question. Lincoln instead designed a panel that mounts over the pillars to provide new latch mounts. Production is done by one of Ford’s prototyping shops, using low-volume soft metal “kirksite” dies.
Fully assembled Black Label cars are shipped to Cabot to be cut and spliced. The roof cut occurs just about 5 inches aft of where the B-pillar meets the roof rails. Lincoln worked with the supplier of its panoramic sunroof to have the tracks, mounts, and sunroof shade extended by 6 inches; a fixed glass panel inserted between the motorized and fixed panels compensates for the wheelbase stretch. It’s designed, tested, and assembled to the same specifications as the standard roof. The roof panel and rails are reinforced with metal inserts, and the rocker panels and floor pan extension are aligned below. This minimizes the amount of metal finishing and painting that must be done. Exterior color choices include Infinite Black (45 percent of the total 230-car build), Chroma Crystal Blue (30 percent), and Pristine White Metallic (18 percent). One customer ordered a silver car.
The B-pillar is a vital element in any car’s side-impact crash protection, so replacing it to convert the rear door hinge pillar to a rear door latch mounting was out of the
The doors and door glass, floor stamping inserts, and extended drive shaft are also produced by Lincoln. Stainless exhaust pipe extensions and additional underfloor shielding materials are among the assembly kit items shipped to Cabot, as well. Instead of extending the exhaust heat shield, white heat-reflective paint coats the extended floor-hump area.
Replicating the custom door handles that mirror each other and meet at the door gap—as on the Coach Door concept that toured the 2018–2019 auto show circuit— would have been cost prohibitive and threatened quality and reliability issues. Lincoln’s elegant solution was to work with its existing door handle and trim supplier to simply swap the left and right rear door handles and trim pieces to bring the handles to the front of the rear doors. The trim and end caps needed minor modification, but this way the hardware, electric switches, and seals remained in volume production spec. Two pieces of stock window trim are cut and spliced with a small trim piece hiding the joint where they meet at the B-pillar.
Could the interior live up to the expectations established by those Rolls-Roycelike rear doors? Even these coach-built Lincolns can’t approach Rolls/Bentley levels of bespoke trim and tailoring. In fact, only two of the three available Continental Black Label color and trim combinations were offered. Alpine is the lighter of the two, combining off-white leather on the seats and the lower half of the interior with Espresso seat piping and upper dash and door surfaces—all accented by deep Silverwood trim.
Our car features the Thoroughbred theme, which accents a mostly Jet Black interior with chestnut antiqued Belmont leather on the dash, doors, and console upper surfaces. Wood trim is all high-gloss Chilean maple, which looks luxurious in a traditional, old-school way, though it often reflects sun glare. Unfortunately, the mottled dye on the Belmont accent leather, meant to evoke equestrian saddles, struck us as reminiscent of off-brand Naugahyde Barcaloungers.
Here’s an area where the 2019 and 2020 models differ from each other and from the original concept. All the donor cars had the $3,000 Rear Seat Amenities package, which includes an elaborate pulldown armrest featuring audio and climate controls, pop-out cupholders, a stowage bin, and sunroof/sunshade switches. Cabot removes this assembly and affixes these features to a new flow-through console structure that bridges from the front console to the rear pass-through, rendering this a four-passenger model. This fixed structure simply mounts over the standard cross-car bench seat. For 2020, that armrest stowage bin adds a Qi wireless charging pad. An upholstered panel that covers the trunk pass-through door is held in place by Velcro fasteners so it can be removed to serve as a lap table. For 2020 this pass-through door accesses a lockable stowage compartment that encroaches into the trunk space; it hovers above the trunk floor, though, so that accessory trunk mats fit without modification. On both sides of the console, pop-out knobs were added to hang a purse or take-away dinner bag. The forward portion of the console contains a metal sleeve sized to hold a Champagne bottle. It gets a handsome lid with a cork seal
