Film brings a survival story starring a Lincoln to life | Howard

Phoebe Wall Howard, Special to The Detroit NewsThu, November 5, 2026 at 12:01 PM UTC

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When Douglas Burns of Carroll, Iowa, purchased his 2013 Lincoln MKS, it marked a turning point in his career as a fourth-generation newspaper publisher — just before everything went to hell.

The newspaper industry was changing. His family lost thousands of dollars in property and savings. He had to sell his mother’s house to pay off debt. He lost ownership of the Carroll Times Herald. But the sedan stayed with him through the darkest days, and it kept him going.

He thought of the assembly workers who built the car and took inspiration from them to push through thoughts of self-harm and keep going. Behind the wheel of his Lincoln, he feels like those workers are driving with him to make it another day.

“On those days when I think about giving up, when I go out and hit that button and the engine turns over, it kind of gives me direction or permission to put one foot in front of the other,” Burns said. “Then a day of momentum grows into a week and a month. I think we undervalue the small catalysts of survival in life.”

The vehicle had 382,778 miles at the start of November.

This is the focus of “The Immortal Lincoln,” a 23-minute documentary short film by my husband, C. John Anter of Port Huron. He's a retired master electrician who spent decades wiring Detroit Auto Show exhibits and Detroit auto plants.

“Making the movie taught me that an everyday worker in some factory in America can touch the life of someone he’ll probably never meet, or who lives many miles away, and they wouldn’t know that if the movie wasn’t made,” Anter said.

Anter interviewed Chicago Assembly Plant workers who built Burns’ car. Among them is Marvin Jones, who told me he was inspired by Burns' story: "I’m shocked, you know. I can’t believe someone would have a struggle like that and be able to be thinking about a vehicle that we made for him.”

Anter also included interviews with Ford CEO Jim Farley and executive chair Bill Ford captured at the Detroit Auto Show. Dr. Lindsay Bornheimer, an associate professor at the University of Michigan Department of Psychiatry and a national expert on suicide prevention, explains in the film the unexpected role a car can have in saving a person’s life during periods of extreme distress.

The film of “loss, struggle and driving until the wheels comes off” was previewed to an audience of nearly 200 at the Pearson Lakes Art Center in Okoboji, Iowa, in late September and received a standing ovation at the end.

Filmmaker Peter Hedges, who wrote the book and screenplay “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape,” was in the audience and called the film “a triumph.”

Now Burns is traveling to Detroit to attend screenings next week with Anter at the Carnegie Museum in Port Huron, the main Detroit Public Library on Woodward, and The Henry Ford museum theater in Dearborn. The film team will host a Q&A about the making of the film. Singer/songwriter Jason Walsmith of Earlham, Iowa, will perform the song “Momentum” about taking life one day at a time.

Ford archivists Ted Ryan and Hallie Robinson, who appear in the credits, plan to attend the showing in Dearborn.

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Burns, an established political reporter, runs The Iowa Mercury and The Times of Ankeny news sites now. While criss-crossing the state, Burns may restructure a day to stop if a service light in his Lincoln goes on. “Otherwise, I get massive anxiety,” he said.

‘The way you treat' your car … 'it treats you back’

Dakota Elings, a service tech at Jiffy Lube in Grimes, Iowa, for the past four years or so, said Burns just gets everything done when it needs to be done. “Everything in that car is original, which is honestly surprising to me. Usually when cars get up to that mileage, the engine has been replaced at least once.”

Burns changes the oil, replaces brakes, checks the transmission, swaps out fluids as needed. He still feels deeply connected to his Lincoln.

“I think, honestly, being that attached helps,” Elings said. “I can’t really explain how. You think your car is terrible, it’s going to have more problems. The way you see your car, the way you treat it, it treats you back the same way.”

He knows from personal experience after owning a 1997 Ram truck. “The only way I could start it was basically sweet talking it every morning. I’d say, ‘You can do it, you can do it,’ and it would start.” Still, Elings said Burns and his Lincoln are unique. “He talks about his car like it’s, I don’t know, supernatural. Just bulletproof. He just loves that car. He said something about it being the only thing in his life that’s still with him when stuff was all going wrong.”

‘Good people’

Lincoln President Joaquin Nuño-Whelan said he is “blown away by the emotional connection” people have to the brand. He shared a line that stays with him: “You might ride in a Lincoln when you get married, you might ride in a Lincoln when you go to a funeral — and somebody who stops and helps you on the side of the road will probably be driving a Lincoln because they’re good people.”

United Auto Workers member Angie Van Arnam told me she plans to attend The Henry Ford showing because she can personally relate to Burns’ story: it’s serendipity.

“We just returned from our Employee Assistance Programs Conference for UAW members, on building solidarity through being each other’s keeper, with sessions on suicide, mental health and resilience,” said Van Arnam, a servicing representative for the UAW Education Department.

“As a skilled tradesperson myself, when my General Motors plant was abruptly closed during the 2008 recession, I joined the thousands of dispersed autoworkers — aka ‘GM gypsies’ — nationwide experiencing life-altering emotional upheaval and developing a new level of grit as we looked out for each other and looked forward with hope,” she said.

“Driving my Chevy Cruze 100,000 miles a year, spending the night in it at times — yep, that connection between a displaced worker and their automobile is for real. Years later, I’m on staff with the International UAW, and you can bet I’m still driving my Chevy Cruze.”

PS: I discovered the story of “The Immortal Lincoln” when Burns offered me a ride to the Sioux Falls, South Dakota, airport after the Okoboji Writers’ and Songwriters’ Retreat. The film has been submitted to film festivals throughout the United States in 2027. I’m honored to be executive producer and narrator of the film, which is based on a story I wrote that ran on the USA Today network in 2024. I am married to the filmmaker, who is also freelance news photographer whose work has appeared in The Detroit News.

If you want to go

Tickets for the Carnegie event on Monday, Nov. 9, at 6 p.m. may be found at https://www.phmuseum.org/event. RSVP for the Detroit Public Library event on Tuesday, Nov. 10, at 6:30 p.m. at https://detroitpubliclibrary.org/events. Tickets for The Henry Ford event on Thursday, Nov. 12, at 7 p.m. may be found at https://www.thehenryford.org/visit/venues/giant-screen-experience.

This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Film brings a survival story starring a Lincoln to life | Howard

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