Above and below are the Continental concept of recent car show seasons. I had heard that the Continental was to be built on the same rear wheel drive platform as the 427 concept, but I suspect that if any car does revive the Continental name it will be built off the 500/FreeStyle platform sourced from Volvo S80/XC90.
Don't expect to see suicide doors either.
Another promissing concept the Mark X roadster, built on the outgoing Lincoln LS/Ford Thunderbird chassis, but with seating for 4. And I vote for this as the new face of Lincoln. Taking cues from the Lincolns of the 60's but with a thoroughly modern flair.
Could you imagin how cool this would be?
I wasn't crazy about this one, the Navicross, but it did show forward thinking. Unfortunately the future of Lincoln is dismal. With the exception of the new Zephyr and Aviator (both sharing platforms with Ford and Mazda) not much exciting is coming from Lincoln.
When did inovation translate into slapping a Lincoln grill on an F-150? What does Lincoln sell that's exciting? Nothing and don't expect that to change any time soon. The soon to be gone LS was the last chance for greatness, and they squandered that.
Above and below are the Continental concept of recent car show seasons. I had heard that the Continental was to be built on the same rear wheel drive platform as the 427 concept, but I suspect that if any car does revive the Continental name it will be built off the 500/FreeStyle platform sourced from Volvo S80/XC90.
Don't expect to see suicide doors either.
Another promissing concept the Mark X roadster, built on the outgoing Lincoln LS/Ford Thunderbird chassis, but with seating for 4. And I vote for this as the new face of Lincoln. Taking cues from the Lincolns of the 60's but with a thoroughly modern flair.
Could you imagin how cool this would be?
I wasn't crazy about this one, the Navicross, but it did show forward thinking. Unfortunately the future of Lincoln is dismal. With the exception of the new Zephyr and Aviator (both sharing platforms with Ford and Mazda) not much exciting is coming from Lincoln.
When did inovation translate into slapping a Lincoln grill on an F-150? What does Lincoln sell that's exciting? Nothing and don't expect that to change any time soon. The soon to be gone LS was the last chance for greatness, and they squandered that.
2 comments:
Unfortunately, nearly all those concepts were started by Nasser, so they have the Mark of Nasser on them and must be purged. People have certain opinions about him, but he did have a vision for Lincoln based on the traditional - and very handsome - early 60s styling.
All that's left of it is the shape of the dash in the Aviator, Zephyr, and Navigator.
I recently came into some original factory literature for the mid-60s Lincoln Continental (I've been thinking about restoring one, no easy task). That was a heckuva fine car and had some amazing differentiation from other FMC sedans and Caddy. It lost it's way in the late sixties when it ballooned in size, and became nothing more than a larger Marquis in it's evolution to the current (pointless) Town Car.
The Lincolns in those 60s years had real class and style... something I don't see any of in future Lincoln planning. We've seen the concepts which bring back that feeling, but no production possibility for any of them. Too bad... because they had a distinctive American identity and uniqueness.
-Jeff
http://www.jwfisher.com
Jeff, Lincoln hasn't had much interesting in years, the Mark VII and LSC and the Mark VIII were good attempts at something unique, but over the years, as you pointed out, Lincoln stopped being anything more than pimped out Ford sedans.
The Continental from the early to mid 60's was an iconic car. The last car to carry the name, the pathetic front driver, was little more than a Taurus and of course the TownCar is no more than a tarted up Crown Victoris.
But at least Lincoln with fleet sales for limos and the ocassional retiree wanted to move up, have kept dealers open. But now that they may bring Lincolns out based on the 500, they will certainly loose the fleet sales.
Some of these concepts could have revived Lincoln's image, just like the LS should have. Ford will eventually run this brand into the ground.
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