2009 Lincoln Town Car Executive L Sedan 4-door 4.6l on 2040-cars

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2020 Lincoln Aviator 450-hp PHEV will get its own exterior visual cues

Lincoln will brand its powerful plug-in version of the new Aviator crossover as a GT hybrid package with a few distinguishing visual cues when it goes on sale next summer. The luxury PHEV crossover will do battle with competitors like the Porsche Cayenne E-Hybrid, Volvo XC90 T8 and BMW's (incredibly long-winded) X5 xDrive45e iPerformance. The "GT" designation harkens to the golden era of grand touring and is meant to convey the combination of high performance and comfort over long distances. "It's really trying to get at how Lincoln is redefining luxury performance," said Brad Jager, the Aviator brand manager. The hybrid system will deliver 450 horsepower and a whopping 600 pound-feet of torque, which are increases of 50 hp and 200 lb-ft over the pure combustion version powered by a twin-turbo 3.0-liter V6. Lincoln isn't releasing expected electric-only range or fuel economy, and it's keeping most of the details of the hybrid system under wraps for now. It has said you'll also be able to hold the charge to be deployed later, such as for short trips in town. Lincoln is, however, making a few subtle exterior changes to designate the GT hybrid setup, which will be offered in the higher-end GT and Black Label trim models (the entry-level Aviator and Reserve models will be available only in gasoline combustion versions). First are changes to the Lincoln star badge on the grille and Aviator badge on the side flanks, which fill in with a blue color borrowed from the original Lincoln V12 badge from the 1930s and '40s — a neat touch on a vehicle that is reviving a nameplate. The grille itself is also an inversion of the new Lincoln treatment appearing on models like the Navigator and Nautilus. So where the grilles on those models have cutouts, the GT hybrid grille has protruding shapes that dissipate the further away they are from the center badge. Lastly, the PHEV will come with 21-inch wheels instead of the 22-inchers that equip non-hybrid versions. Lincoln says it designed the rear-wheel-drive architecture with the Aviator in mind, allowing the battery to go underneath the passenger-side second-row seats and maximizing interior space. Engineers also fit an electric motor between the V6 engine and the 10-speed automatic transmission. Lincoln hasn't announced pricing on the Aviator, which goes on sale next summer, and the plug-in hybrid versions will obviously command a premium.

A car writer's year in new vehicles [w/video]

Christmas is only a week away. The New Year is just around the corner. As 2014 draws to a close, I'm not the only one taking stock of the year that's we're almost shut of. Depending on who you are or what you do, the end of the year can bring to mind tax bills, school semesters or scheduling dental appointments. For me, for the last eight or nine years, at least a small part of this transitory time is occupied with recalling the cars I've driven over the preceding 12 months. Since I started writing about and reviewing cars in 2006, I've done an uneven job of tracking every vehicle I've been in, each year. Last year I made a resolution to be better about it, and the result is a spreadsheet with model names, dates, notes and some basic facts and figures. Armed with this basic data and a yen for year-end stories, I figured it would be interesting to parse the figures and quantify my year in cars in a way I'd never done before. The results are, well, they're a little bizarre, honestly. And I think they'll affect how I approach this gig in 2015. {C} My tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015 it'll be as high as 73. Let me give you a tiny bit of background about how automotive journalists typically get cars to test. There are basically two pools of vehicles I drive on a regular basis: media fleet vehicles and those available on "first drive" programs. The latter group is pretty self-explanatory. Journalists are gathered in one location (sometimes local, sometimes far-flung) with a new model(s), there's usually a day of driving, then we report back to you with our impressions. Media fleet vehicles are different. These are distributed to publications and individual journalists far and wide, and the test period goes from a few days to a week or more. Whereas first drives almost always result in a piece of review content, fleet loans only sometimes do. Other times they serve to give context about brands, segments, technology and the like, to editors and writers. So, adding up the loans I've had out of the press fleet and things I've driven at events, my tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015, it'll be as high as 73. At one of the buff books like Car and Driver or Motor Trend, reviewers might rotate through five cars a week, or more. I know that number sounds high, but as best I can tell, it's pretty average for the full-time professionals in this business.

Lincoln Anniversary Concept is the future looking at the past

Remember the Audi SkySphere concept the German automaker revealed on August 10? The long, low, meaty two-door designed in Malibu, California that previewed elements of Audi's coming design language? This is not that car. This is the Lincoln Anniversary concept, a long, low, meaty two-door designed at the ArtCenter College of Design — about an hour away from Malibu — as a potential preview of Lincoln design elements. There's clearly something in the waters of the communal car design trend pool, and we dig it. A few months ago, Lincoln announced it had partnered with the ArtCenter, inviting students to create four concepts that they'd showcase as integral parts of meaningful stories about people. The transportation students worked with classmates in other disciplines like film and animation to imagine what Lincolns might be like in 2040 and beyond, and create short films to put the concepts and stories in motion inside future worlds. One concept needed to hold two people, one to hold four, another would hold four at elevated ride height, and the largest would be a six-passenger vehicle. All of them had to deliver on Lincoln's promise of Quiet Flight driving and a theme called C.A.S.E., for connected, autonomous, shared and electric.  This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Lincoln x ArtCenter College of Design | Quiet Flight 2040 The Glider concept served two people in sedan form, inspired by the Zephyrs and Continentals of yore. As the star of the short "Now You Drive," a son picks up his wheelchair-bound father in the Glider and puts his father in the driver's seat, placing the wheelchair in the back. The father takes the wheel and drives for the first time in years, while the autonomously-capable sedan retracts the throttle and brake pedals and manages speed on its own. Designer Jin Kim posted detailed breakdown of his development work on the Glider, as well as the short film. The page is well worth a visit.       A four-seater SUV concept in the short "Amongst the Stars" features touch-screen windows and an augmented reality panoramic roof. The protagonist gets her first taste of a wide starry night during a family trip to White Sands National Park looking through the glass, the roof aiding her curiosity with displays like highlighting and naming constellations.