{"id":155073,"date":"2020-11-04T14:02:19","date_gmt":"2020-11-04T19:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thedetroitbureau.com\/?p=155073"},"modified":"2020-11-04T16:11:11","modified_gmt":"2020-11-04T21:11:11","slug":"lincoln-now-a-sedan-free-brand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/2020\/11\/lincoln-now-a-sedan-free-brand\/","title":{"rendered":"Lincoln Now a Sedan-Free Brand"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
The 2020 Lincoln Continental with the Reserve Monochromatic Appearance Package is part of the last run of the iconic luxury sedan.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ford\u2019s Lincoln brand has earned an interesting \u2013 and potentially dubious \u2013 distinction, the only major luxury brand to abandon the passenger car segment entirely.<\/p>\n

The last Lincoln Continental sedan rolled off the line Oct. 30 at Ford\u2019s Flat Rock Assembly Plant, following other models like the MKZ and MKS into that scrapyard in the sky. At this point, Lincoln is following the lead of its parent, as Ford has killed off all of its passenger car models with the exception of the Mustang.<\/p>\n

The decision to kill the Continental \u2013 which generated a mere 6,586 sales in 2019, a nearly 25% decline from the previous year \u2013 reflects the broader shift away from sedans, coupes and sports cars as U.S. buyers by the millions migrate to SUVs and CUVs.<\/p>\n

(Lincoln dropping Continental.)<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

But Lincoln now becomes the only major luxury brand to walk away from the passenger car market entirely. True, Land Rover offers only SUVs, but that\u2019s been its business model since the brand was founded more than seven decades ago.<\/p>\n

And it is today paired with Jaguar, the fellow British marque still offering a mix of sedans and sports cars \u2013 though Jaguar also has been shifting focus to its better-selling crossovers, including the E-Pace and F-Pace.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Lincoln marked the 80th anniversary of its Continental luxury sedan with a glamorous, limited-run Coach Edition that includes suicide doors.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Whether Lincoln will retain the distinction remains far from certain. The broad trend in the market has been to cut back on slow-selling passenger car models and focus on utility vehicles.<\/p>\n

Nowhere is that more obvious than with German manufacturers like Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz. The latter still offers a array of sedans and coupes, including the new E-Class family which includes a station wagon, as well. But Mercedes also has been rationalizing its line-up, recently abandoning its small SLC roadster.<\/p>\n

Luxury brands that once looked with disdain at SUVs and CUVs now find they must offer them to avoid becoming irrelevant. Bentley\u2019s Bentayga is now its best-selling model, and Aston Martin has the same expectations for its new DBX. Lamborghini has weighed in with the Urus and even Ferrari is set to follow with its Purosangue.<\/p>\n

The question is whether Lincoln\u2019s all-ute strategy marks a permanent shift or just one tied to current market conditions. Company officials have told TheDetroitBureau.com that they\u2019re never going to say never again, but there are no plans in place, at least for the moment, to come in with an 11th-generation replacement for the Continental \u2013 or any other sedan or coupe, for that matter.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The original Lincoln Continental was designed as a one-off for Edsel Ford.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

(Newest Lincoln Continental gets some Coach-ing for 2019.)<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

As the sales numbers reveal, the \u201cConti\u201d went out with a whimper, rather than a bang. That was a big disappointment for Lincoln which received raves for the concept version is unveiled at the 2015 New York International Auto Show.<\/p>\n

The production version that followed two years later received much less enthusiastic reviews after toning down some of the key design elements and other features of the show car that had generated so much buzz.<\/p>\n

For decades, the Continental was a true flagship for the Ford Motor Co., the original model commissioned by Edsel Ford in 1938 as a one-off that he could drive around while wintering in Florida. The reaction to the design by Ford Chief Designer Eugene \u201cBob\u201d Gregorie was overwhelming, convincing Ford to put it into production two years later, both in coupe and convertible versions.<\/p>\n

The car went out of production in 1948 and didn\u2019t reappear until eight years later, retaining the distinctive hump in the back of the trunk for the spare tire.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
William Clay Ford Sr. with the then-new Continental Mark II that is considered his most successful car.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 1995, a 10th-generation Lincoln Continental was launched, this time without the distinctive hump. But it became one of the first luxury models to allow owners to extensively program digital onboard functions. That didn\u2019t go over well with potential owners, an older group who had trouble enough trying to program the clocks on their VCRs.<\/p>\n

That model was dumped in 2002 and the Conti didn\u2019t reappear once more until 2017, just in time for the luxury sedan market to start fading to black.<\/p>\n

(Lincoln lures Leibovitz to launch Continental campaign.)<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

There had been some concerns that crosstown rival Cadillac might also give up the passenger car market. General Motors\u2019 flagship brand has, indeed, cut back on that side of its line-up, most recently dropping the big CT6 sedan. But it has since launched two new four-door models, the CT4 and CT5 and, Caddy officials insist, they have no plan to follow Lincoln\u2019s lead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the last Lincoln Continental rolling off the line at plant in Flat Rock, Michigan, the brand has earned an interesting \u2013 and potentially dubious \u2013 distinction, the only major luxury brand to abandon the passenger car segment entirely. Find out more at TheDetroitBureau.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155076,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8,5,13,12],"tags":[],"make":[76],"post-state":[],"category_old":[118,150,151,123,261,163,132,284,139,148,291,278,288,304,141],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155073"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155073"},{"taxonomy":"make","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/make?post=155073"},{"taxonomy":"post-state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-state?post=155073"},{"taxonomy":"category_old","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category_old?post=155073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}