunderbird and 1969-1971 Continental Mark III Rear Window Defogger Installation

Attention: 1968-1971 Thunderbird and 1969-1971 Continental Mark III owners! Would you like to install a factory Rear Window Defogger in your car? If your car doesn't have one, it's a great accessory that adds value to your car, and makes it more comfortable to drive as well. The two speed motor unit is self contained, balanced, and very quiet. A control on the instrument panel below your heat and air controls turns it on and off. In addition to clearing the rear window of fog, it also helps melt frost and ice. During warm months, it helps to distribute air in the rear seat area, which improves overall interior cooling.

This article walks you through the installation process step-by-step, provides a list of parts needed, as well as part numbers to search for. We've even provided links to eBay to help you locate what you need!

Thursday, February 04, 2010 6:45:06 PM

A special advanced peek for our blog readers tonight!

The 1967 Cadillac section is online. Take a few moments tonight to journey back to the Surprisingly New, Superbly Cadillac of 1967! You'll be among the very first to see the new pages before we officially announce them tomorrow.

View paint colors, interior trims, options and prices, production, and more. Did you know customers could order bucket seats and console in the Hardtop Sedan deVille? They could, and you rarely ever see them! (Buckets were also available on the Coupe deVille and DeVille Convertible.)

Cadillac set a new sales record in 1967, and the all-new styling no doubt attracted many into the showrooms (as well as the debut of the new Fleetwood Eldorado personal luxury car). There's little doubt that Cadillac was flying high during this time, literally selling everything they could possibly make, and maintaining a lead far ahead of the competition.

Tuesday, February 02, 2010 6:36:36 AM

Happy February to everyone. We are working on the 1967-1968 Cadillacs, and are making good progress on them. We have about 5 pages still left to complete out of a total of 12 pages, so we're past the half way point. We are also continuing to roll out the updated navigation menu, as mentioned in a post last month. We also have a couple of Technical Articles we're finishing up for publication.

Site Status: We experienced some down time last week, and have been monitoring slow server response during this time as well. We have added a link to our Site Status page at the bottom of the blog (see below) so you can check to see if there are any current site issues. We'll also try to post issues here as well, although if the site isn't available, there's no way to see messages until we're back online. However, at least you'll know it wasn't a problem on your end.

Just wanted to check in and let you know what's going on. Stay warm and be safe!