Lincoln Concept from 2002. An opportunity missed. Will Ford rectify?

The folks over at Lincoln must cringe every time cross-town rival GM adds another diamond to Cadillac’s portfolio. GM’s luxury car division has been fully funded with big bucks and the results are apparent from the ATS to the 200 mph CTS-V to the high roller Escalade.

Meanwhile over at Lincoln, their six car portfolio with funky baleen grilles, confusing alpha-numeric names and no division specific platforms are a tough sell. They’re nice cars but dull as dishwater, with little Lincoln DNA and essentially represent Dearborn flavored Acuras. Not good.

A far cry from suicide door Continentals and Mark Series coupes with 460 V-8s and while those days are gone forever, the blueprint could be updated (just as Chrysler did with the 300C) and introduce a whole new crowd to the idea of a big daddy Lincoln.

Ford was onto this way back in 2002 with the Gerry McGovern penned Continental concept. By today’s standards the proportions are a little off, but the idea was spot on. With suicide doors, mechanicals and supercharged motors lifted from the D2C Mustang platform, it would have been a range topping car and might have saved Lincoln, just as the LX platform saved Chrysler in the mid 2000’s. Could you imagine Mopar today without Charger/300/Challenger?

Sadly, the project was mothballed. If Ford had produced it, even as a Town Car replacement, maybe they wouldn’t have had to fold the once mighty Lincoln-Mercury dealer network. They gave away the livery car business as well with the demise of the Panther platform Town Car. A stretched MKT is a question no one asked. It was a blunder of catastrophic proportions, neutralizing any bonus points Ford might have gained by refusing bailout money during The Great Recession.

Fast forward to today and Blue Oval  CEO Mark Fields has announced Ford’s plans to spend $5 billion or more over the next five years to revive Lincoln, revamp its product portfolio and reposition it as a true competitor to Cadillac as well as all the heavy hitter German luxury brands.

Details were sketchy until a leak from an unlikely source. Long-time Lincoln fan Neil Young slipped up on Mad Money with Jim Cramer saying his new high res music player Pono would debut on the “2016 Lincoln Continental.”

Could it be true? A RWD Continental? Details are sketchy, but let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best. Even if it was a reskinned MKS that looked light an old Connie it would be an improvement. Better yet, may we have a true successor with a modern RWD platform and styling cues lifted from the great Lincolns? Just like Cadillac, make platform scalable to get ATS/CTS/CT6 competitors out of the deal. In addition to high horsepower (600+) models to compete with V-Series cars, an all electric version properly executed could be a formidable competitor to the Tesla Model S.

Add these cars to existing portfolio and it would add genuine excitement to the buzz already generated by those kooky Mathew McConaughey commercials. Who knows? Someone might even write a song about Lincolns again.

Um, no.