52 Lincoln

[Adam]

I traded my 72 Ranchero for this. I had the Ranchero up for sale for a few months, mostly I got people trying to trade me for stuff I didn't want (including a '98 Dodge Neon - seriously!?), or lowball offers, but I thought this was cool, so I traded for it.

The insulation on all the wiring is bad. The body is straight, original paint, no bondo, very little rust, no rust at all on the floorboards. The AC was added in '57 (I found a date on the compressor) Power seat, windows, and antenna. Still has the original radio.

It has a 317 V8, and an automatic. '52 was the first year for the OHV V8, the '51 still had the flathead. It kind of looks like the Ford y-block, but no parts interchange with the Ford engines. Lincoln made 3 versions of this engine from 52-57 (317, 341, and 368). 52-55 have this weird arrangement where the exhaust from one manifold is routed through the other through that pipe in front of the engine. I already picked up a set of manifolds off of a '56 so I can do dual exhaust. All the 52's had 2 barrel carbs, and all the 53-57's had 4-barrels. I'm on the lookout for one of the 4 barrel intakes and carbs. The transmission is a 4 speed auto called a Hydramatic with was also used in GM cars.

[Alex KL-1]

Great!

[Electronic M]

Nice ride!

Originally Posted by Adam

The transmission is a 4 speed auto called a Hydramatic with was also used in GM cars.

Your Lincoln has the same transmission my 47 Oldsmobile has....The hydramatic was a GM invention that was introduced in 1940 on Oldsmobile and Cadillac, and post war quickly was adopted by Pontiac. If was the first successful fully automatic transmission. During WWII some tanks were powered by 2 hydramatic Cadillac V8 drive trains. Post was everyone with an automatic except Packard bought GM hydramatics.... until the main plant burned in 1953 and non-GM makes had to switch to borg-warner or design their own....GM had to use dynaflows and powerglides* on some senior brands to fill in the gap.

*Buick never used the hydramatic as they thought it wasn't smooth enough, and Chevrolet never adopted it because they thought 4 years was too complex and expensive so those divisions developed the Dynaflow and powerglide respectively.

[Adam]

I always wanted to drive a Buick with a Dynaflow to see what it was like (no gears), but I never have.