Lincoln releases all-new Continental in the UAE

Ford’s luxury arm, Lincoln, is a nameplate that’s supposedly been on the comeback trail for decades, seemingly always one model away from the old glory days of squaring up with Rolls-Royces and Bentleys. That comeback has yet to come as Lincoln figures out — although it just might change with the 2017 Continental — how to attract luxury-minded buyers using not much other than off-the-shelf Ford parts.

For years most Lincolns have been rebadged Fords with barely an effort to disguise the fact, but the all-new 2017 Lincoln Continental attempts to change all that with a design that actually managed to make Bentley all hot under the collar.

In fact when Lincoln first unveiled the new Continental last year before the New York motor show, it spurred then Bentley’s chief designer Luc Donckerwolke (now gone on to bigger things at Hyundai-Kia…) to get on Lincoln chief designer David Woodhouse’s Facebook page with a heck of a dig: “Do you want us to send the product tooling?” asked Donckerwolke sarcastically.

If anything, he was paying Woodhouse a compliment. Here was a front-wheel drive based saloon that was making Bentley sit up and take notice?

The time for hype is over though, because the official UAE-importer, Al Tayer Motors, has just launched the new 2017 Lincoln Continental in the country priced from AED199,000. This pits the car up against stuff like Chrysler 300Cs, big Korean Genesis saloons, and the lower-end of Mercedes’ scale of cars.

The all-new Lincoln Continental is now available in the UAE from exclusive importer Al Tayer Motors

Lincoln promises some class-leading features for the 2017 model, even going as far as claiming the door latching system to be a “segment first” (It’s a microprocessor-controlled electronic door handle…). Other equipment includes stuff such as an optional twin-panel moon roof, and front seats said to be inspired by those in private aircraft. We can only breathe a sigh of relief the engineers weren’t inspired by Economy Class.

Elsewhere, Lincoln doesn’t skimp on the hardware either — you get loads of LEDs, a parking assist system with a 360-degree camera, and adaptive cruise control that can bring the car to a complete stop automatically without the driver touching the brake pedal. The standard engine is Ford’s new 3.0-litre twin-turbo V6 that produces 373 horsepower and 575Nm of torque, and on-board there’s even a Revel Ultima sound system featuring no less than 19 speakers. You know, a Bentley only has 11…

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