There’s an old saying the car business, “You can sell a young man’s car to an old man, but you can’t sell an old man’s car to a young man”. If the Lincoln Continental Concept is the best they’ve got, they should save themselves the time and money, and start winding down the Lincoln brand now.
This is because the buyer demographic for Continental which Lincoln says foretells their new flagship sedan to come next year will be deceased long before its showroom life-cycle is over with.
The Lincoln Continental reaches into the past with uninspired styling seemingly grafted from the Hyundai Azera and Kia models a generation removed from today. The overall style lacks any kind of boldness or originality that luxury car buyers seek.
Worse still, compared to recent concepts like the Buick Avenir and Cadillacs which signal their brand’s reaching for the stars attitude, the Continental seems without any direction or statement. It seems to say, I’ve been there and done that instead of I’ve arrived.
Inside, it has all the design flair and dime store glitz of a 1978 Town Car. Acres of crushed velvet looking suede, shiny shag carpeting and chrome line the cabin in a way we haven’t seen for 30 years. Is Bill Blass still doing interior design work for Lincoln?
To hell with all the modern infotainment and feature content Lincoln will brag about, which ironically only appeals to Millenials. This club house room will only appeal to those who wish for the days of pillowed velour and ashtrays in the dash. Again, they are long passed of this earth or near that day.
Further, for a flagship luxury sedan it still comes to the showroom without the goods to give the old men who will buy it the true bragging rights they claim while sipping Arnold Palmers at the 19th hole on Sunday.
Lincoln’s President Kumar Galhotra says of the Lincoln Continental, “Some brands talk about ‘the machine. Lincoln is different. For us, it is about more than the machine. It is about what our vehicles do for our clients.”
What he means is that the EcoBoost 3.0 liter V6 that will sit sideways under its hood driving first the front-wheels and then the rears though a passive all-wheel drive system, will pale in comparison to the rear-wheel drive Cadillac CT6’s 400 horsepower twin-turbo V6 of the same size.
Yes, Lincoln’s next flagship will again ride on an enlarged front-wheel drive chassis architecture, this time derived from the Ford Fusion and Lincoln MKZ. Its V6 engines will drive all four-wheels on most and likely the front wheels only on base models.
Cashing in on what Lincoln calls the “future of quiet luxury,” the production version of the Lincoln Continental Concept will likely replace the aged Lincoln MKS. Which begs the question, how did that bloated front-wheel drive luxury car work out for the brand?
It seems the people tasked with taking the brand forward live in some kind of sealed off alternative universe where there are no evolving competitors. They story themselves into believing their dillusions of who their customers are and how many of them even exist, while daftly crafting their next silver bullet.
The Lincoln Continental if anything just gave the people at Cadillac, Buick, Chrysler, Hyundai and Kia all a collective sigh of relief that their decision to march boldly into the future will continue unchallenged by Lincoln.
