The seagulls in Marina del Rey conducted bombing practice for more than two months recently on Ted Field Sr.'s Lincoln Mark VIII.
Nowadays, the once regal silver coupe is a pitiful sight and not terribly useful for getting around town either.
It has been parked since winter because Field has been unable to find something called a variable load control module, better known as a black box.
Ford stopped making the part for the 1996 vehicle, saying the part is obsolete. That in turn has made the car, which has only 66,000 miles, obsolete.
The story of the Mark VIII involves many of the perils of an auto industry that is dramatically changing, as the number of models offered to consumers mushrooms and as cars become packed with modern electronics.
It is often said that cars have become computers on wheels. That sounds cool until you think about how difficult it is to keep a home computer running for a decade, replacement parts and software so difficult to obtain as the years pass. And the explosion of vehicle models has forced dealerships to stock more parts than ever before.
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