Woman And Wheels Automotive website dedicated to women
Continental Q-Ship
Do you all know what a Q-Ship is? If not, here’s a brief lesson: A Q-Ship is a regular car with no sporty aspirations whatsoever that turns out can make a fool out of you and your 2005 Mustang GT.
Actually, Ford’s had lots of practice in this business and created one of my favourite cars from the late 80s and early 90s, the Taurus SHO. Back to the Lincoln… The new Continental is a no-frills large land yacht of a sedan whose seemingly sole purpose is to carry old people or dignitaries around and about.
In order to do so, the car can be swathe in gorgeous supple leathers, feature power, heated, cooled, and massaging seats at all four corners and enough room to accommodate nine passengers, but with only five seatbelts. The level of equipment is absolutely complete with infotainment, connectivity, safety technology and more legroom than Shaq would need.
To the average owner/driver, the Continental provides a plush, practically floaty ride that I’ve come to love. I settled into old-man mode mentally at the wheel and suddenly every other car rides worse than a Jeep CJ5. The transmission glides from cog to cog, that is unless it forgets what it’s doing and crashes into a gear for no apparent reason – happened a few times over the 700 km I put on the car.
The twin-turbo 3.0-litre V6 overflows with torque and thus the driver never needs to explore the later 2/3 of throttle travel. But if you do, jeepers! Suddenly, the big Conti rises to its feet and wants to race everybody! A careless driver can effortlessly find the digital speedometer displaying ungodly numbers. What the hell happened? Meanwhile, the cars you just passed are wondering the exact same thing…
That my friends, is a Q-Ship. The new Lincoln Continental is a typical handsome American luxury sedan with interesting features like its door handles (which I hear don’t always work) but this one has a trick up its sleeve.
Don’t be fooled by its looks.
