{"id":16291,"date":"2015-03-30T01:19:31","date_gmt":"2015-03-30T05:19:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/henrypayne.com\/?p=16291"},"modified":"2015-03-30T01:42:27","modified_gmt":"2015-03-30T05:42:27","slug":"the-bold-new-face-of-lincoln","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/2015\/03\/the-bold-new-face-of-lincoln","title":{"rendered":"The bold, new face of Lincoln"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

Lincoln just crashed the swank, 2016 New York Auto Show.<\/p>\n

This was supposed to be the Cadillac CT6\u2019s party, meticulously planned since the debutant\u2019s elegant coming out at the Super Bowl<\/a>. But with the quiet of a Lockheed stealth fighter and the beauty of Cinderella, the Lincoln Continental Concept<\/a> stormed New York Monday with the new face of Lincoln.<\/p>\n

Goodbye elegant bow wave, hello bold center grille. Get use to that term. Bold. Bold, bold. It\u2019s a term that has been sorely missing in Lincoln\u2019s lexicon. Where the wispy, waterfall, winged-grille of recent vintage has struggled to find friends, the bold new face and slab sides of the Continental are a return to American muscle. Or maybe English muscle.<\/p>\n

The powerful lines of the big sedan harken back to prez limos \u2013 but also echo the powerful face and loins of, say, the Bentley Continental GTS. There are lots of familiar, exterior design cues here from the Acura-like, LED spider eyes to the Kia \u201ctiger-nose\u201d grille to the signature, horizontal, Lincoln tail. But the Continental is more than a new face. Its cutting edge rear seats (Asian executives are high-fiving right now) are 30-way, 11-bladder, reclining thrones fit for a king. Or at least The Donald.<\/p>\n

Will this be the new direction that reignites a stale brand?<\/p>\n

Lincoln could have totally reinvented itself as a digital-age, cutting edge, electric-maker. But Green Elon Musk beat Green Bill Ford to market with the Tesla Model S, the most exciting American luxe car in memory (it must be galling to Ford\u2019s green scion that Musk even stole his great grandfather\u2019s \u201cModel T\u201d badge language). So Lincoln has chosen to go back to the future instead. Continental resurrected \u2013 powered by 3.0-liter Ecoboost.<\/p>\n

Ford is getting good at this stealth stuff. Remember the shocking reveal of the LeMans-bound, GT supercar at the Detroit Auto Show?<\/p>\n

And don\u2019t be confused by that \u201cconcept\u201d label. One look at the finished, signature Lincoln, push-button console and this beast looks ready for the street. Expect it to roll into showrooms next year as Lincoln\u2019s flagship sedan.<\/p>\n

(Photo courtesy of Lincoln Motor Co.)<\/p>\n

Henry Payne is auto critic for The Detroit News. Follow him on Twitter @HenryEPayne. WEB:\u00a0http:\/\/www.detroitnews.com\/staff\/27083\/henry-payne\/. EMAIL: hpayne@detroitnews.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lincoln just crashed the swank, 2016 New York Auto Show. This was supposed to be the Cadillac CT6\u2019s party, meticulously planned since the debutant\u2019s elegant coming out at the Super Bowl. But with the quiet of a Lockheed stealth fighter and the beauty of Cinderella, the Lincoln Continental Concept stormed New York Monday with the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,87],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16291"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16291"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16295,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16291\/revisions\/16295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}