Lincoln, the premium marque under Ford, had previously posted a photograph of one of their mid-1960s cars that had centre-opening doors, a feature more colloquially known as ‘suicide doors’. This, to many, portended the imminent arrival of something new from the automaker that bring these back into their modern lexicon.
It was. And so here we are with the Continental Coach Door Edition, an exclusive new variant to commemorate the company’s 80th anniversary that is aimed for the 2019 and 2020 model year delivery window. Exactly how limited these suicide doored edition will be is still a mystery, however, but it has been confirmed that 80 examples are planned for the first batch in 2019. Don’t be surprised if the feature becomes a company-wide differentiator in future cars.
The Coach Door Edition doesn’t really announce its unique doors or exclusivity in the flesh, however, as it looks pretty much identical to the standard car in its range-topping Black Label trim, except this one is given a pale blue exterior colour.
More eagle-eyed observers will notice that the altered placement of the rear door handle, of course, and the fact that the car rides on a stretched wheelbase to accommodate the rear hinge. This allows the car to now boast limousine levels of rear legroom and makes for a more graceful exit.
Sadly, like the iconic Lincoln Continentals from the 1960s, the suicide doors here do not mean a removal of a B-pillar and its presence is made a lot more pronounced, even unsightly, with both the front and rear doors ajar.
Due to the complex unibody nature to the construction of modern cars, Lincoln really had no alternative but to leave the pillar in place as removing it for aesthetic reasons would have dangerously compromised structural rigidity.
Going forward, if Lincoln does intend to include more suicide doors in their cars as well as keen on engineering a way to remove B-pillar or reduce its thickness, they would need to reconfigure the materials used in the car’s roof to reduce weight and the spread the load more evenly across the A and C-pillars.
It could prove to be quite costly, though. After all, there’s a reason why Rolls Royce are the only automaker to continue to stick with suicide doors on four-door saloons. Should Lincoln find a way to omit a B-pillar entirely, there’s still the trouble of ensuring a tight seal between both closed doors for safety and to ensure cabin insulation and weather sealing aren’t compromised.
