Lincoln Continental Sedan.

As we would all agree, the Lincoln Continental deserves another shot.

Even though Lincoln used the name Continental as early as 1939, the one we all know the most is the fourth generation that came out in 1961. The 4th generation Lincoln Continental was mostly the same until a redesign in 1966. The fifth generation, produced from 1970 to 1979, never had the presence of the 1960s designs and had become one of many huge American sedans. With far less personality than before. It just wasn’t special anymore. A redesign on the same platform in 1975 definitely gave the car a bit more presence. You can still see a lot of these if you find old 1970s TV shows to stream. They seem to have been Hollywood TV studios’ favorite rich bad guys’ cars.

Later, the Continental shrank on a platform that would later become the Town Car. It then became even smaller, effectively replacing the Versailles as a Cadillac Seville competitor. The 8th generation actually grew in size and adopted a more stately and upscale design. At least it looked the part of a large American luxury car. However, it was now based on an FWD platform shared with the Ford Taurus. That generation was quite popular, with sales doubling from the previous “Seville wannabe” model.

The next generation came out in 1995 and tried hard to look like a sedan version of the Lincoln Mark VIII coupe. It also gained its V8 back. Which didn’t really help since the 8th generation was never as popular as the previous one, and production stopped in 2002.

There was a revival in 2017. Which was pretty much a disaster. All throughout its history, the most popular Continentals were the ones that had that classic American luxury car look. It seems design experiments turned Lincoln buyers off, at least as far as the sedans are concerned. The 2017 model was basically a new generation Lincoln MKS called Continental (Probably a last-minute name change).

This new Continental was actually based on the same platform as the Ford Fusion. Its interior showed how hard Ford tried to make the Lincoln different from the Ford. But they just tried way too hard. There was way too much cheese, plastic chrome, and trims everywhere. The whole vibe was one of vulgarity and cheapness. A far cry from the original Continental, which was a design masterpiece.

Lincoln never sold more than 12,000 of them in one year, and the whole thing was a failure.

Years before the 2017 Continental, Lincoln produced a wonderful concept in 2002. It was very well received by the public and the press as a possible rebirth of the famous model.

Of course, nothing happened. And the concept never became anything. Looking at it today, you realise how much of a total waste that was. I think it still looks great.

The illustration on top shows what a near-future Lincoln Continental could look like. Of course, it uses styling cues from the original, as it should. Cadillac is indeed working on 2 new Ultium-based luxury sedans. Whether they will be sold in the US or not is still up in the air. But they are coming. And it looks like once more, Lincoln might stay behind.

The illustration above shows a longer, four-door version of the Continental Coupe illustration I posted recently.