Here to Obscurity
Richard Heseltine unearthsa Nineties conceptgem from Ford' s Lincoln division. Meet the Sentinel ...
The Nineties witnessed a return to form for Detroit's Magic Marker-wielding artistes. It was a decade where the Big Three vied to outdo each other with ever wilder concept cars, and the machine pictured here caused quite a stir in period.
The specialist media spilled plenty of ink postulating about the chances of it ever making it into production, or rather elements filtering down into mainstream models. There was a lot of love for the Lincoln Sentinel Concept, that's for sure.
Conceived and created in 199S, and unveiled at the January 1996 Detroit Auto Show, the Sentinel borrowed styling cues from some of the more memorable models from its back catalogue. The overall outline was reminiscent of the time-defying, Elwood Engel-styled 1961 'clap door' Continental, not least the slab-sided flanks and sparse use of chrome (or 'tinsel' in design speak). That said, the brightwork here also represented a nod to past Lincoln icons, the textured grille, for example, being appropriated from ET ' Bob' Gregorie's landmark models from the early Forties.
The wheels were 20-inch items which, at the time, were considered huge. The glass, meanwhile, was flush-fitting. And while many write-ups commented on the size of the car, believing it to be on the large side even by American land yacht standards, it was 5537mm (218in) long from stem to stern. That rendered it 25mm (one inch) shorter than a contemporary Lincoln Town Car.
The Sentinel Concept was unveiled alongside Ford's barking Indigo show-stopper. Both were representative of the Blue Oval's 'New Edge' design philosophy that had first been touted on the GT90 supercar. The firm's styling czar Tom Scott told the media at the time: "Ford has always been at the vanguard of new directions in automotive design. We set the trend in the more rounded exterior shapes of the past 10 years when Ford first introduced the original Taurus, so it's only right that we should now be setting the pace in this new design philosophy which we
have called New Edge design."
He went on to add: "However, New Edge design is still in its early stages and at this time it is purely experimental. It does not necessarily follow that cars and trucks will inevitably follow this new approach to design in the years ahead. But what the Lincoln Sentinel does show is that New Edge can be applicable to other kinds of concept vehicles, and not just advanced sports cars such as the GT90."
Sadly, the Sentinel Concept didn't foretell a design revolution at Ford, at least not within the Lincoln division. It became just another show car that time forgot. Which brings us to the nettlesome question of what happened next. The car unveiled in Detroit was a 'pusher', or rather a mock-up with no engine or much in the way of an interior. According to some sources, it somehow escaped the design studio and was offered for sale by a dealer later that decade for $80,000. Rumours also persist that a drivable sister car was built. Not only that, it was based
* on a Jaguar XJ-seriesplatform ...