The mid-sized Lincoln Versailles offered luxury features at a luxury price, but luxury-car buyers were not persuaded.

The Lincoln Versailles story rightly begins with the introduction of its closest rival, the Cadillac Seville, in the spring of 1975. As the smallest but most expensive car in the Cadillac lineup, it was not just a solid seller for GM’s luxury car brand, it was a remarkably profitable one. Ford Motor Company executives had been considering a smaller Lincoln for several years (see one proposal, the Lincoln Mark I Ghia, here) but  with the instant success of the new small Cadillac, they snapped into action. The Versailles was slapped together in almost record time and introduced in Los Angeles in April of 1977 as a mid-year model.

Like the Seville, which was loosely based on GM’s X-body (Chevy Nova et al) architecture, the Versailles was built upon Ford’s compact Ford Granada/Mercury Monarch platform. But while the Seville featured all-new exterior sheet metal and numerous mechanical refinements, the Versailles stuck close to its Granada-Monarch roots. Outside, only the hood, nose pieces, and deck lid (including fake spare tire bump) were unique to the Lincoln. And it rode on the same 109.9-inch wheelbase and used the same 351 CID V8 (later reduced to 302 CID) and three-speed automatic as its Ford and Mercury cousins. In truth, the Versailles was not much more than a tarted-up Monarch, and to traditional Lincoln buyers the truth was all too obvious.

To justify its $11,500 base price (like the Seville, it was the most expensive car in its lineup) the Versailles was loaded up with premium features, including deluxe cloth and leather interior selections and every comfort and convenience gadget in the parts catalog. Actual mechanical upgrades were few: extra vibration damping, a double-cardan driveshaft, four-wheel disc brakes, a few other items. (The rear-disc brake setup later became a favorite among hot rodders.)

LIncoln general manager Walter S. Walla declared a sales target of 20,000 vehicles for the partial first model year, but the numbers fell short of even that modest goal with barely 15,000 vehicles delivered. Sales tumbled even further to fewer than 9,000 cars for 1978, the first full sales year. The Versailles would never come close to its rival Seville and its annual sales volume in the 50,000 range.

For the 1979 model year, the Versailles received its only significant exterior change as the upper rear door frames were squared off and lengthened and the top was extended eight inches to create a more formal roofline (below). The restyled greenhhouse was actually performed on the quick and the cheap by Heinz Prechter and his crew at American Sunroof Corporation, who cleverly engineered a fiberglass cap that hid under the vinyl top covering. Sales rallied to 21,000 cars in 1979, the most prolific year for the Seville fighter, then fell to fewer than 5,000 cars as the Versailles was quietly discontinued at the end of 1980. In 1982, a smaller Lincoln Continental was introduced.