If you choose to buy your convertible with an air conditioner, one of the very few accessories not standard on the Continental, you will add another electric motor which governs the amount of pure air you wish inside your car. The Continental has few accessories because practically everything you can think of comes on the car when you buy it.

The doors of your Continental convertible latch against a a strong stub post in the center of the car structure, the front doors being hinged forward, and the rear doors being hinged aft, both closing with a satisfying noise that sounds like "luck."

In reviving the great art of the phaeton, the Continental designers and engineers realized that the stability of an open car was somewhat less than that of a closed car because it lacked the rigidity of a solid roof. The torques of open-car driving could impose strains which the lower structure alone must endure.

With the creation of the 1963 Continental four-door convertible, an interesting solution to this problem was found. Knowing the tendency of a non-upper-supported body to react unsatisfactorily to modern driving habits, the Lincoln engineers availed themselves to a few laws of physics. The same laws led telegraph and telephone companies to hang spring-loaded weights on their wires to sway in the opposite direction of wind-whipped lines; the weights cancel out the loops otherwise formed. Continental's convertible is equipped with comparable devices. These are weights, dampered into the springing system of the car, which cancel out hard bumps by methodically nullifying any harsh motions from the springs and shock absorbers. The dampers make it possible to eliminate 300 or more pounds of underbody structure that would otherwise be necessary.

These behind-the scenes aspects of convertible Continental are important factors in its comfort and durability but they are obviously not the first impression it gives. What impresses the owner or prospective owner first is that here is the most beautiful convertible in America - perhaps the world - and that along with its beauty it carries the weight of a grand tradition.

Try to imagine the American automotive scene without the Continental convertible and you will be imagining a scene with considerably less distinction than it now has.