Lincoln Continental Could Be Killed In Favor Of EV Crossovers

The Fusion-based sedan's days are probably counted.

Aug 22, 2019 at 7:14am ET

Rumors of Lincoln discontinuing the Continental luxury sedan are nothing new. We first heard them in March last year, about a year after the car's market launch, and then again in September 2018. With monthly sales numbers in the low hundreds this year, despite the recently introduced Continental Coach Door edition, the model could indeed be facing the chopping block, at least in the United States. A new report from Automotive News shines more light on Ford’s plans about the Continental.

Currently, the company assembles the model at its Flat Rock Assembly alongside the Ford Mustang. However, two brand new all-electric crossovers for the Ford and Lincoln brands are destined to go into production at the same factory sometime in late 2022 or early 2023 for the 2023 model year. Essentially, this move should mark the end of the American production of the Continental.

Our source mentions that this doesn’t necessarily mean that the sedan will disappear entirely from the U.S. market, as Ford could eventually decide to import it from China, where it will continue to be available. Nothing can be said for the time being, however, as last year the Blue Oval axed its intentions to bring the China-made Focus Active stateside due to tariff concerns.

As far as the two new electric models are concerned, “three sources with knowledge of Ford's plans” told Automotive News they will be based on the company’s battery-electric architecture and will wear the CDX746 and CDX747 internal designations. Little else is known at the moment but the two zero-emission brothers should be roughly the size of the Ford Edge and Lincoln Nautilus duo. Ford estimates the annual production of the two should be up to 65,000 units combined.

The two new models will be part of Ford’s ambitious $11-billion program to launch 16 pure EVs by 2022, including a Mustang-inspired crossover, an electric F-150, an affordable car for the European market, a model developed in cooperation with Rivian, and others.