Lincoln has teased a 'suicide door' concept for the next Continental.
DETROIT: "Suicide doors" have long left modern cars unless you're willing to put down a serious wad of cash for a Rolls-Royce.
If you're a fan of these unsafe, but fashionably retro backwards-opening doors, you may be in luck, though: Lincoln has been teasing the resurrection of the concept with a picture of the centre-opening doors of the 1960s Lincoln Continental captioned, "TBT...or is it?"
This is a not-so-subtle hint that the new Continental model will probably sport these rear-hinged doors. But it's going to be difficult for Lincoln to get such a design up to regulatory standards, especially if it's shooting for the pillar-free design; they were discontinued by many manufacturers because of safety issues.
Of course, some models did pass the rigorous testing and were able to keep the doors on some of their production models, like the Rolls-Royce Dawn whose back-hinged front doors were eloquently renamed "coach doors". A Lincoln Continental would be an option for those with a lower price tag in mind.
Given the way the sedan market has been sagging, this feature may draw back some nostalgic customers who have a special place in their heart for retro-styled vehicles.
No details are known yet on how far along in the development process Lincoln is, or if the doors will ever make it onto a production model. With all the major automotive shows coming up in early 2019, we can only hope that the next Continental will make an appearance soon.
