Many items will be bolt on upgrades. First up is a set of driving/fog lights. The archaic sealed beams are only so good (thank U.S. lighting legislation that, to this day, trail European lighting standards). I wanted to use Marchal 750 fog lights that came standard on Mark VII LSCs but grafting them on to my car was too tricky. I may have needed a new wiring harness and they are difficult to find now that production of them has been discontinued for some time. Instead, I chose to install a set of German-made Hella XL Auxiliary Low Beam Headlamps (No $9.95 K-Mart lights for me! An upgrade must be an improvement!) These lights are advertised to as legally able to be kept on with factory low beams. They have a special lens designed to protect other drivers from glare.  Hella advises that the lights should be mounted upright on the body or bumper about 20 inches from the ground. If I had done this, The lights could only have been put in front of the grille and would have been inches apart. I decided to mount them under the bumper to mimick an LSC. The light out put may not be as efficient, but it is still a big improvement over stock and over the XtraVisions. They double the light shone on the road from the XtraVision headlamps.
     Since my car shares front bumpers with all Mark VIIs, it has predrilled holes for fog lights. I mounted my lights in these holes and I think the car looks more aggressive with them. To correctly mount the special lights pendant style, the lenses needed to be flipped so that the light pattern remains the same. The lights measure about 7.5" x 3.5", use 55 watt bulbs, and are even more noticeable with my black and white Hella light covers. As big as they sound, they look appropriately sized on my Lincoln. I will have to be carful when I approach curbs, though. Ground clearance under the lights is about 4-5 inches. The Hella light kit came with all the parts I needed for instalation. I also got a lighted, green rocker switch with the kit and I made a sheetmetal bracket for it in shop class to replace the ashtray in my center console. I painted the bracket flat black so now it matches the dash. I made a label for the switch on a label-making machine. The label is black with white letters and says Fog Lights. All wiring is hidden inside the dash and looks like a professional job. The switch's green color matches my green all digital dash and radio. I noticed that my left low beam had questionable reliability so I swapped both low beams for Sylvania XtraVision lights. They improve lighting as advertised and I noticed a difference right away. With XtraVision lights and Hella auxiliary lights, I can safely see and be seen much better than before.
My Continental with auxiliary lights mounted like a Mark VII LSC's Marchal fog lights
Rearview of my Continental
Current Modifications
1) Chrome 3" Exhaust Tip without Tasteless Weedwhacker Resonator
2) Early Mark VII LSC Wheel Centers with new Chrome Truck Lugs (Continentals, base Mark VIIs, and Mark VII LSCs all shared the same standard wheel until 1988. Coninentals and base Mark VIIs even shared the same center caps while the LSC had a unique center that exposed the five lugs, as seen in the picture on this page.)
3) Newer Lincoln Continental Antenna Mast (Adapted to Work After Original Replacement Mast Could not be Found)
4) Ford Premium Sound Door Speakers from a Newer Continental
5) Hella XL Auxiliary Lamps with white and black Hella Stoneshields
6) Sylvania XtraVision Headlamps
7) Front Ashtray Replaced with Custom-made Auxiliary Lamp Switch Bracket
8) Car and Driver All Season Rubber Floor Mat for Driv
9)Personalized Lincoln License Plate with Lincoln Star in the Front Bracket (My plate is as old as the car and you were only issued one for the rear back then.)
10) Clear License Plate Protector in the Front with Smoke-colored Protector in back
11) Hella Decals on sides of Front Bumper
12) 2 Small American Flag Window Films
13) West Side Terriers Rear Window Sticker
14) 1986 Mark VII LSC Headrests in Charcoal Leather
15) 5.0 Liter Emblem from a late 1980s Cadillac Fleetwood Placed on Trunk
16) K & N Air Filter
17) K & N Oil Filter
18) Alpine CDM-7874 CD Head unit
19) 2 Polk GXR10 Subwoofer in a Q Logic Enclosure
20) Kicker KX200.2 2-Channel Amplifier