Oh, Lincoln. How the mighty have fallen. Once you were in the position to mock other luxury brands, and now you're the ones being mocked.
I have a confession: I have an unnatural love for the seventh-generation Lincoln Continental. I used to scour copies of Auto Trader for this car and dream of owning one. You used to see tons of Cadillac Sevilles with the angled rear end, but I always appreciated the more subtle Continental. I'd still like to own one someday.
That said, Lincoln was able to pull a fast one, sort of, on us by building the classy Continental on Ford's Fox platform. They were using the same platform-sharing techniques as their rivals at General Motors, but because the Continental didn't look like any other Fox car, they got away with it.
Almost 30 years later, look how the tables have turned. Buicks and Cadillacs look nothing like each other and aren't confusing valet drivers, but now Lincoln's models are more obvious Ford clones than ever.
Here's the follow-up to the above ad, where one of the rich guys who couldn't tell the difference between a Park Avenue and a Sedan DeVille "finally" gets a Lincoln. Maybe they're all just colorblind.