Singular Continental part of an intercontinental saga
By Allan Classen
Will Aitchison, a lawyer who lives by Forest Park, is a buttoned-down kind of guy. But heads turn when he takes his mother’s car for a spin.
His mother, who died in 1966 when he was 15, drove a 1956 Lincoln Continental Mark II, the last hand-built car made in America. At a base price of $10,000 ($111,000 in today’s dollars), it was the most expensive car on the market.
Aitchison, who has had the car since 1979, recalls driving in downtown Portland the following year when he was waved down by a man who offered him $100,000 and a new Lincoln in exchange.
Aitchison turned him down. It wasn’t about the price.
“It was my mother’s car,” he explained, which remains his answer when tempted to part with the elegant but impractical automobile.
Classic cars and family connections are an all-American story, but the car he calls Evita has more to tell.
This was the second Mark II ever built, a custom order for Argentinian President Juan Perón, who specified the robin’s egg blue paint job, the favorite hue of his wife Evita, who had died of cancer three years earlier at age 33.
The car is rumored to have bulletproof windows, a logical extra for a ruler who would be driven from power by a military coup.
Peron never enjoyed the solace or safety of the bespoke Mark II. It sat on a New York City dock in September 1955 when he was overthrown and all foreign contracts frozen. The Ford Motor Co. conducted a lottery among its dealerships for the right to purchase it.
Aitchison’s father was the winner. He seldom drove it, though Will remembers riding along when his dad got it up to 110 miles per hour, boasting that with all five levers on the air conditioner pulled back, it would literally take flight.
Most of the 98,000 miles now on the odometer were driven less eventfully by his mother, who used it for errands around town. It was in a few minor accidents, collecting dings and dents.
Aitchison paid his full measure of devotion to Evita through a full interior and exterior restoration in 1997. It cost $60,000 and took 18 months to make it look like new down to the new leather upholstery matching the original.
He drives the car a couple of times a month for maintenance purposes, if nothing else. There are reasons to use it sparingly. It gets 5 miles per gallon of premium gas and handles like a barge, he said.
While the model was reported to get 17 miles per gallon at 50 miles per hour when new, Aitchison thinks his short-trip driving may be the main reason for the discrepancy.
Weighing 5,000 pounds and extending more than 18 feet in length, momentum is the key to keeping it under control, he said. It does not accelerate, turn or stop quickly. The hydraulic windshield wipers are tiny and pause during acceleration. The mirrors are also tiny. The engine and its compartment, on the other hand, are huge.
The Mark II’s mass came in handy years ago when a Volkswagen rammed it from behind at a stop. The VW was totaled; Evita was undamaged.
It has power-assisted steering, brakes and seats, plus air conditioning, all recent innovations in the mid-1950s and the main call for repairs over the years.
For ceremonial purposes, it’s in a class by itself. It was appropriately decorated for Will and his wife Val’s wedding getaway in 2000.
Aitchison donned a chauffeur’s hat to drive his neighbor on a Lincoln High School prom date in 2002. Before departing, Peter Giese and two friends posed alongside Evita for the occasion. Giese’s date was impressed. She assumed Aitchison was a professional chauffeur.
Like Evita Perón, whose embalmed body was exhumed and restored for public display 22 years after her death, the car bearing her name continues to inspire stories.
Aitchison believes the storied vehicle ultimately belongs in a museum in Argentina and tried to interest the Argentinian Embassy in Washington, D.C. The effort hit the shoals when a right-wing party replaced the Peronista government. For now, he’s looking to rent a large garage to better keep it preserved.