1956 Continental Mark Ii on 2040-cars

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2020 Lincoln Navigator now has an option for chrome haters

If you've ever seen a new Lincoln Navigator, you know that there was no restraint when the designers started adding chrome. But it seems Lincoln realizes not everyone wants to drive a rolling mirror ball, so it's adding a Monochromatic Package to the 2020 Lincoln Navigator. The package is pretty simple, it coats items such as the grille, side vents and other trim in the body color, rather than shiny metal. It's only available in three colors — white, gray and black — and only on the Reserve trim level. Lincoln has made some other updates to the Navigator that benefits every trim level. Power running boards, heated and cooled front seats, wireless phone charging, and the latest version of the CoPilot360 suite of safety features are all standard. The latter includes blind-spot monitoring, lane-keep assist, pedestrian detection, automatic emergency braking and automatic high-beam headlights. Also included as standard is Lincoln's Phone as Key system, which allows your phone, well, to work as your key. You can also control things remotely, and even enable other people's phones to work as a key on a regular basis or just during specific times, in case you need to lend access. The 2020 Navigator will arrive at dealers this November. Pricing has not been announced yet, but it should be available shortly before the on-sale date.

1955 Lincoln Indianapolis concept up for auction

Lincoln was never a brand known for making sports cars. In fact it hasn't offered anything with less than four doors since the demise of the Mark VIII, and that was hardly what you'd call "performance oriented". But that doesn't mean that Ford's luxury marque never toyed with the idea.
In 1955 Ford delivered a Lincoln chassis (along with a 200-horsepower V8 engine and four-speed automatic transmission) to Carrozzeria Boano, an Italian coachbuilder that had just branched off from Ghia the year before. The resulting orange coupe you see here was named after Indianapolis and was unveiled at the Turin Motor Show. And while its detailing may have been divisive, the overall shape certainly caught the eye.

Ford defends plan to shareholders: ‘We're simply reinventing the American car’

Ford's top executives took heat from shareholders over their plan to do away with sedans as we know them in Ford's North American lineup, as the company held its annual meeting Thursday. Critics said the plan to shelve the Fiesta, Focus and Taurus, reduce the Focus to one crossover model, and concentrate on high-margin trucks and SUVs was a shortsighted abandonment of entire market segments of affordable vehicles. "This doesn't mean we intend to lose those customers," Ford CEO Jim Hackett said. "We want to give them what they're telling us they really want. We're simply reinventing the American car." Ford has said SUVs/crossovers and pickups will constitute 90 percent of its North American lineup by 2020. And though only the Mustang and new Focus Active will remain, it plans to add new vehicles going forward that offer better fuel economy and utility, including EVs and hybrids. Hackett characterized the shift not as an abandonment of traditional cars but as a transformation of them. "We don't want anyone to think we're leaving anything," Hackett said. "We're just moving to a modern version. This is an exciting new generation of vehicles coming from Ford." It was Hackett's first annual meeting as CEO, and for the second year it was conducted online rather than in person. The change to Ford's lineup is part of Hackett's overall plan to cut $25.2 billion in costs by the year 2022. Executive Chairman Bill Ford Jr. blamed the negative reaction to the lineup plan on media coverage. "I wish the coverage had been a little different," he said. "If you got beyond the headline, you'll see we're adding to our product lineup and by 2020 we'll have the freshest showroom in the industry. The headlines look like Ford's retreating. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth." While Ford was clear about its plans for the Blue Oval, it has been less clear about the Lincoln brand. Hackett on Thursday said only that the Lincoln Continental, re-introduced just two years ago, would continue "through its life cycle" — but it has been such a slow seller that rumor has Ford killing the Continental again after that, and Hackett made no mention of a new generation. Presumably the MKZ sedan will go away when its twin the Ford Fusion does, but although Ford has outlined end dates for other models, the Fusion's departure is open-ended. The stock price has been a frustration for investors for years and has fallen 12 percent since the first of the year.