My late father always had a great big 2 door car, usually a Lincoln. That's what I grew up riding in, and what I learned to drive in. Actually, ALL of his cars had 2 doors, a giant trunk, and big, comfortable seats . . . but not for the reasons you may think.

Thanks to a nasty swimming accident in April of 1948, my Dad was a quadriplegic, paralyzed from the neck down. In fact, 1948 was the last year in which he sat behind the wheel of a car. After that, Dad was always the passenger.

Because of his paralysis, traveling by car required lifting him out of the wheelchair and placing him into the passenger seat. One way to accomplish this is to do it by hand, which my Mom actually did for a while when they were first married. Then in the late 1960's, Dad got a roof mounted hydraulic lift, which can be seen in the photo.

The hydraulic lift was a pretty slick operation in its day - hook Dad to the lift arm, pump the handle and let the hydraulic cylinder do the lifting. Some oomph was still required to get him in the car, but not nearly as much as lifting him by hand. However, the hydraulic lift did require quite a good bit of space. The smaller opening of most 4 door cars didn't quite have enough room in the door area to fit my Dad, the lift arm and the person operating the lift all at the same time. Therefore, a 2 door car was always the rule. The large trunk was needed in order to accommodate Dad's fold-up wheelchair, which was more of a challenge than you may think.

In the summer of 1983, Dad purchased this 1982 Lincoln Mark VI. He got a great deal on a "dealer demo" that only had 5k miles on the odometer. This car was, technically, still new, and came with a new car warranty, which, unfortunately, would be needed quite often.

The early 1980's weren't the best of times for Ford Motor Company, or the entire industry for that matter, and this car was a perfect example. Yes, it was a smooth, comfortable car with lots of features, including the ones Dad needed. However, it was also grossly underpowered, and spent a lot of time in the shop. Right after purchase, a broken coil spring had to be replaced (yes, a broken spring at 5k miles). Overdrive disappeared from the transmission in the 45k mile range. The list of electrical gremlins, by itself, could fill several pages. However, over Dad's and my 25 years of ownership, the one thing that never gave us any trouble was the proven 5.0 liter V-8 (this car had EFI, instead of the much talked about, yet seldom liked variable venturi carb like other Fords of the era).

I inherited this car from Dad in the early 90's when he purchased a handicap accessible minivan, which revolutionalized the way Mom and Dad traveled. As Fall of 1996 approached, I had my sights set on a 1993 Taurus SHO, and traded this car in (and my 1988 Firebird) on November 1, 1996, at which time it had 103k miles on the odometer . . .