If you’re old enough to remember, some brands of breakfast cereals used to come with cool surprises in the box. Cars are like that sometimes, in both good and bad ways. This rather mundane looking like has the potential to be one of the most surprising cars you’ve ever seen.
This is a 1993 Lincoln Mark VIII listed for sale on Mecum Auctions as part of its Bob Cather Classics Collection. At first glance, there’s nothing particularly special about it; it looks like it could be owned by your grandparents. It was a striking design when it debuted, and it still looks pretty good now if not a little dated. All is not what it seems with this Mark VIII however.
Yep, your eyes aren’t deceiving you. Someone turned this personal luxury coupe into a personal luxury pickup. According to the sparse description provided by Mecum, this Mark VIII was turned into a pickup a la Chevy El Camino or Ford Ranchero and was dubbed the “Markaro.”
After a bit of digging, I learned that this “pickup” was originally owned by a man in Lincoln, Nebraska. According to a rather old looking post on a site called Lincolns of Distinction, the owner was a heavy equipment operator and actually used the bed of this thing to haul stuff. If you take a look at both the bed and the interior of this “Markaro”, you can see that it saw some pretty extensive use. And with just over 100,000 on the odo, it shows.
From the seats, to the carpet to the steering wheel, the interior is rough and worn and in some places shows signs of discoloring.
The bed is just as rough but looks like any pickup bed that has seen use should look: worn down and faded by use and time. What’s impressive though is just how well-built this truck car is. Inspecting the bed and the panels surrounding it, the work was done so well that it looks like something that could have been designed and engineered by Ford itself. From the curve of the rear glass down to the tailgate, it’s great looking work.
The owner even etched “Markaro” into the rear side glass on each side.
Other then the bed, the rest of the car is standard Mark VIII, right down to the 4.6-liter Intech V8 under the hood. If this unique piece of automotive artwork interests you, you’ll have a chance to bid on it in one of Mecum’s upcoming auctions in Houston, Texas on Saturday, April 6th. With no reserve, this thing might move quick.