The “Bugazzi” name sounds like a joke, but the car crossing the block at Mecum’s Glendale, Arizona auction on March 20, 2026, is very real, and very much a product of 1970s Hollywood excess. Built on a 1973 Lincoln Continental Mark IV by Hollywood Coach Builders under George Barris’ direction, it’s one of an estimated dozen examples made in the era, with only two reportedly still around today.
Stripping Away the Continental to Build Something Else Entirely
Barris’ shop took roughly a dozen then-new Lincoln coupes and stripped away most of the factory bodywork, replacing it with exaggerated custom sheet metal meant to turn a personal luxury coupe into something closer to a cartoonish European grand tourer. Up front, the standard Continental grille became a sharply canted, oversized centerpiece, flanked by extended fenders housing deep-set round headlamps. The front bumper disappeared entirely, replaced by sculpted chrome elements built directly into the bodywork. The rear got the same treatment, with slim chrome strips standing in for a traditional bumper, a reshaped rear window finished in padded vinyl, and custom teardrop taillights in place of the stock units. The whole thing is finished in Gold Pearl paint with Ice Pearl accents, which is about as period-correct a color combination as this build could have gotten.
Granite, Because Why Not
The exterior alone would be enough to make this car memorable, but the interior might be the bigger surprise. The cabin is trimmed in Peanut Butter leather with brocade-style inserts, standard enough for the era, except for one detail: real granite slabs installed on the front and rear center consoles and worked into the door armrests. Putting actual stone inside a passenger car is about as rare as it sounds, and it says everything about what this build was actually going for, spectacle over subtlety.
Under all of that styling sits what appears to be the Lincoln’s original 460-cubic-inch V8 paired with an automatic transmission, a drivetrain the auction listing says has recently been gone through, though without specifics on what was done. The 460 was the workhorse of Lincoln’s early-1970s full-size lineup, built to move heavy luxury coupes with plenty of torque, and here it’s simply the mechanical foundation underneath a much wilder cosmetic story.
Barris’ Fingerprints and Why Rarity Matters Here
George Barris built his name turning production cars into pop culture icons, the original Batmobile chief among them, and the Bugazzi carries that same show-business logic: maximum visual impact over subtle refinement. That approach also made these cars labor-intensive to build in the first place, which kept the production run small and makes surviving examples genuinely rare more than 50 years later.
With an estimated 12 built and only two known to remain, chances to buy a Bugazzi don’t come around often. For collectors looking for something that stands apart from the usual muscle car and European exotic crowd at a major auction, this granite-trimmed Continental offers a different kind of exclusivity, one built on unrestrained coachbuilt theatrics rather than a spec sheet. Where it lands in today’s collector market will become clear once the hammer falls in Glendale.
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