Lincoln is preparing to undergo quite a transformation in the coming years, as the luxury automaker recently announced that its entire lineup would be fully electrified by 2030. Lincoln will also launch its very first EV next year, and noted that its future models will adopt the brand’s new “Quiet Flight DNA” design philosophy, which was previewed with the Zephyr Reflection Concept that debuted at Auto Shanghai earlier this year. Now, the Lincoln Quiet Flight 2040 design exercise is imagining the automaker’s future with a bit of a longer-term view.
The Lincoln Quiet Flight 2040 design exercise called upon four teams of transportation design students from the ArtCenter College of Design in Southern California, who were asked to imagine what Lincoln vehicles, their drivers, and the world around them might look like by the year 2040 and beyond. Those four teams then came up with a concept and a story behind it, which was told via a short film.
“ArtCenter is known for great vehicle design, and it’s in the heart of Hollywood,” said Jordan Meadows, global strategic design specialist for Lincoln, and assistant professor at ArtCenter. “More than just the vehicles themselves, we were looking for that great narrative development, that rich storytelling. It’s so important to understand the future ecosystem in which a concept vehicle will live.”
There were a few requirements for these concepts, including the fact that each had to stay true to Lincoln’s vision and be connected, autonomous, shared, and electric (CASE). However, each team was asked to design a different type of vehicle – a two-passenger, four-passenger, four-passenger with elevated ride height, and a six-passenger vehicle.
The result of those efforts were four intriguing concepts – the Lincoln Glider sedan, which draws inspiration from the Lincoln Continental and Zephyr, along with three other unique vehicles and Hollywood-quality stories, which can be viewed in the video below.
“The students’ various visions of how Lincoln and our Quiet Flight product DNA might look 20 years from now were inspiring,” said Joy Falotico, president, the Lincoln Motor Company. “Their concepts bring to life our core tenets of Beauty, Human, Gliding, and Sanctuary in such an experiential way and clearly show how each vehicle plays a central role in people’s daily lives.”
We’ll have more on Lincoln’s future design direction soon, so be sure and subscribe to Ford Authority for more Lincoln news and ongoing Ford news coverage.
Comments
Things looking bright for Lincoln’s future!
The VW Van with the LINCOLN frontend image works it can replace the Nautilus. Go all out make it everything you see in the photo and more no 2 LINCOLNS has to share the same face let them all be Unique in there own Element. The car model don’t work at all its old already cartoonish at best and unconnected-Uninspiring copy cat that’s been done before
R. Buckminster Fuller would approve.
whatever they do, i hope they keep to focusing on keeping their cars “luxury” cars that are roomy, sumptuous and opulent, not cramped, overpriced sports cars. Cadillac went that direction and their cars are junk now. the last authentic Cadillac rolled off the assembly line in 1996 with the Fleetwood Brougham. While Lincoln has floundered in the past twenty years, they didn’t totally go down the toilet like Cadillac. And more recently they are getting their mojo back. but most importantly, they are getting back to their roots and naming their cars with real names that people can remember and having the focus be on their cars being “luxurious”, rather than sporty. I think with the recently discontinued “Continental”, it was too easy to just say sedans are no longer popular. If they made the coach door option standard equipment and the car was a rear wheel drive configuration, they would have seen more sales. The car also needed some more “bling” as it was a bit bland from the sides and back. In the old days, some added chrome trim, white walls did it. those things may not work these days. but the styling needs to be such that you take a look at the car and can tell its a expensive and unique car. Lastly, they need to be adamant about the quality. seems when manufacturers lard up these cars with all these high tech options and put them into production, they are not ready for “prime time” and the gadgets malfunction or are bewildering to the customer and hard to use. Make sure all that stuff works and works well, and such that you don’t have to read pages of complicated user manuals to operate it.
I totally agree with your Continental comment Lincoln really didn’t build the flagship luxury Suicide doors RWD the customers was ready to buy
Hopefully better quality than the POS Navigator I just paid over 90k for! I miss my old RAM truck rode ten times better & was more comfortable plus every thing worked Good luck with Ford’s self stop and self parking