Car and Driver released renderings of the next Lincoln MKS aka Project GOBI aka the Lincoln flagship supposedly inspired by the 2002 Lincoln Continental concept. We spoke with someone well placed, and they provided us with some further insight. Apparently the rendering is not entirely accurate.
For starters, the car will be based on the current CD4 platform the underpins the Fusion, not the Volvo-derived platform underpining the current Taurus and MKS. The belt line and C-pillar will be more subdued and flat, rather than the Impala-like hump you see here. The rear will have two light bars and the front grille will be integrated into the hood. Certain details are apparently still in flux. Also, the Nano V6 mentioned in the article will be 2.7L rather than 2.9L.
So basically it’ll look nothing like the Continental concept, and will be called the MK-CT or some rubbish.
I’d be glad to see the ridiculous shelf-trunk go. They could never engineer that properly and the panel gaps and line-ups would be awful.
I don’t know, the trunk arrangement looks like a neat idea to me. The pull-out ‘tray’ might be kind of unnecessary, but having the lid rise out of the way might add value. It would definitely add uniqueness, making the Lincoln more than just another version of a Taurus.
You’re right, though, I have no confidence that Ford could mass produce this properly.
In the image, it’s no further out of the way than could be accomplished with some nice struts. It’s just on a complex-breaking-often type hinge in the pic.
“In the image, it’s no further out of the way than could be accomplished with some nice struts.”
That’s what I was thinking.
And the roll-out tray will rob the trunk of some capacity. I’d rather have some stash pockets and D-rings to help organize the trunk and keep items from shifting. But I’m not necessarily representative of a luxury car buyer.
Of course, if you’re really wealthy, maybe you never need to lift things out of the trunk, anyway. Somebody else does it for you.
I image the type of people this car will be directed at (50+ making the big bucks) would be more appreciative of a conventional trunk that would hold two golf bags.
Also, the Nano V6 mentioned in the article will be 2.7L rather than 2.9L.
Oh for the love of all that is holy please let the number of cylinders and the displacement be part of what is “in flux.” Needs to be a V8 with not less than 5 liters of displacement.
Ford’s working on a new Egoboost V8. It’ll be a 2.5L turbo four with an empty, unused bank of cylinders.
Badging will be 5.0
Even though they got “divorced” from Mazda perhaps Mazda will sell them the tooling for one of the smallest production V6s of all time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazda_K_engine
Ha, yes I can just see that happening.
BTW Derek – when you choose Lincoln under the “Find Reviews by Make” section, the description of Lincoln to the right of the large emblem is about Lexus.
Thanks Corey, I’ll let IT know.
Maybe IT has sampled both and it’s a not-so-subtle hint about Lincoln’s prospects.
I thought the D-platform was on its way out? Hasn’t everyone been reporting that the Taurus and MKS are moving to CD4/Fusion platform? Every once in awhile, someone gets a wet dream and says the MKS will be Mustang based. C&D now says its going to be an updated D3/D4 platform.
It is definitely CD4 based. Can’t believe I omitted that. I mentioned it in the first article.
I know you have reported that, and that’s what I have been told as well. We’ve also talked about the 2.7L ecoboost replacing the 3.5/3.7 in mutliple applications. C&D just needs to get their stuff together.
I suspect you and I have better sources…
I’m not sure it’s the source’s fault. C&D says it’ll “share a platform with the Taurus,” which is true — the *next* Taurus. That plus a lazy editor and it ends up on the current D4 platform.
That’s not my new Lincoln Continental.
http://www.mobsteel.com/ride_og.php
Honestly if they just built this and put a modern fuel injected V8 and multi-speed modern transmission in it… Well I think you’d sell more of them than any Lincoln since the 80s.
Without the stow-and-go roof? I’d drop the full length center console too, and make it wide enough for three comfortably in the back seat, or two doing nookie. The whole reason cars took off was because you could do nookie in the back seat, it was more comfortable than the bed of straw in the back of the buckboard. No nookie in the back seat is a violation of all that is true and holy.
OK, Lorenzo, we see where your mind is . . . :-)
Yeah, but he’s right. I love the Audi A7, but the prospect of dealing with that back seat when the wife and I are frisky is a deal-killer.
I know I always choose my $60 grand luxury vehicles based on how easy intercourse is in the back.
No wait, I have a house for that.
Grow up!
Let me go to Ford and redesign the Lincoln Continental and Town Car and I guarantee you it will be a winner.
I don’t even want the money.
I’m willing to take my chances with BTSR designing Lincolns…..and that frightens me.
I don’t want to suggest you have poor design skills, but it can’t be that hard right?
1) Make a car look like the Mark IX/X and Continental concepts.
2) Use the Jag or Mustang platforms Ford paid for.
3) Put the Coyote V8 in it
4) Done.
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! bball40dtw for president (of Lincoln)!
If this is BTSR’s general idea, I am OK with co-presidency!
If they can’t or won’t use the Mustang platform, save all that Falcon tooling Oz is about to be done with, and move it up here, do something with that!
Amen.
Also please make a Town Coupe.
“BTSR, you’re hired.
Right this way sir. This is your design team.”
Enter room with a large table. One guy is playing with those alphabet refrigerator magnets. He already has the “M” and “K”, and is swapping the third letter to see what looks best. One guy looks like he hasn’t slept in days. He is scribbling with crayons on a picture of a Ford Fusion. Every couple minutes or so, he screams, wads up the paper, and tosses it into a full wastebasket. One guy is edgy and hip. His lab coat has the sleeves torn off. A woman also sits at the table, browsing Amazon with her Iphone.
“You have a budget of $503.50, I anticipate your results.”
“Ahhhhh! NO!”, says the tired designer as he wads up the paper.
Staunchly accurate.
So the new Lincoln flagship will look exactly like a Hyundai Azera. 3 years later.
At least it is lower and leaner and looks less like a bloated whale. I see a bit of Hyundai Azera in the styling. Why can’t we have something that looks like a Lincoln. At least Cadillac is on it’s game.
When they first saw the picture, did anyone else immediately think they were looking at the car from the next James Bond movie?
Natalya Simonova: “Do you destroy every vehicle you get into?”
Bond: “Standard operating procedure. Boys with toys.”
Creepy…
These recent Lincoln articles always conjure remembrance of that newsreel footage showing a clapped-out, palsied H**ler shrinking into his coat-coffin as he reviews the 12 year-olds in his Volkssturm.
If you inspect the frames with a loupe you can see T-34s and Kia Cadenzas in the distance.
Oops… Early Onset Conflation again….damn.
So it’s going to be front-wheel-drive and not offer a V8.
That’s not a Continental. Try again.
++
The Mark VIII was not my favorite, but it was still RWD and V8 powered and thus still a proper Continental!
Until 1985, the Mark series was actually called the Continental Mark [insert Roman numeral], then Lincoln dropped it to (1) differentiate from the upcoming changes to the Conti and (2) be cool like that. Mark VIII will always be known to me as a Continental.
Continental series Lincolns were built from 1938 to 1948. In 1955, Ford Motor Company chose to introduce a new personal luxury car as a successor to the pre-war Lincoln Continental. Ford chose to create a stand-alone division above Lincoln. The new Continental Mark II of the Continental Division adopted a naming convention of “mark numbers”, also meaning “version numbers” or “model numbers”; while used in the European automotive industry, this was also used to identify versions of artillery, tanks, naval vessels, and aircraft. The name was thus equivalent in original meaning to simply “Continental, version 2” or “Continental, model B”, although the name “Mark” later took on a brand-like feel of its own in the minds of many customers. In 1958, the Continental division was integrated into Lincoln, with Lincoln introducing the Mark III, IV, and V to replace the Mark II; they served as the flagships of the Lincoln line. In 1961, Lincoln went from a three-model line to a single Continental; the Mark series was dropped. For 1968, Lincoln restarted the Mark series with the Mark III. Instead of being a flagship model of the standard Lincoln, the Mark III was an all-new car. Based upon the Ford Thunderbird, it was a strict personal-luxury coupe like the Continental Mark II and the 1939-1948 Continental, thus restarting the series at Mark III.While sharing little to no common bodywork, the Mark series would share much of its underpinnings with the Ford Thunderbird for its entire production run from 1969 to 1998. The lone exception is the 1980-1983 Mark VI, which was based on the Ford LTD/Mercury Marquis coupe and Lincoln Town Car; the Mark VI is the only model ever produced as a 4-door.The Mark VIII was Lincoln’s last personal luxury car, sold between 1993 and 1998. The Mark VIII was assembled at Ford’s Wixom, Michigan assembly plant and was based on the FN10 platform. Slightly larger than the Mark VII, the Mark VIII had more interior space than its predecessor and much more power @ 290 to 300 HP and 32 valve aluminum heads and much better handling. The move from the Fox platform allowed for the use of fully independent suspension at all four wheels. Aside from its Ford and Mercury counterparts, the only other American rear-wheel drive cars at the time with this feature were the Chevrolet Corvette and Dodge Viper. The Mark VIII received a minor exterior redesign for the 1997 model year with a larger grille and exterior lights. The 1996 LSC model got 10 hp (7.5 kW) more, true dual exhaust, lower (3.27) gearing and other luxury features. The 1996 LSC was the first car from an American automaker to be equipped with HID headlights, and the 1997 to 1998 models continued the groundbreaking lighting trend with even larger housings for the HID system, and an innovative neon third brake light across the entire rear deck lid. My 1998 Collector Mark VIII number 1149 of 1280 sold in the US is a surprisingly fast, comfortable, and one of the greatest performing cars I have ever owned. With 38,000 miles I am getting excited about getting it out of storage for my 16th summer with it.
Nothing to see here folks, move along
Agreed. Lincoln Continental – V8 – RWD + FWD = Epic Fail.
“For starters, the car will be based on the current CD4 platform the underpins the Fusion, not the Volvo-derived platform underpining the current Taurus and MKS”
So Ford, why should I buy or lease your Lincoln MK Not Continental if its just a bigger MKFusion? You guys in Dearborn just don’t get it, you’ll just steal sales from MKFusion and carbon copy what the MKS actually is at the moment to a new platform. You’ll spend hundreds of millions to accomplish nothing because you’ve fallen into the GM trap of “the next model will be so much better and it will save us”. I’m not a big fan of what they did to Cadillac but it did work, they built essentially one main somewhat kick-ass model and then slowly added others around it. You can Xerox the Fusion ONCE as a Lincoln but not repeat times, you’re not going to pull a K-car miracle here.
Oh and with regards to the whole China thing, from what I read there is something of a Lincoln Continental mystique among some of the Asian cultures, this is evidenced by rolling out the Detroit iron for Dear Leader’s funeral in 2011. If you built a real Continental along the lines of the mystique it might take off in Communist China, and it wouldn’t even have to be a gas sucking land barge with no handling because lets face it the youth won’t be as interested in one of those. But I know just from working with folks in China they will not be overall impressed with a LWB MKFusion badged as a Conti, they’re not stupid. They like flash, but also demand substance and they’ll be paying high tariffs to buy your (initially) imported car. Really impress them and you’ll have buyers for life, as you’ve failed to impress people here in North America to buy your products new, even Lincoln diehards like myself.
This doesn’t sound like anything particularly revolutionary or exciting for Lincoln, even if the C/D renderings are accurate. Cadillac’s current and future models induce infinitely more ‘want’ from me.
I thought TTAC was pulling a fast one on its readers. I stared at the picture for quite a while… wondering… then I noticed the oversized wheels and the air bag. Nope, this is not a show car from 1963.
Sure could be though.
Show car from 2002
I was just looking at a beautifully restored 1958 Ford Skyliner a couple of weekends ago at a local car show. If they could engineer that back then, they should have no trouble engineering this kind of a trunk now [not that the Skyliner was ever likely trouble-free!]
The Skyliner’s main problems were electrical, and there were a lot of them.
Build it in China and sell it for $19,999. That’ll revive the brand!
2.7-litre V6 engines are always cursed. Just ask Chrysler Group and Hyundai/Kia…
as a former owner of a tiburon SE 2.7l v6…You. Have. No. Idea. i still have nightmares of the problems that afflicted this car
Hey Lincoln, Chrysler called, they want their 300 silhouette back.
If you are refering to the image on this page, the Continental concept came out one year before the Chrysler 300 concept.
Those sure are Chrysler 300 chrome wheels though.
The Big 3 ripping each other off? No way, that would never happen.
And the 300 could have just as easily been a Lincoln Continental. Too bad they didn’t do it first…
But Chrysler did it first, if Lincoln does this everyone will think they copied Chrysler
Chrysler and Lincoln are both ripping off Bentley.
The Continental Concept is no Bentley ripoff.
So achingly close, but no Monte Christo. No V-8, No RWD. The trunk will be a love/hate thing. I like it, but make the slide out a key-fob controlled decision. Betcha you’ll leave it on slide out most of the time. The suicide doors are some great eye candy. How will they affect body flex and NVH? One can always hope.
How do suicide doors affect Roller Phantoms? (Of course, they aren’t a commoditized item! ;-) )
No, no, no… Lincoln needs to make a Mark X on the Mustang platform here
http://cdn-www.airliners.net/uf/60247/middle/phpycYfi0.jpeg
Then an every day/Livery Town Car on whatever platform here
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff141/NEngineering/LincolnMKL.jpg
Then maybe a flagship/halo Continental here
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mjtVCG1V_YE/UQgutBB2ziI/AAAAAAAAIJQ/wVTDdNc5voY/s1600/2011LincolnTownCar.jpg
… but this concept Lincoln from 2002 isn’t enough
The riff on the MKWhateverTheHellIsTheEquivalentOfTheFlex is especially interesting! The bottom one is a little too close to the 300; Fiatsler should build the Imperial concept that was out years ago. Price it just above the 300 SRT8, with every option known to mankind, plus bespoke options.
Looze the trunk electro-mechanical nightmare and instead include a quality, high-powered, 12-inch sub-woofer as standard equipment.
Snow country in winter – that trunk gimmick ain’t gonna fly.
Well, a new day at TTAC. I have to go to C and D to verify the veracity of TTAC “news”. Step it up or your going to be left behind.
You have a problem with Derek linking a C&D article that shows MKS renderings? He’s been talking about Lincolns quite a bit lately. Derek is actually right about way more details than C&D.
If I’m wrong when this car launches, I’ll donate $100 to the charity of your choice. Email me editors at ttac dot com and let me know.
Hmmm. Suicide doors? If they made it a full -on abomination with AWD AND Suicide doors – I might be interested.
I’m queuing up the 1970’s Roxy Music soundtrack right now…
Keep your eyes on the ball folks:
“The belt line and C-pillar will be more subdued and flat”
This is the part that matters. Really. A flat belt line. It will look like a proper, expensive, confident automobile.
I’m still disappointed that only the grille from the MKR actually came to be. I can accept a FWD conti the last gen was fwd, but it needs a V8 if only just to attract people who associate american luxury with a V8.
If you looked at an early to mid 90s Town Car, you knew it was a premium make (or supposed to be). Unless they again quit trying to squeeze premium out of low-buck platforms and engines, and spend the bucks to to it right, it will flop.
I don’t see why the slide out trunk box should be so difficult to engineer – after all GM was doing this back in the early forties with the Chevrolet coupe pickup . I don’t think it was all that popular then and I believe it was dropped when the 1942 models came out .
Every time I see the Continental concept I can’t help thinking how sad it is for Lincoln that the only real Lincoln for sale today is the Chrysler 300.
Sure the Continental concept came slightly before the 300 concept. But Chrysler actually built the 300. And the second generation 300 looks even more like the car that Lincoln should be building.
There is no way that Lincoln is going to get proper classic Continental proportions out of a transverse engine FWD platform. The slab sides, if used, are going to make it even harder to hide the bad proportions.
Wouldn’t it just be easier to take Australia’s Ford Falcon designs, convert them to left-hand drive, gussy up the interiors a bit, and call them Lincolns?
I admit ignorance in regard to Australian Fords, but R&D for them must be paid for, isn’t it?
Suddenly it’s 1961!