Thursday, April 10, 2008

A Different Road

(NYIAS)

One of my votes this year is for Lincoln.  Often enough Cadillac's less-attractive twin brother, they have at times held their own over the years.  I personally love some of the high, sharp, boxy things they did in the 1970s when Cadillac was getting progressively less regal.  

I definitely can't say this was one of the most beautiful of the concept cars.  But all the major manufacturers seem to more or less go in the same stylistic directions.  This year: imposing, muscular front-ends that look angry and mean.

Lincoln's offering really stood apart from them, though, with a look that I found to be quite distinctive, and that's what I liked about it.  This is the MKT Concept:



There's something about the back-end profile that looks peculiarly Lincoln to me, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

It can run on either gasoline or ethanol, and can switch back and forth, but gets 415hp, fairly impressive.

The interior is quite suave, as well, with beautiful swooping lines and extremely interesting detailing.  It has an almost entirely glass roof back to about midway of the back seat (which seems disturbingly dangerous to me, but what do I know):


If you click and look very closely at that second image, you may see this really interesting Baroque detail etched into the door-handles.  That screen behind the front passenger seat at the press of a button swivels up around and hides in the ceiling.  There are cameras aimed at all the passengers for video conferencing.

©2008, Ryan Witte

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