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Photo: YouTube/Pole Barn Garage
In 1968, Detroit was in full swing fighting the horsepower wars among the new muscle cars. Their little brothers, the pony cars, wanted to join the fray with their powerful V8s. But that year marked the beginning of the end of displacement in the upper echelons. GM unleashed 472 cubic inches on the Cadillac, and Ford had to work harder to keep up.
The famed 460 Lima engine made its debut under the hood of the Continental Mark III as a mainstay in FoMoCo’s arsenal. The massive 7.5-liter V8 took up all the engine bay space the Blue Oval’s engineers could fit in. Measuring 34 inches long, 32 inches wide, and 30 inches high (864 x 813 x 762 millimeters), the big block took up nearly 19 cubic feet between the front fenders, firewall, and that very Rolls-Royce grille.
And that’s before all the ancillary equipment was thrown in. All things considered, the Continental Mark III could easily have had its bonnet swapped for an aircraft landing deck. In the late ’60s, big American displacements were the direct result of big torque figures, and the 460 did not disappoint, delivering 500 lb-ft (678 Nm) at a very tame 2,800 RPM.
horsepowerThat wasn’t a primary concern for Lincoln’s engineers, however: this big luxury car was aimed at an entirely different category of people who didn’t smoke tire smoke for a living. Still, the behemoth pumped out 365 horsepower (370 PS), more than enough to tow the 5,000-pound Mark III.
Photo: YouTube/Pole Barn Garage
That’s almost 2.3 tons for the two-door American luxury — by the way, the Lima 460 V8 engine alone accounts for more than 750 pounds (340 kilograms) of that when all the fluids are pumped in. Though there was a single four-barrel carburetor mounted atop this auger, hot rodders were well aware of the true potential of the V8 engine buried deep within.
That’s why the 460 V8 is one of the most prized possessions you can get in a modern Ranger, especially when it’s neatly tucked into a $950 1971 Continental Mark III. In an era when cars were considered “bigger was better,” FoMoCo wrapped it around the largest passenger car engine in the company’s history.
That’s the car Dalton Summit bought, intending to remove the powerful engine and put it into another Blue Oval legend: the Ford Torino muscle car. The YouTuber behind the Pole Barn Garage channel paid $950 for the long-neglected Continental, which was actually a good deal considering the V8 engine alone would have cost twice as much.
Photo: YouTube/Pole Barn Garage
But it was no surprise that this Ford product was doomed. Something was wrong at the heart of the big block that had been plaguing it for the past 40 years. Off the road since the ’80s, this Lincoln was slowly being absorbed into nature’s inevitable cyclical process of the ongoing symbiosis between living things and the things used to keep them alive.
That means raccoons, rodents, and other creatures have made this once-great status symbol their permanent home. But the wrench-wielding blogger just wasn’t interested in doing anything with it anyway, so he took a brutal approach by using the all-purpose tool of the trade: a hammer to get things done.
The engine was stuck, so Dalton poured on plenty of lubricant to loosen the pistons before getting it going again. The spark plugs and their plumbing were about as useless as gasoline for putting out a roaring forest fire, so the mechanic tediously replaced them, along with the distributor cap.
Photo: YouTube/Pole Barn Garage
After over an hour of work, the giant was resurrected from its 40-year slumber and started converting hydrocarbons into greenhouse gases again, at an astonishing rate. However, despite the YouTuber’s best efforts, he can only admit that the V8 sound is quite different from all the piston sounds that have been reported.
So he decided to do his best and run the engine until it died. After literally filling most of the U.S. airspace with white smoke, the big engine gave a “shut down” and would not start.
Naturally, in the good tradition of mechanically savvy men, Dalton proceeded to properly repair it by removing the valve cover, then the carburetor and intake manifold, and finally the head, in an attempt to find the source of the problem.
Photo: YouTube/Pole Barn Garage
As it turns out, the mistake wasn’t hiding in the blocks, but standing right next to the car, wrenching it in. Yes, the YouTuber’s overzealous approach had the undesirable result of dropping the valve. All the while, Summitt was fiddling with the throttle.
Eventually, Piston gave up and decided to abandon the YouTuber’s rescue mission, bringing the car’s saga to an end after covering 91,439.8 miles (147,158 km) on Piston Planet.
After 53 years of stops and starts, this yellow Mark III (one of 27,091 built for that model year) has finally been officially declared retired. Not all “Will it Run?” videos have happy endings. Sometimes the protagonists don’t live happily ever after.
