Scary Jerry's Sightseer II

Chuck Most · December 9, 2018

First, a recap on the backstory....

Continuing from there....

After a few months of running the sightseeing tour, Jerry found himself with a problem. Business was a little too good, and the five-passenger capacity of The Sightseer just wasn't cutting it. Adding full bench seats to the second and third row would only bring the car up to seven passengers and hardly seemed worth the effort. There were a number of 15 passenger vans for sale in the area, but Jerry felt a van lacked the kind of pizzaz his operation needed. Then, surfing the web one evening, he stumbled across another '65 Lincoln Continental. Originally built as a convertible limo, the car had been a near clone of The Sightseer at one point. At some time during the '80's the limo had been converted into a tandem axle, and a hot tub had been installed in the rear deck. Even though the car was in Indiana, Jerry went to have a look at it.

The owner had a ton of documentation and photos of the car- at one point it had been painted hot pink, and served a casino with gold plated bull horns over the grille and a rather questionable custom grille treatment. The present owner had repainted it in it's original charcoal hue and reinstalled the original grille, but had opted to leave the later tandem axle conversion because he'd grown fond of the look, and it would have been too much work to convert it back to a single axle. He had made a tonneau cover to enclose the area where the hot tub had been, and there the project had stalled. A few hours and a couple grand lighter in the wallet later, Jerry had the tandem limo in his shop ready for surgery.

It turned out being the easiest conversion Jerry had done to date. The car actually ran and drove perfectly when he bought it, after all! Jerry fashioned a passenger platform to fit over the former hot tub location. Fashioned from steel and padding purchased from a company that makes those super-comfy fiberglass fast food benches, it was sprayed in glossy black paint and bolted onto the car using a Jerry-engineered system of brackets and supports. A local vinyl shop printed out some signs for the side. Jerry had toyed with the idea of painting it to match Sightseer 1, but even though the older paint job was far from perfect, he liked the color (even if it was a bit somber for his tastes) and the nice appearance of the car, Jerry felt, elevated his business and gave it just a bit more credibility. At full capacity, Sightseer II could seat up to 17 in it's original seats and the seating platform Jerry had fashioned. Sightseer I was relegated to "overflow" duty at first, then after Jerry had hired a couple of other drivers, two tours would go concurrently, as Sightseer I would begin on one side of the county and II would start on the other, and each limo would meet up at Jerry's house for the customary BBQ dinner at the end of the tour.