Really, the only thing that's kept me in Lincoln's corner rather than jumping ship to C-Didly is the fact that Cadillac didn't have a rear drive, body on frame, full figured flagship....Lincoln did. If Lincoln loses that, then they'll be without the one thing that kept me theirs.....and I know I'm not alone there.
Really, Ford in general is starting to worry me. In a world where D.C. and GM are rediscovering their rear-drive religion, and coming out with some really exciting, really cool product based on it, Ford, the only one to have stuck with it is going the exact opposite direction. It seems to me that they're aiming for product distinction via the low road rather than the high road. Distinction via engineered inferiority. Front drive, and with only a few exceptions, underpowered and boring. I still consider myself a blue oval man, but I can't say for how much longer.
Whatever happened to 2002 when they brought out the conti concept and said that something very much like that was gonna replace the Town Car. It was still rear drive, body on frame and still a V8. And give or take an inch, had the same footprint as the current town car. THAT (and the sister Ford 427 concept) would've been the car (s) to revive the boat car genre, to see a new caddy fleetwood and even perhaps a new chrysler new yorker...but no. They decided just to let the boat car go the way of it's key stereotypical drivers ignoring all of the rest of us devoted to the medium that still have some years ahead of them.
Yes, I've heard that the Ford and Merc panther cars have been promised life through the decade, but they're not gonna invest money for anything really significant in them. They're just gonna let them stagnate for a while. And while that definitely sucks, it's still a damned sight better than what's happening at Lincoln. If they're not gonna revive The T.C. then why can't they just let it do the same thing?! Can I get an amen?