Quiet Luxury

Quick.  Without mentioning a brand name, define “luxury”.  I’ll give you a minute…

The list of adjectives in your head is probably different from everybody else’s in this corner of the internet.  Words like: exclusive, quality, and expensive tend to be common; but there’s more to luxury than that.  It’s also a moving target.  Luxury varies wildly from culture to culture, and over time the bar seems to move higher and higher.  These days, the word on the street is that “Quiet Luxury” is the new luxury.  In a world where wealth is becoming villainized by an increasingly large section of the population, things are being taken down a notch.  Well, sort of.  True luxury is becoming less in your face and more stealth.  I’d like to say I saw it coming, but I didn’t.  Until the other day when it hit me like a ton of bricks.  Or maybe luxurious, fluffy down feathers.

The 2019/2020 Coach Door Lincoln Continental is the ultimate example of quiet luxury on the road. And I just so happened to see one, in its full glory, parked on a Tarmac full of private jets.  After a fourteen year hiatus, Ford decided we needed a new Lincoln Continental and hired Matthew McConaughey to show it off.  Alright, alright, alright.  You’ve probably driven by hundreds of boring Continentals since 2017 and hardly noticed.  I know I have.  So I’ll call a spade a spade…99% of Lincolns are dressed up Fords.  They’re pretty anonymous.

The Coach Door Continental is where anonymity and that 1% collide, beautifully.  With only about 230 on the road, you may never see one.  They were all partially assembled in Ford’s Flat Rock factory, then shipped to Cabot Coach Builders in Massachusetts for final assembly.  The only outward difference of a Coach Door Continental is an additional six inches in length, and doors that make a massive statement when they’re open.  Despite having a plethora of wildly powerful V8’s at their disposal, Ford decided their V6, 3.0 Liter Ecoboost engine was enough.  A strange move in a world where chauffeur driven flagships are usually powered by massive, silky smooth V12’s.  Or maybe some sort of exotic V8.  But if you’re being driven in your Coach Door Continental, maybe you don’t care?  A $120,000 price tag on a Lincoln must attract only the most pragmatic of the wealthy.  The only other modern car on the road with coach doors is made by Rolls Royce and twice the price.

Inside, the appointments are anything but pedestrian Lincoln.  Those extra 6 inches give the back seat passengers plenty of extra room to stretch out.  Rear passengers also park their rear ends in insanely comfortable seats with heating & cooling, massage, and more adjustability than just about any car on the planet.  Things are rounded out with rear climate control, power sunshades, an inductive cellphone/tablet charge pad, 110v outlet, rear sunroof, and a champagne bottle holder…of course.  I’ll let the king of automotive quirks and features, Doug DeMuro, show you around.

So if you’re incredibly wealthy, but want to quietly blend in with us peasants while you’re chauffeured to and from your private jet, get yourself a used (*gasp*) Coach Door Continental.  Keeping things somewhat inline with other luxury products, these Lincolns were very exclusive and have been discontinued.  Unlike most “Stinking Lincolns”, as we call them in the car biz, these are certainly going to retain most of their $120,000 sticker price for a long time.  It’s peak automotive quiet luxury and it's perfect.  I'll take one in black, please.