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, Has retooled the car to abscond it lower, longer, and wider. The most striking coppers comes on what Wolff calls the car’s “pan,” which he contends can make or break a conception. Gone is the geezer grille. In its place are side-by-side streamlined chrome apertures, bisected by horizontal ribs that overextend like eagle’s wings into swept-back headlights that rain into the front fenders.
Whether or not car buyers go for the sexier, sleeker Lincoln remains to be seen, but there’s no insupportable that Lincoln needs a hit, if not a miracle. The car was the epitome of self-controlled when JFK was in the White House and the Rat Pack was headlining in Vegas. From a sales view, Lincoln reached its zenith in 1990, when 231,660 were sold. As recently as 1999, the heyday of Lincoln’s behemoth Seaman SUV, the line ranked first in U.S. sales among luxury car brands. Today, Lincoln stands eighth, its effigy defined largely by the black Town Cars that bear people to and from airports. (Ford stopped staging of the Town Car in September.) The average Lincoln driver is 65 years old. Lincoln says it sold 85,643 cars in 2011, down a breathtaking 63 percent since the 1990 tor. The latest indignity came last month, when a 1970s-era Lincoln Continental was old to carry the coffin of deceased North Korean despot Kim Jong Il. “Lincoln’s simile is as an old person’s car or a taxi,” says Rebecca Lindland, an auto analyst with researcher IHS Automotive.
Source: BusinessWeek