Lincoln finally brought us a new Continental concept last year, and we spent a fair amount of Jalopnik’s expense account tossing coins into fountains and making wishes — and it paid off! Here’s your 2017 Lincoln Continental. Say it out loud, it feels good.
The fine folks at CarScoops managed to scoop the freshest photos of the car yet. Technically this is the tenth generation of the Continental, so around these parts feel free to call it the Mark X, because that just sounds awesome.
We caught a glimpse last week of what is likely a lower-model Continental through a leaked (blurry) photo, but you can spot some obvious differences.
But as for this fancy one, I think it’s pretty obvious that Lincoln stuck very close to the concept we saw last year, even right down to the door handles fitting into the chrome window trim. The neat thing about those handles on the production car is that they don’t move. You simply grab the handle and it opens the door — so it’s a solid piece.
Supposedly these “E-Link” door handles allowed the interior design to fit speakers where a traditional door latch would prohibit placement, optimizing the sound in the interior.
The headlights are almost identical to what we saw back in March, and the taillights are virtually identical as well. The major difference is the lack of the lavishly blue interior of the concept, but this is only one set of photos for now. Smurf-style never ages.
The new Continental is said to represent Lincoln’s new philosophy of “Quiet Luxury,” with intentions of offering a more pleasurable traveling experience over one focused around performance.
The pampering style of the interior includes 30-way adjustable seats up front, and heated, cooled, and massaging seats in the front and back. Lincoln claims to have also simplified the connected experience between the driver and the software of the car, putting every function of the infotainment center within three taps in an attempt to minimize driver distraction.
The new Continental is projected to get around 400 hp and 400 lb-ft of torque from a 3.0 liter twin-turbo V6, with FWD on lower-tiered models and available rear axel torque-vectoring on models equipped with AWD. The car will run with three driving modes: Comfort, Normal, and Sport. That last one seems like a tacked-on effort by a brand claiming it’s all about how you get there, not how fast.
The Continental will go on sale this fall, with pricing to be announced closer to that time.
For an idea of just how close the design stuck to the concept we saw last year, check out the side-by-side comparison below of the concept and the production car:
Bravo, Lincoln. It’s definitely no Bentley, but it more than gets the job done. We could have used some suicide doors, though.
Contact the author at justin@jalopnik.com or @WestbrookTweets.