The featured car for this post is the 2001 Lincoln MK9 (more information here). Announced the same year was the Ford Forty-Nine that I wrote about here. There seemed to be others, as is related below.
Monday, July 15, 2019
Exploring Production?: 2001 Lincoln MK9, Ford Forty-Nine
Around the year 2000 Ford produced several concept cars that were given different brand names and ornamentation schemes, yet whose basic bodies were similar.
The featured car for this post is the 2001 Lincoln MK9 (more information here). Announced the same year was the Ford Forty-Nine that I wrote about here. There seemed to be others, as is related below.
Gallery
Front quarter view of the Lincoln MK9. It is a two-passenger coupé. The grille carries a grille theme Lincoln was using t that time. Fenders are outlined using a thin chromed strip, recalling the classic 1961 Lincoln Continental fender treatment.
Side ornamentation includes a chromed, vertical engine heat vent by the A-pillar line. Something similar was used by Jaguars a few years later while still under Ford ownership: Lincolns didn't get this feature. Also note the interrupted horizontal character line along the side.
A tail light theme is being tested. Being a show car, the MK9 seems to lack practical bumpers front and rear. All things considered, the design is attractive, having no obvious flaws.
The 2001 Ford Forty-Nine is larger than the MK9, having seating for four. Windshields differ, but the passenger greenhouses are otherwise similar. The cars also have simple fender designs with similar profiles.
Seen from the rear quarter, the Forty-Nine has a similar feeling to the MK9. The shapes of the greenhouses and window treatments are similar, the aft ends both are angled about the same, and both cars have thin character lines on their flanks. When the Forty-Nine was introduces, some automotive press writers wondered if its design was destined for production.
And here is the 2004 Lincoln Mark X concept car. Displayed three years later than the MK9, but continuing the same theme (more information here). It's essentially a reworked 2002-vintage Ford Thunderbird, but with ornamentation cues from the Mark X.
Speaking of Thunderbirds, the 2002 model was previewed by the 1999 concept car pictured above (photo via Christie's). In a sense, the Lincoln MK9 and Ford Forty-Nine did relate to a later production car, the 2002 T-bird.
The featured car for this post is the 2001 Lincoln MK9 (more information here). Announced the same year was the Ford Forty-Nine that I wrote about here. There seemed to be others, as is related below.
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There were one or two other Lincoln concepts that were even more clearly 1961 Continental inspired, but none of this ever got into any production cars. Oddly, clearly 1961-inspired interiors did get into Zephyr/MKZ's and one or two Lincoln SUV's. No one other than the former owner of a four decade old 1962 and general lifelong fan of the 1961-3 Lincolns (me) ever noticed. Everyone would have gotten it if Ford had produced a 1961 inspired exterior design. Or a Ford shoebox inspired one. I'm guessing that leadership at some level changed and these ideas got shelved, unfortunately.
The one retro inspired car that did get made, the two seater Thunderbird, considered a flop but for the two-seat luxury not a sports car did OK, selling twice as many as the similar concept Buick Reatta from a decade earlier, and about the same as Corvettes. I think they produced the wrong one, and it didn't capture what was cool about the original anyway.
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