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<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="20414" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Lincoln">Lincoln</keyword> announced last year that it would stop building the Continental and MKZ at the end of 2020.</li><li>You can buy the remaining 2020 models new. When they're gone, Lincoln will be left with an all-SUV lineup.</li><li>That makes perfect sense, because sedans aren't selling and Lincoln's SUVs are extremely capable and luxurious.</li></ul>Historically, Lincoln and <keyword id="128115" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Cadillac">Cadillac</keyword> have a lot in common. They're both luxury arms of two of Detroit's Big Three: Ford and General Motors, respectively. And they're both synonymous with old-school American luxury.But as we move further and further away from the 20th century, those sentiments are fading into the past. As far as adapting to survive in 2020's luxury market goes, Lincoln clearly has a plan and is willing to make some sacrifices to pull it off.The company's 2020 announcement that it would <a href="https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/a33073428/the-lincoln-continental-is-dead/">kill off one of its most iconic nameplates</a>, the Continental, is proof of that. <div type="image" title="2020 Lincoln Aviator_12" height="1333" width="2000" msid="77303073" hostid="261"></div>The Continental and Lincoln's only other non-SUV, the MKZ, were scheduled to end production at the end of last year. You can still find the two on Lincoln's website for now, but once the 2020 models are off the lot and supply dries up, you can say goodbye.Their deaths mark yet another step toward a new, and desperately needed, era for Lincoln. Both Lincoln and Cadillac enjoyed an iconic heyday of status. Lincoln Cosmopolitans and Continentals ferried presidents like Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy from the 1950s through the 1970s. Cadillac Fleetwoods - President Bill Clinton's presidential state car - served from the 1980s to the early 2000s. Indeed, when something is luxurious or exclusive, we tend to say it is "the Cadillac" of its kind. <div type="image" title="Lincoln Kennedy" height="1371" width="2000" msid="77303075" hostid="261"></div>But whereas Cadillac appears to be going through an identity crisis - is it a <a href="https://jalopnik.com/it-was-always-the-escalade-1841478176">premium luxury car brand</a> or a <a href="https://www.motortrend.com/news/every-cadillac-v-series-ever-driven/">sporty, performance brand</a>? Is it a <a href="https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2014/09/23/cadillac-headquarters-to-set-up-shop-in-new-york-offices-in-2015/">New York City-based company</a> or a <a href="https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a23475170/cadillac-headquarters-leaving-nyc-michigan/">Michigan-based company</a>? Is it <a href="https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a31225540/cadillac-ev-lyriq-celestiq/">an electric-car brand now</a>? - Lincoln has quietly assumed its position in the market as a premium luxury brand, seemingly unconcerned with competing against the Germans or Tesla.And premium luxury in 2020 does not mean vast sedans with fins like it did in the '50s, '60s, and '70s. The idea has been reshaped instead to mean hulking SUVs that achieve the approximate size and weight of a small shed. This wasn't something that happened overnight. As Insider's own <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-lincoln-came-back-from-dead-put-ford-back-on-luxury-map-2016-10">Matt DeBord wrote in 2016</a>, Lincoln introduced the Navigator in the late 1990s. It was the brand's first big, luxury SUV and was intended to cash in on the SUV frenzy taking automakers into the new millennium.<div type="image" title="1998LincolnNavigator_CN327014 140" height="1988" width="2000" msid="77303077" hostid="261"></div>Lincoln was dealt a double blow soon after. In 2009, when gas prices rose to nearly $5 a gallon in California, it spelled almost certain death for cars like the Navigator. The cool factor Lincoln rode on thanks to the Continental had all but dried up. Besides the Navigator, the brand struggled with notable cars, and it didn't help that most of them were named like they had been dredged up from alphabet soup: MKS, MKT, MKX, MKZ.The Lincoln Town Car was the choice vehicle of taxi drivers in New York City. Not exactly glamorous.But Ford made a decision. Rather than kill off Lincoln like it did Mercury in 2011, it kept Lincoln around and orchestrated a comeback. Mercury competed with the likes of Buick. Lincoln was the premium brand, so Ford could charge more for the cars. Hopefully, people would go for them.<div type="image" title="2017 Lincoln Continental" height="1600" width="2400" msid="77303080" hostid="261"></div>After a 14-year absence, Lincoln brought the Continental sedan back in 2016. It was welcomed with <a href="https://www.motortrend.com/cars/lincoln/continental/2017/2017-lincoln-continental-black-label-awd-first-drive-review/">fanfare</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/new-lincoln-continental-review-2017-3">by</a> <a href="https://www.thecarconnection.com/overview/lincoln_continental_2017">journalists</a>. It wore what would become Lincoln's new corporate face: a recessed, unfussy rectangular grille that was a welcomed relief from the <a href="https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/sources-lincoln-waterfall-grille-is-a-goner/">dreadful waterfall grille that dominated the 2000s</a>. But by that point, <a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-auto-sales-20170104-story.html">SUVs were leading car sales in the US</a>, not sedans. Soon after, the fourth-generation <keyword id="1045246" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Lincoln-Navigator">Lincoln Navigator</keyword> debuted in 2017. <a href="https://jalopnik.com/the-2019-lincoln-navigator-is-a-glorious-return-to-amer-1837718657">I reviewed it</a> and loved it.Maybe the Continental was Lincoln's flagship once upon a time, but it was plain as day that the Navigator had moved into the top spot. Its power, quality, interior, and price all spoke to a premium luxury product - and one that knew it, too. Lincoln was no longer duking it out in lunchroom squabbles in Detroit with GM or Chrysler; this was world-class luxury now. <div type="image" title="2020 Lincoln Navigator Reserve with Monochromatic Package" height="1333" width="2000" msid="77303083" hostid="261"></div>So when <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/ford/2020/07/01/ford-end-u-s-production-lincoln-continental/5359271002/">Lincoln decided</a> that it will <a href="https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/lincoln-mkz-luxury-sedan-discontinued-production/">cease production of the MKZ</a> and the Continental sedan - arguably its most famous nameplate - by the end of 2020, it was disappointing but unsurprising. Lincoln has spent recent years ridding itself of confusing alphanumeric names and building out its SUV portfolio. Joining the Navigator was the three-row Aviator SUV (also excellent; <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/2020-lincoln-aviator-review-hybrid-specs-three-row-suv-luxury-2020-7">review here</a>), the Nautilus midsize crossover (formerly MKX), and the Corsair compact crossover (formerly MKC).Pushed to the end of its lineup were the Continental and MKZ, the latter of which I have seen zero actual people own except for limousine companies. <div type="image" title="LincolnContinental CoachDoors_HR_10" height="1333" width="2000" msid="77303086" hostid="261"></div>The MKZ harkens back to a dark point in Lincoln's history, but I can't help but feel a little nostalgic for the Continental. It's the executive, stately sedan that <a href="https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/a29364984/2020-lincoln-continental-with-suicide-doors-pictures-price-specs/">sported awesome suicide doors</a>, was once the President's ride, and even offered <a href="https://www.thedrive.com/news/23569/this-v-12-1940-lincoln-continental-is-looking-for-a-home-with-a-big-garage">V12s</a> in the 1940s. But rather than mire itself in nostalgia, which makes sentimental nerds like me feel good but doesn't actually sell any cars, Lincoln made the business decision to just axe the Continental altogether.<div type="image" title="1964 Lincoln Continental convertible neg C1111 139" height="1577" width="2000" msid="77303089" hostid="261"></div>The numbers support the move: In 2019, <a href="https://media.ford.com/content/dam/fordmedia/North%20America/US/2020/01/06/sales-4q2019.pdf">Lincoln sold</a> 87,893 SUVs and just 24,311 sedans. Those SUV numbers are likely to just get higher, since the Aviator wasn't even available until midway through 2019. Thus, canceling its remaining sedans completely falls in line with Lincoln's slow push to define the space it occupies. It makes sense. Once the MKZ and Continental depart, Lincoln will have an all-SUV lineup with new names and sleek looks. It'll be nearly unrecognizable from the stodgy brand of the early 2000s. Consumers will be greeted by a single, unified message of what Lincoln's idea of premium American luxury is supposed to look and feel like. <div type="image" title="2020 Lincoln Aviator_25" height="1333" width="2000" msid="77303093" hostid="261"></div>So pour one out for the Continental. Will anyone actually miss it? Hard to say, but probably not. Buyers certainly won't. With the Navigator and Aviator as quality and impressive as they are, I can't really see a customer feeling torn by a sedan when such capable SUVs exist right next to it. That's not how people shop these days. The company is certainly putting all of its eggs in the SUV basket as if gas being $5 per gallon is a distant memory - and as if it couldn't easily happen again. It's a tremendous bet that the ground won't be torn out from under SUVs again like it was a mere 10 years ago.But for now, it's what people are buying. So give them what they want.

For Lincoln, defining a new era of American luxury means killing off one of its most iconic cars

Business in <keyword id="6354953" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Punjab">Punjab</keyword> isn’t really as usual, particularly not the high end car-hire market. Considered one of the biggest wedding markets in the country, Punjab has a history of splurging money d<keyword id="71431" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Uri">uri</keyword>ng weddings. However this year is an exception. The rising Indo-Pak tension post Uri attack is the culprit. 
 Traditionally <keyword id="6356687" type="COUNTRY" weightage="20" keywordseo="canada">Canada</keyword> based <keyword id="5105" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Punjabi">Punjabi</keyword> groom-to-be would come to the country for wedding during the months of February. It is during this time that they would hire high end luxury cars to reach the wedding venue. The purpose of riding in a Limousine or <keyword id="42034" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Jaguar">Jaguar</keyword> is to impress the bride’s side. This season, however the business is drying up. The rates of the cars vary according to models. In general, it’s Rs 18,000 for an <keyword id="6560475" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="audi-a4">Audi A4</keyword>, Rs26, 000 for an <keyword id="421269" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="audi-a6">Audi A6</keyword> or a <keyword id="6355119" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="BMW">BMW</keyword> 5 Series or <keyword id="72074" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Bentley">Bentley</keyword> to Rs 40,000 for a <keyword id="3750637" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="lincoln-limousine">Lincoln Limousine</keyword> and Rs 50,000 for a Jaguar XE. 
 
However this season being too dry, you might get a 50% reduction in price. Fearing more tension, the Punjabi grooms are avoiding coming to India this year. Moreover, the elections this time may get violent, which are again reason why the car rentals are seeing red this season. "If NRIs heed the appeal and come to Punjab during the elections, they may double up the trip by planning weddings, too, <keyword id="204766" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Avtar-Singh">Avtar Singh</keyword>, who has eight luxury cars near <keyword id="123363" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Phagwara">Phagwara</keyword>, told the <keyword id="6474066" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="economic-times">Economic Times</keyword>. This is crucial to sustain EMIs and the running costs of his fleworth almost Rs5 crore, he says.

Indo-Pak tension is really hurting Punjab’s wedding market

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div>The Lincoln Continental is just one of those cars. It really isn't even a car - it's an ideal, a dream, an evocation.Ford introduced the Continental in the late 1930s, and over the decades it was conjoined with American history, most tragically in 1963, when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas while riding in a 1961 Continental limousine.Ford discontinued the Continental as its flagship Lincoln luxury sedan in 2002, but the nameplate never really went away. You could say that it haunted Ford.And then, in 2015, a new Continental concept car took the New York auto show by storm. Ford had considered killing off Lincoln after the financial crisis but decided against it and put billions into a revival of the brand. By 2016 we saw the production version of the big new sedan as it hit the car-show circuit.Last year, we finally found ourselves behind the wheel of a 2017 Lincoln Continental Reserve with all-wheel drive, stickered at $56,000 but then benefitting from about $20,000 worth of options, taking the final price up to $76,000.Lincoln usually has something special in store for the New York Auto Show, which kicks off in about a month. The Continental concept was a star in 2015, but did it live up to expectations - not to mention the lofty reputation of its name - when we checked it out? Read on:

The new Lincoln Continental lives up to its famous name

Ground transport for the US president has changed drastically over the years. In 1939, with the widespread adoption of cars, the president's limousine started off as a Lincoln Model K. Although the car was a luxury item, it was still nothing compared to what the president's ground vehicles would end up becoming in the following decades.The following GIF, produced by <a href="https://www.restonlimo.com/">Reston Limousine</a>, shows how the president's ground vehicles have changed from 1939 to the present day. <a href="http://giphy.com/gifs/xT9DPCUPIQVxIO8u1G">via GIPHY</a>From comparatively humble origins in luxury cars, the US president's vehicles have evolved drastically. Currently, the US president has both "Cadillac One" - also known as <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-beast-presidents-limo-2015-2">"The Beast"</a> - and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/meet-ground-force-one-the-presidents-11-million-armored-bus-2016-1">"Ground Force One,"</a> a retrofitted tour bus. The two vehicles cost $1.5 million and $1.1 million respectively. This is due to the host of features that both cars feature to ensure that the president is as safe as possible while on the ground. Both The Beast and Ground Force One feature kevlar-enforced tires, steel rims that can still be drive on if the wheels are punctured, and a supply of the president's blood for a worst case scenario. These are far cries from the relatively simple limousines that the presidents used to use. <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/isis-is-afraid-of-girls-2016-2">ISIS is afraid of girls - here's why</a></h3> <div> <div> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="UwdGNneTq0kUXLKgFu5ScZhpSOIsdBbl" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> </div> </div> </div>

This GIF shows how the US president's limousines have changed since 1939

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image">Matthew DeBord/BISmooth.</div></div></div>The Lincoln Continental is just one of those cars. It really isn't even a car - it's an ideal, a dream, an evocation.In many ways, the Great American Car.Ford introduced the Continental in the late 1930s, and over the decades it was conjoined with American history, most tragically in 1963, when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas while riding in a 1961 Continental limousine.Ford discontinued the Continental as its flagship Lincoln luxury sedan in 2002, but the nameplate never really went away. You could say that it haunted Ford.And then, in 2015, a new Continental concept car took the New York auto show by storm. Ford had considered killing off Lincoln after the financial crisis but decided against it and put billions into a revival of the brand. By 2016 we saw the production version of the big new sedan as it hit the car-show circuit.More recently, as autumn settled in the Northeast, we finally found ourselves behind the wheel of a 2017 Lincoln Continental Reserve with all-wheel drive, stickered at $56,000 but then benefitting from about $20,000 worth of options, taking the final price up to $76,000.Does the new Continental live up to expectations - not to mention the lofty reputation of its name? Read on to find out:

With the new Continental, Lincoln has recreated the Great American Car

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image">APThe Lincoln Navigator concept.</div></div></div>In the car business, impressions matter. But for a big chunk of the 2000s, the impression Lincoln made was that it didn't matter.Lincoln has been around since 1917 and has been part of Ford since 1922. Over the decades, it established itself as first a premium and later a luxury brand, minting several icons along the way: The Continental, which became a presidential limousine, and later the Navigator, the first large luxury SUV.In the early 1990s, Lincoln was selling nearly a quarter-million vehicles a year. But by 2014, it was struggling to sell 80,000. During the financial crisis and meltdown of the Detroit auto industry, there were calls for Ford to shutter Lincoln. Ford's then-CEO, Alan Mulally, was keeping his company out of bankruptcy, shedding luxury brands such as Jaguar and Land Rover, and unifying his far-flung employees around an inspiring "One Ford" message. There were rumors that the brand was on the chopping block in 2010-2011, but Mulally decided against shuttering it.He reportedly wanted to ditch Lincoln again last year, when as <a href="http://www.autonews.com/article/20140630/RETAIL01/140639997/fields-ready-to-prove-lincoln-worth-saving-with-mkc#">Automotive News reported</a> "sales fell to a 32-year low." Ford's now-CEO, Mark Fields, talked Mulally out of it.Lincoln didn't have much - an aging big SUV that cost more than $100 to gas up, a lineup of uninspiring sedans, and importantly, no Continental - but it did have one thing going for it: The guy who would end up running Ford wanted to keep it.<h2>Lincoln's big push</h2>"We made a very big commitment to Lincoln about three years ago, saying we want to turn Lincoln into a world-class luxury brand with a client experience to match," Fields said <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ford-ceo-mark-fields-interview-2016-3">in an interview</a> with Business Insider CEO and Editor-in-Chief Henry Blodget on the eve of the New York Auto Show. "And we've had a lot of success implementing that strategy. We grew our sales and our market share two years in a row. In the first couple of months of this year our sales are up 19%."It goes without saying that this is costing Ford billions. When the US auto industry was first showing signs of recovery in 2011-2012, industry observers could scoff at Field's enthusiasm, even though the luxury space is certainly profitable. "Strategically it's important," Fields told BI. "The luxury industry represents here in the US, in any given year, between 10% and 13% of the total industry. And globally, it's probably around 8%, 9% of the total industry. But from a profitability standpoint, it represents over a third of the profits."<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Matthew DeBord/Business InsiderThe impressive BMW 7-Series.</div></div></div>But the luxury space is also crowded. In the US alone, Lincoln's crosstown rival, Cadillac, is competing with BMW, Mercedes, Lexus, Audi, Acura, Infiniti, Porsche, and a new arrival, Hyundai's Genesis brand, for affluent customers. Most of those players sell extremely compelling cars and SUVs. Their buyers, on the whole, are younger than the traditional Lincoln owner (although Lincoln has been doing pretty well with younger buyers of late). Their buyers are also repeat customers: Some BMW 3-Series sedan owners are probably on their fifth or sixth car at this point.And in the world's other very important luxury market, China, automakers are also moving aggressively to grab share. Fields was certainly thinking in this direction when he pressed Mulally to spare the brand the fate of its stablemate, Mercury, which was rolled up in 2011. Ford would need a clear luxury brand to take on GM's Cadillac and Buick in China - the latter a Mercury rival in the near-luxury market in the US, but a longtime true luxury brand in the Middle Kingdom.So far, Lincoln in China has been fairly impressive: The <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/ford-boasts-buoyant-chinese-car-sales-in-2015-1452279403">carmaker sold about 12,000 vehicles there in 2015</a>, well behind Cadillac's almost 80,000, but not bad for a new arrival. Expansion plans are robust, with 60 new dealerships opening in 2016.<h2>Whisper to the thunder</h2>The Lincoln revival has really gained momentum in the past two years, for reasons that are somewhat difficult to reconcile, but, viewed in retrospect, that are also evidence of some out-of-the-box thinking at Ford.One aspect of this was literally on display at the New York Auto Show last week, when Lincoln revealed its second spectacular concept car in as many years. The <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/lincolns-navigator-concept-2016-3">Lincoln Navigator concept</a> is an over-the-top update to the stalwart SUV: It was inspired by the world of yachting, with huge gullwing doors, nautical teak details, and an interior that merges the Lincolns of the 1960s with the Jetsons and Mies van der Rohe. It has to be seen to be believed.It follows the auspicious revival of the Continental nameplate. Lincoln showed the concept version of that car at the 2015 New York Auto Show, to crowds that were giddy to see the Rat Pack-era car make a comeback. The production version was the queen of the 2016 Detroit Auto Show, the centerpiece of a vast and glittering Lincoln stand that looked like the most stylish ocean liner on the seas.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image">NewspressThe Lincoln Continental concept.</div></div></div>These new Lincolns are bold, but not obnoxious. They embody the brand's new direction, a focus on what Fields and Lincoln president Kumar Galhotra call "quiet luxury." The idea is to zig when everyone else is zagging. The success of BMW, Mercedes, and Audi in the luxury market had convinced the industry that it needs to sell high performance along with sumptuous seats. This has translated in aggressive vehicles with powerful engines aimed at delivering a track-worthy driving experience, even if your only track is a suburban boulevard.Lincoln doesn't want to go there. "We're not trying to out-German the Germans," Fields told BI.<h2>The McConaughey factor</h2>That might all sound a bit too subdued to take customers from the Germans, but to spur its revival, Lincoln did something so, well, strange that it's likely to go down in the annals of advertising as one of the biggest risks in marketing. The brand hired Matthew McConaughey as a spokesman and created a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/lincoln-announces-moody-collaboration-with-matthew-mcconaughey-2014-8">dreamy, stream-of-conscious campaign</a> around him that immediately went viral, captivating the late-night talk-show circuit and putting Lincoln back on the world's radar.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image">Lincoln MediaThe greatest pitchman in automotive history?</div></div></div>McConaughey was on hand in New York for the Navigator concept reveal and said that he expected to be working with Lincoln for another few years. According to Galhotra, the brand's goal now is to evolve his character as Lincoln introduces new and refreshed cars and trucks. What began with moody, evocative meditations while driving around in an MKC crossover has morphed into a jaunt to a stylish poker night and a sushi run in a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_N-B4WTrbw">current-generation Navigator with a pair of dogs</a> who would prefer barbecue. It remains to be seen what will happen when he takes the wheel of a Continental or the production version of the new Navigator.<h2>Everyone's a critic</h2>I was a staunch Lincoln skeptic back when the brand looked, frankly, pathetic. But <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/i-officially-take-back-every-bad-thing-i-ever-said-about-lincoln-2014-9">I changed my tune</a> when I took a more serious look at both the existing vehicle lineup and began to report on the revival. And the numbers don't lie: Lincoln's momentum in the past few years is undeniable. Some of this can be chalked up to the simple fact that Ford can build some solid trucks in all shapes and sizes and then turn them into Lincolns, so when the market shifted to those segments as gas prices plummeted, Lincoln had the right products at the right time.But it would have had those vehicles in any case. The penumbra of rebranding is definitely moving the needle with buyers. The McConaughey ads coincided with the actor's Oscar win and star turn in movies such as "Interstellar" and on TV in "True Detective." And the whole "quiet luxury" tagline expresses an idea that many luxury buyers would echo, if they hadn't been hit over the head for a decade with the notion that their car needs to get them to the office on weekday and turn impressive lap times on the weekends. Galhotra has told me on several occasions that while Lincoln customers want a powerful automobile, they don't really care about the horsepower numbers. As long as the car feels like it can go, that's enough.<h2>Little things mean a lot</h2>Is that a little thing? Maybe. But for Lincoln, little things mean a lot. And so far, the brand has swung for fences when it needs to, especially in New York around auto-show time. Or, as McConaughey might say in a Lincoln ad, "Sometimes, when you're thinking about something small, you're really thinking about something big."It adds up. And before you know it, the impression you're making is huge. <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-international-auto-show-new-cars-lincoln-continental-2015-4">Here's the new Lincoln Continental concept car unveiled at the New York International Auto Show</a></h3> <div> <div> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="9qNmVidDp4cuIPnt1p2kbQ-n7mjiwAjT" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> </div> </div> </div>

The comeback of Lincoln is the biggest surprise in the auto industry - here's why

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image">Matthew DeBord/BISmooth.</div></div></div>The Lincoln Continental is just one of those cars. It really isn't even a car - it's an ideal, a dream, an evocation.Ford introduced the Continental in the late 1930s, and over the decades it became conjoined with American history, most tragically in 1963 when President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas while riding in a 1961 Continental limousine.Ford discontinued the Continental as its flagship Lincoln luxury sedan in 2002, but the nameplate never really went away. You could say that it haunted Ford.And then, in 2015, a new Continental concept car took the New York auto show by storm. Ford had considered killing off Lincoln after the financial crisis but decided against it and put billions into a revival of the brand. By 2016, we saw the production version of the big new sedan, as it hit the car show circuit.More recently, as autumn settled on the Northeast, we finally found ourselves behind the wheel of a 2017 Lincoln Continental Reserve with all-wheel-drive, stickering at $56,000, but then benefitting from ten grand worth of options, taking the final price up to $76,000.Does the new Continental live up to expectations - not to mention the lofty reputation of its name? Read on to find out:

Lincoln just rolled out one of the most hyped cars of the year - here's the verdict

It used to be that you saw a stretch limousine and excitedly wondered who was inside — maybe a corporate executive or a celebrity or some other classy, mysterious type. Now, you see a limo, and you know it's not anyone fancy. Come to think of it … when was the last time you saw a limo at all?Culturally, limousines have gone from "oooh" to "ick," and they're dying out accordingly.They've fallen out of favor. Maybe the occasional bachelorette party or a handful of promgoers opt for them, but their options are limited because limo companies have shrunk their fleets of actual stretch limos. For-hire transportation businesses would rather sell them on an SUV or a party bus, where passengers don't have to awkwardly crawl around in their formalwear."None of us really own limos anymore. We're in the black-car business. We're in the van business. We're in the bus business. We're in the motor-coach business. We could be in the trolley business," said Joe Reinhardt, the owner and CEO of Carolina Limousine &amp; Coach, which operates out of Myrtle Beach in South Carolina. He's expanding his business' offering to buses and motor coaches and changing its name to CLC Worldwide to get the "limousine" out of it. It still lets him tell the origin story, while avoiding sounding like a "gaudy limousine company." The limo industry isn't dead; it's just leaving the classic black stretch version of itself behind."It's really chauffeured transportation these days," said Brett Barenholtz, the president of the industry trade group National Limousine Association who also runs multiple transportation companies out of Maine and Boston. "The vehicles can change. We're just selling a premium service, and people want a premium service."In the popular imagination, the limo invokes a certain image — <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/revisiting-the-fashions-of-wall-street-2010-4">Michael Douglas in "Wall Street,"</a> Richard Gere in "Pretty Woman," or throngs of teens piling into one of them before a school dance. None of that is, you know, up to date or modern. The heyday of the limo is firmly in the past.A constellation of factors contributed to the limo's demise. Consumers have moved on — to a lot of people, a 30-foot-long car seems gauche and tacky, not cool and classic. The industry has moved on, too. A <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/evolution-mercedes-benz-sprinter-van-2020-9">Mercedes-Benz Sprinter</a> (basically a nice, roomy van), an SUV, or a black sedan is much more versatile and, in turn, easier to make money off than an attention-grabbing car you roll out only for special events."Nobody rides in a limo anymore," Scott Michael, the CEO of the United Motorcoach Association, said. "They're riding in black cars, town cars. They're still called limo companies, but they don't use limos for the most part."On the passenger end of things, the 2008 financial crisis was an important factor in the limo's decline, said Robert Alexander, the CEO of RMA Worldwide, a chauffeured-transportation-service company based in Washington, DC. In an environment where the American public was hurting financially and very angry with a lot of CEOs, it wasn't cute to be spotted hopping into an expensive limousine. It's better for high-paid business leaders to travel in a more muted fashion — <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ceo-salary-gap-worker-salaries-labor-finance-economy-hock-tan-2024-6">even if they're still making tons more money than their workers</a>."People didn't want to show their wealth," Alexander said. "That was kind of the beginning of the end."As went CEOs, so went everyone else, eventually — celebrities, brides and grooms, promgoers, funeral attendees. If Gen Z is allowed to take private transportation to a dance these days (which many aren't), they're likelier to opt for a party bus or some other nonlimo option, though a limo may still be on the menu, especially in smaller markets. The rise of "<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/quiet-luxury-explained-which-brands-will-benefit-2023-4">quiet luxury</a>" came to for-hire transportation as people toned down the visibility of their rides."The old joke was the only time people were using limos is when you're wed and when you're dead, as in a funeral and then a wedding, after corporations went away," Alexander said. "Prom season used to be a big part of a couple months of revenue, not anymore. Even funerals have changed."Some horrific, high-profile accidents also spooked some would-be limo bookers. In 2013, a limo fire in California killed five members of a bachelorette party. In 2018, a limo crash in New York killed 20 people.Prom and wedding seasons still exist, and some parties opt for traditional limos, but not to the same extent they used to. Barenholtz said more weddings use regular buses, the focus being just getting people from the ceremony to the reception. He also noted that some school districts no longer allow students to get to school events in limos or other private transportation. The taxi- and limousine-service industry is expected to bring in about $42.8 billion in revenue in 2024, according to IBISWorld. That number has been on the decline over the past few years because of the pandemic, and it's still recovering as business travel returns.Many in the industry have been fine to <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/28/business/limo-service-decline.html">leave the traditional limousine behind</a>. A decade or two ago, a transportation company with 50 vehicles in its fleet would have multiple limos. Now, they may have a couple, because the vehicle is probably already paid off, doesn't have a lot of mileage on it, and sometimes still gets booked. Trade shows and expos for limousines and luxury transportation no longer have many, if any, actual classic stretch limos on their floors. New stretch limos are also hard to manufacture: Most are created by <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-limos-are-made-limousine-luxury-stretch-2018-5">literally cutting a car in half</a>, which is then extended with steel and fiberglass and tossed all together. It's not exactly the safest approach — the structural integrity in the Franken-vehicles can be suspect. (It's also not the most comfortable for passengers — pumping air conditioning into the altered cars isn't easy and can translate to a sweaty experience.) Given these difficulties, fewer stretch limos are being manufactured. The last Hummer limo, for example, was made in 2010. Cadillac and Lincoln have suspended their safety testing on vehicles altered to be limos."It was almost arts and crafts the way that the vehicles were put together," Reinhardt said. "They weren't safe. They were a rough ride. They were tough to maintain."On the internet, in places like Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace, you can find plenty of used limos for sale. In the New York area, for example, the prices run the gamut — generally, they're priced between $5,000 and $20,000, but some are in the $40,000 to $50,000 range. Others are supercheap, and one was even advertised for free.Businesses in the sector have had to do some work to get customers on board with the transition from limo to party bus. As Chris Weiss, the president and publisher of Chauffeur Driven, a trade magazine focused on luxury ground transportation, put it, a "better mousetrap" was built with the Mercedes Sprinter, but that hasn't always been intuitive for consumers. As much as a limo doesn't scream "class" anymore, a van doesn't really, either."You get in the vehicle, and you don't have to crouch down; you're not crawling around. It's just more comfortable," Weiss said. "Until the consumer really understood, it was up to these companies to kind of say, 'Hey, well, we don't have limos. We have Sprinters.' And then once they got in them, they were like, 'Oh, yeah, this is much better.'"As consumers get wise to the more practical — and often more luxurious — options, businesses in the sector are rebranding themselves away from the limo image. So is the entire industry, to some extent."Everyone was ABC Limo, XYZ Limo forever, and then they started using the word 'transportation,' and then they started using the word 'worldwide' or 'global,' just kind of pulling the word 'limo' out of their name," Weiss said. "Even a lot of the associations that represent this space have morphed or are planning on morphing their name and getting the word 'limo' out of it." Even the National Limousine Association has considered a rebrand, though it notes people know it more as the NLA anyway."It's not a dead business. It's there," Barenholtz said. "Chauffeured transportation has evolved into shuttles and just high-end service."Reinhardt's Carolina Limousine &amp; Coach is moving more into motor coaches (think, like, a fancy-ish big bus). He's not so worried about the threat of ride-hailing companies, such as Uber and Lyft, to his more traditional business. He described them as "glorified hitchhiking," though he acknowledged they had changed client expectations in terms of things like wait times. Barenholtz conceded that sometimes the ride-hailing outfits could compete, but he compared them to a "box of chocolates," where you never know what you're going to get. Alexander's RMA has a large fleet of vehicles, from sedans to luxury vans to motor coaches. He said they keep a stretch limo around for nostalgia's sake more than anything.Nostalgia, indeed, is a hell of a drug. Usually, when something from the past is dying out, we have a tendency to feel a little bad about it. It's sad to see trends come and go, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trader-joes-mini-tote-bags-stanley-cups-tiktok-consumerism-marketing-2024-3">especially in an era when everything moves so quickly</a>. I remember my one stretch-limo experience fondly, from my high-school prom. But the more I reported on this story, the more surprised I was at my sentiment about the limo's downfall, which amounted to … good riddance. Crouching down and scooching around an actual limo is a little miserable. There are plenty of better alternatives out there that the very same companies provide. The safety stuff is scary."You can reinforce it as best you can," Weiss said, "but they're just not as safe."When the marketplace gets rid of something — because businesses stop selling it, because consumers no longer want it, because it just starts to look bad to use it — sometimes it has a point. A CEO gallivanting around in his or her fancy stretch limousine is gross. Taking a more inconspicuous SUV doesn't solve the problem of income inequality, but at least it means the winners in the scenario are less flashy about it. Regular people can also book an SUV to take them to the airport, which will guarantee they get there on time but also have more space for luggage."Even your rock stars, if you will, are going to ride in an SUV. It's just what they want. They're easier to get in and out of," Alexander said. "They're safe. They can be fairly nondescript."Consumers who insist on renting a limo can find one, of course, and they can buy one, too. But if you'd rather take a party bus or an SUV, that's understandable — so would most everybody else.<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/emily-stewart">Emily Stewart</a> is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, writing about business and the economy.

The stretch limo is dead

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">APThe Beast.</div></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li>US President <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/donald-trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Donald Trump'</a>s <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/cadillac" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Cadillac</a> limousine is known simply as "<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/the-beast" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Beast</a>." It's one of the most famous presidential limos in the world.</li><li>The latest version of The Beast debuted in the fall of 2018.</li><li>Russian President <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/vladimir-putin" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Vladimir Putin</a> also rolled out a new limo last year called the Aurus Senat.</li><li>Aurus is a new Russian luxury auto brand that debuted the Senat Limo at the 2018 Moscow International Auto Show. </li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.</a></li></ul>For world leaders, the limousine is an important element in making a grand entrance. Queen Elizabeth II travels in her Bentleys while the Emperor of Japan prefers a Toyota Century. Chinese President Xi Jinping usually hits the parade route in a Hongqi L5. German Chancellor Angela Merkel can often be seen climbing into a selection of armored Audi and Mercedes-Benz limos. However, there are few limousines more recognizable than that of the US President, known simply as "The Beast." For much of the 20th century, various Lincoln limos have been the vehicle of choice for the US President. However, that changed in the early 1980s when the Reagan Administration went with Cadillac. And it's been all Caddy's since then. Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/kim-jong-un-mercedes-maybach-limo-2019-4" data-analytics-position="9">Kim Jong Un travels with a convoy of armored Mercedes limos, but the company doesn't know how he got them</a>.The latest version of The Beast debuted in the fall of 2018. Once again, it's a Cadillac. The limo was originally commissioned in 2014 by the Obama Administration but didn't go into service until two years into Trump's presidency.Russian President Vladimir Putin recently debuted a new presidential limo of his own called the Aurus Senat. Aurus is a new Russian luxury auto brand that debuted the Senat Limo at the 2018 Moscow International Auto Show. Here's a closer look at Trump's new Beast limo and Putin's Aurus Senat:

Here's how Trump's $1.5 million Cadillac limo 'The Beast' stacks up against Putin's newest Russian limo

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image">AP PhotoDwight Eisenhower.</div></div></div>Donald Trump has dropped a number of hints about his favorite US president, and it says a lot about what he means by his campaign slogan "make America great again."Although Trump has repeatedly expressed admiration for presidents such as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Ronald Reagan - all must-names for preferred presidents as a Republican candidate - <a href="https://m.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/4uxdbn/im_donald_j_trump_and_im_your_next_president_of/d5tr2z3?context=1" target="_blank">it's his inclusion of a fourth name</a> that helps clear up any debate over his favorite: Dwight Eisenhower.Trump professed his admiration for Eisenhower in a Reddit AMA last month when he was asked about his favorite president - making sure to name Washington, Lincoln, and Reagan as well.Eisenhower, who served as supreme allied commander in Europe during World War II, was the last president to have been voted to the presidency without holding prior elected office, a streak Trump is attempting to break. Only four presidents have ever held the position without holding prior elected office, and the other three - Herbert Hoover, Ulysses S. Grant, and Zachary Taylor - all did so long before Trump was born. With the Manhattan billionaire being born in 1946, Eisenhower would've been the president that represented Trump's most formative years, having served in office from 1953-1961. The current Republican nominee once lined up with fellow students in the late 1950s to wave at Eisenhower as he passed by in a limousine on his way to deliver the first pitch of the World Series between the New York Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers, as reported in the recently released "Trump Revealed," which also noted that Trump, whose father was a Republican, wore "I like Ike" pins during Eisenhower's re-election year.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">AP PhotoDwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon.</div></div></div>Multiple sources told Business Insider that it's this time period, the 1950s, that Trump is really referencing when he says he will "make America great again.""There was almost unparalleled American power and self-confidence after World War II," said Alex Keyssar, a professor of history and social policy in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, when asked about why Trump might be most drawn to the 34th president. "The 1950s is what he, in his mind, had as his normal and what we should get back to."Eisenhower was at one-time recruited by both the Democratic and Republican parties to run for the presidency, and Keyssar called him a "quasi-consensus candidate." "Eisenhower himself was the opposite in terms of the controversy provoking," he continued, comparing the two. "You know, he was almost bland in a lot of ways. To me, it may be less about Eisenhower per say than it is about what the 50s symbolized to him."The real-estate magnate has intermittently tweeted about Eisenhower in recent years, cited him as the standard-bearer for earning the most votes in Republican primary history ["Dwight D. Eisenhower - <a href="https://twitter.com/mollyesque/status/741721158064734208">great guy...I beat him</a>,] and used a past Eisenhower plan to defend his immigration positions."Let me just tell you that Dwight Eisenhower, good president, great president, people liked him," he said in a November primary debate. 'I like Ike,' right?""Moved 1.5 million illegal immigrants out of this country, moved them just beyond the border," <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/nov/11/donald-trump/trump-eisenhower-deported-15-million-immigrants/">he continued, speaking of the highly controversial "Operation Wetback" program</a> [Trump's numbers weren't completely accurate]. "They came back. Moved them again beyond the border, they came back. Didn't like it. Moved them way south. They never came back."<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Darren McCollester/Getty ImagesDonald Trump.</div></div></div>Trump is also promising a massive infrastructure package - double what Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton will spend, he recently said, which would end up falling around $800 billion to $1 trillion. The Republican president most famous for his infrastructure program is Eisenhower, under who the interstate highway system was completed. "He wants to go back to the 50s," Republican strategist and founder of the Potomac Strategy Group Matt Mackowiak told Business Insider. "He had something of a privileged upbringing and he did like the world as it existed when he was a kid. A lot of us are developed based on our childhood."Mackowiak said the thought of Trump comparing himself to Eisenhower is "interesting.""I think if you sat him down and said "tell me one thing Eisenhower did as president" he couldn't tell you," Mackowiak said. "I truly don't think that. He might say 'well, he was the supreme allied commander and he was elected president. That's probably the extent of what he can tell you. But there's no question, he might know that Eisenhower led a real eight years of peace and prosperity. And so, he may have some knowledge of that."Mackowiak added that Trump's references to Eisenhower are likely a byproduct of Trump's want to compare himself to historical figures."He wants to compare himself to Eisenhower by saying he won more votes than Eisenhower did as if beating someone 60 years ago when the country's population was half or a third of what it is today is an impressive accomplishment," he said. "So he does like sort of dropping names from the past as a way to elevate his status as a peer of significant historical figures." <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/realdonaldtrump-data-suggests-donald-trump-tweets-difference-android-iphone-twitter-2016-8">DATA SCIENTIST: There's an easy way to tell if one of Trump's tweets came from him or his campaign</a></h3> <div> <div> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="kzODNkNTE6ni3UoJzoQnrnRMmSJQftwC" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> </div> </div> </div>

Trump's hints about his favorite president tell us everything about his signature campaign theme

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (AP) — As smoke thickened and a <keyword id="28762" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="60" keywordseo="fire">fire</keyword> grew in the back of a limousine, Nelia Arellano desperately tried to squeeze through a 3 foot by 1 ½-foot partition.
Stuck for a moment, Arellano made her way into the front seat. Four of her friends quickly followed. Five others didn't make it. Their bodies were later found pressed against the partition.
Arellano said in an interview Monday with KGO-TV that she believes the driver, Oliver Brown, could have done more to help during the fire, which took place Saturday night on one of the busiest bridges on San Francisco Bay.
"When he stop the car, he get out from the car, he just get out from the car," she said.
Arellano and other women had started the night celebrating the recent wedding of Neriza Fojas and were headed across the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge to a hotel in Foster City.
Brown — a San Jose man who worked for the limo company the past two months — has said in interviews that one of the passengers tapped on the partition behind him, saying something about smoke as music blared from the back. No smoking was allowed, he told them.
Then the taps turned to urgent knocks, and someone screamed "Pull over!"
Brown said he stopped on the bridge as soon as he could. Then he helped pull the women out through the partition, he said.
One of the women who made it through the partition ran to the back and yanked open a door, but Brown said that provided oxygen to the fire and the rear of the limo became engulfed in flames.
Brown said he believed it was an electrical fire.
"It could have been smoldering for days," he told KGO on Monday, noting there was no explosive boom.
Authorities searched for answers Monday, hoping to learn what sparked the blaze and why five of the victims killed Saturday night couldn't escape.
The position of the bodies at the partition suggested they were trying to get away from the fire, San Mateo County Coroner Robert Foucrault said.
Fojas, 31, a registered nurse from Fresno was planning to travel to her native Philippines to hold another wedding ceremony with relatives. Her friends in the limousine were fellow nurses.
Fojas was among the five who died. Her mother, Sonya, broke into tears during an interview in the Philippines with local TV network GMA News.
"How painful, how painful what happened," she said.
The U.S. ambassador to the Philippines, Harry Thomas Jr., on Tuesday expressed condolences to the Fojas family.
"Mystery surrounds deadly limo fire," he said in a Twitter message. "Condolences to the Fojas family in the Philippines and the U.S. and other nurses."
Fojas and another woman who died, Michelle Estrera, were nurses at Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno. The remaining three victims haven't been identified.
The medical center's CEO, Jack Chubb, said in a statement Monday that Fojas and Estrera were outstanding nurses, loved by their patients, colleagues and staff.
"Both were good friends, stellar nurses and excellent mentors who served as preceptors to new nurses," he said.
A relative of Fojas said the young nurse was preparing to get her master's degree.
Christina Kitts said Monday that Fojas lived in Hawaii while she reviewed for her nursing exam, then took a job in Oakland for two years before moving to Fresno about a year ago.
Three survivors hospitalized were identified as Jasmine Desguia, 34, of San Jose; Mary Guardiano, 42, of Alameda; and Amalia Loyola, 48, of San Leandro. Arellano, 36, of Oakland, was treated and released.
California Highway Patrol Commander Mike Maskarich said the state Public Utilities Commission had authorized the vehicle to carry eight or fewer passengers, but it had nine on the night of the deadly fire. Maskarich said it was too early in the investigation to say whether overcrowding may have been a factor.
State PUC spokeswoman Terrie Prosper said Monday that the commission is looking into whether the operator of the limo, Limo Stop, willfully misrepresented the seating capacity to the agency. If so, Limo Stop could be penalized $7,500 for each day it was in violation.
Limo Stop is licensed and has shown evidence of liability insurance, Prosper said. The company has seven vehicles with a seating capacity of up to eight passengers listed with the commission, and it has not been the target of any previous enforcement action.
The CPUC requires that all carriers have a preventive maintenance program and maintain a daily vehicle inspection report, Prosper said. Carriers also certify that they are have or are enrolled in a safety education and training program, she said.
Prosper said requirements for emergency exits only apply to buses, and limousines are not required to have fire extinguishers.
Joan Claybrook, the top federal auto-safety regulator under President Jimmy Carter, said the stretch limousine industry is poorly regulated because the main agency that oversees car safety doesn't have enough money to prioritize investigating the small businesses that modify limos after they leave the assembly line.
"I think the oversight is pretty lousy, because the modifications are so individualistic, and there are not that many companies out there that do this. Mostly, they are mom-and-pop operations," said Claybrook, a former administrator at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration who previously led consumer group Public Citizen.
Instead, the agency tends to focus more on problems with new cars and major recalls, she said.
U.S. Department of Transportation data shows five people died in three separate stretch limo accidents in 2010, and 21 people died in another three stretch limo accidents in 2011.
Stretch limos are typically built in two ways.
In the first process, one carmaker builds the limousine's body, then another company customizes or stretches the vehicle.
The second company has to issue a certification that the car meets National Highway Traffic Safety Administration safety standards for new vehicles, and that all safety equipment is working as required before it can be sold to the public, said Henry Jasny, an attorney with the Washington-based nonprofit Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety.
In the second process, a customer buys the limousine directly from the carmaker, then takes it to be customized. But modifying the car after it has been sold is considered a retrofit, so is not something NHTSA would regulate, Jasny said.
Many older models such as the 1999 Lincoln Town Car that caught fire Saturday were modified after they left the factory, said Jerry Jacobs, who owns a boutique limousine company in in San Rafael with a fleet that includes two stretch limos.
"There is nothing wrong with having these older models on the road. Many have low mileage and immaculate interiors because we take care of them. But when these cars start getting older and the rubber boots wear out, they start running hot," Jacobs said. "The key is you have to keep doing all the right maintenance to make sure they're running smoothly."
___
Associated Press writers Sudhin Thanawala in San Francisco and Gosia Wozniacka in Fresno contributed to this report.
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Survivor Of Horrific Limo Fire Says Driver Did Nothing To Help

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="Joisey Showaa / Flickr, CC" title_caption="The view from Weehawken, N.J." class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5331f28c6da81144480df925-960/manhattan-new-york-skyline-midtown.jpg"></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/joiseyshowaa/3191428445/">Joisey Showaa / Flickr, CC</a>The view from Weehawken, N.J.</div></div></div>There is an interesting conversation going around in Hudson County, New Jersey, right now to do with real estate, house prices and Uber, the ride-sharing and limousine app.
In pubs, restaurants and cocktail bars, people are seriously discussing moving farther away from Manhattan to less convenient neighborhoods - where houses and apartments tend to be bigger and less expensive - because they've recently discovered Uber.
For some strange reason, Uber seems to be both cheaper and more convenient in New Jersey than it is in New York. Two Uber drivers recently told me why they believe that is: There is an oversupply of drivers in New Jersey, and an under-supply in New York, these drivers say.
We'll explain why in a moment, but the effect of that imbalance is interesting.
Uber can be expensive to use - everyone dreads "the surge," when prices go up due to high demand. But in New Jersey, surges seem to be less frequent and less extreme than they are in New York.
This makes Uber cheap to use in New Jersey, even cheaper than getting a taxi. You can frequently <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-save-money-using-uber-2013-12">save money using Uber</a>. (My New York colleagues tell me they believe Uber is generally more expensive than a taxi, but all this data is anecdotal.)
And that, potentially, could change the real estate geography of Hudson County, the pseudo-metropolis of 635,000 people that sits opposite Manhattan on the western bank of the Hudson River. Until now, the most desirable places to live in Hudson have been Jersey City, Hoboken and to a lesser extent Weehawken. That's due to the fact that those cities sit right next to the Holland and Lincoln tunnels, and on top of the N.J. Transit train and PATH subway lines that go in and out of New York. Ideally, commuters want to live near a train or bus stop into the city.
<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image"><a title_source="Google" title_caption="This map of Manhattan, Jersey City and Hoboken shows how the Heights was once a step too far for some commuters -&#xa0;until Uber arrived." class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5332453669bedd67210df925-960/screen_shot_2014-03-25_at_11_04_22_pm.jpg"></a>GoogleThis map of Manhattan, Jersey City and Hoboken shows how the Heights was once a step too far for some commuters -&#xa0;until Uber arrived.</div></div></div>But because Uber has made getting around in Hudson County so much quicker and more comfortable, people are considering moving farther out to previously less desirable neighborhoods, like Jersey City's Heights and Greenville areas. Until now, they have both required long walks or uncomfortable bus rides for residents who need to get to Manhattan. A daily $6 Uber ride to the nearest PATH adds up to just $1,500 a year in commuting costs for a Heights or Greenville resident. That would be easily offset by the cheaper mortgage or rental fees you'd pay to live in the Heights' high-ceilinged, big-roomed buildings, which have clifftop views of the New York skyline, or Greenville's full-house abodes.
This is all great news for the good people of Jersey City, Hoboken and Weehawken, of course. But why is Uber doing them this favor?
<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="Mercedes-Benz" title_caption="The inside of a late model Mercedes, the kind of car favored by Uber's SUV service." class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/52af1c63ecad049d6f6ee2db-960/13c1004_04.jpg"></a>Mercedes-BenzThe inside of a late model Mercedes, the kind of car favored by Uber's SUV service.</div></div></div>It turns out that any driver who is licensed to drive a taxi or limo in New York is automatically licensed to do the same in New Jersey, drivers have told me. But New Jersey drivers are not cross-qualified to drive in Manhattan, I am told. Many New York drivers thus end up driving for Uber across the river in Jersey, but Jersey drivers cannot go to New York. (Even if this is not the reason, I can confirm that many New York drivers end up driving for Uber in New Jersey.) The obvious result: There are always Uber cars available in Hudson County.
That oversupply of drivers fends off surge prices even when it is raining.
Whether it will reshape the real estate market is a different question. But the fact that people are even talking about it shows you the power tech can bring when it comes to reforming public transport options, and reshaping neighborhoods.

Why Uber Is So Much Better In New Jersey Than It Is In New York

<div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image on-image"><a href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-A-MA-USA-APHS263715-John-F-Kennedy/9d7df7fc575a40899b3cc999711a912f/17/0">Associated Press</a></div></div>
This is an excerpt from "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Kennedy-Half-Century-Presidency-Assassination/dp/1620402807">The Kennedy Half-Century: The Presidency, Assassination, and Lasting Legacy of John F. </a><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Kennedy-Half-Century-Presidency-Assassination/dp/1620402807">Kennedy</a>" by Larry J. Sabato. It will be released on October 15. 
Introduction: The Birth of a Legacy
When John F. Kennedy entered the presidential limousine at Love Field, he began his ride into history. The journey continues, and we call it the Kennedy legacy.
At its core, a legacy is a bequest. Every president wants to hand down a dazzling record to posterity, and each occupant of the Oval Office dreams he will be elevated to the pantheon of "the greats." But what presidents imagine their legacy to be usually differs from what cruel fate dictates.
Every president's legacy is a strange, evolving thing. It transforms itself from year to year and generation to generation. Some memories fade while others come into sharper focus because of new circumstances, perhaps more revelations from the past or a transformation in the present that makes once-insignificant events loom large. A president's legacy is a struggle in public relations, too.
The former chief executive and his family and staff seek to enhance it, to airbrush away the blemishes while emphasizing the achievements, as they conceive of them. Opponents of the president rarely go into hibernation with his retirement or death; old grudges and fresh agendas can make a former president a continuing target. Democrats ran against Herbert Hoover for forty years.
Republicans have targeted Jimmy Carter for over thirty. This sad destiny is usually spared public figures who exit through the brutality of assassination. Martyrdom's blood and tears can wash away grievous sins -- the martyr's and our own.
Long after a president has left Washington, journalists ferret out hidden secrets that affect his image for good or ill. Tidbits about their terms still dominate headlines with regularity. Far peskier and unrelenting than reporters are the historians and political scientists. For us, time stands still and there is never a final deadline.
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln are still being reevaluated virtually on an annual basis. There is value in such constant churning, in part because our society's unceasing search for the right path can be guided by roads already taken, and our developing values can find new expression in past precedent. The scholar Merrill Peterson's view of Jefferson, one of Kennedy's favorite predecessors, applies just as well to JFK:
The guiding concept, the Jefferson image, may be defined as the composite representation of the historic personage and of the ideas and ideals, policies and sentiments, habitually identified with him. The image is highly complex and never stationary. It is a mixed product of memory and hope, fact and myth, love and hate, of the politician's strategy, the patriot's veneration, and the scholar's quest . . . It is posterity's configuration of Jefferson. Even more, however, it is a sensitive reflector, through several generations, of America's troubled search for the image of itself.
Not only is there a need for this presidential revisionism, there is -- to judge by book sales -- a popular appetite for statesmen's modified biographies centuries after they departed the scene. Such a prospect is both comforting and frightening to modern presidents.
They know they will not be completely forgotten, and the less successful among them hope for redemption. Yet they also recognize history's unpredictability. Unforeseen circumstances may cause their administration's high points to appear irrelevant and their decisions unwise.
While breath remains in their body, they work directly or through associates to spin pundits and commentators for generous evaluations. Beyond the grave, former presidents will be unknowing, but their survivors often continue the effort.
Eventually, however, the public relations fog lifts. There are few or no people left with a personal stake in promoting or condemning ex-presidents; this may be the first point of historical clarity. In the case of John Kennedy, we are almost at that moment.
While JFK's family continues to be prominent and ever-vigilant about the Kennedy image, the clan's political power has waned enormously. With the death of Senator Edward Kennedy in 2009, the family's last political powerhouse left the scene. Few JFK aides remain alive. In another quarter century only a relative handful of Americans will personally recall the Kennedy years.
A half century from John Kennedy's death, we can finally see more plainly. We can separate fact from fiction and reality from myth. We can assess the true impact of a short presidency that has had a sharp silhouette. Has it really been fifty years? For those who lived during the Kennedy administration, the images of that brief epoch are still so vivid that time often seems to stand still.
The vibrancy of those memories underscores this book's focus: the legacy left by John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty-fifth president of the United States, in this, the fiftieth year since his life ended in a hail of gunfire.
Kennedy served less than three years as chief executive before he was brutally slain in Dallas on November 22, 1963. Many presidents who stayed four or even eight years in the White House have been largely forgotten.
Yet JFK regularly ranks as one of the best in surveys of the public, and his words are employed more often than those of all but a handful of other statesmen by officeholders and candidates today.
What has set Kennedy apart? Was it singular style, exceptional substance, or a special mix of the two that has made his short presidency such a touchstone for other politicians, academics, everyday Americans, and people around the world?
In an age of punishing political polarization, when the right and the left are constantly at each other's throats, President Kennedy -- a forceful partisan in his time -- has become a standard exemplar of bipartisanship. For Democrats, he is in the permanent pantheon of party saints, the man who restored unto them the White House after an eight-year period of GOP control and whose popularity continued them in power even after his death.
Of course, many modern Democrats have forgotten just how conservative many of JFK's policies were; they have blurred the Kennedy picture, confusing John with his brothers Robert and Edward, whose politics became much more liberal after JFK's assassination.
For Republicans, John Kennedy's muscular foreign policy (after a shaky start), his strong anticommunism, and his enthusiastic backing of free-market capitalism and broad-based income tax cuts have made him a favored, or at least an acceptable, Democratic president -- one frequently cited in speeches and television advertisements by GOP politicians. The goal of this partisan cross-dressing is obvious: to portray Republicans as closer to the Kennedy tradition than some current Democrats.
A political party borrows only the brightest stars from the other party's firmament, so this establishes the standard: The legacy of John F. Kennedy has proven durable and popular, even in the face of many distasteful personal revelations about JFK. This book will explain how and why.
The initial focus here is Kennedy's prepresidential career, followed by an examination of his precedent-setting 1960 effort to win the White House -- in many ways, the first truly modern campaign for the presidency. A look at the highlights of his abbreviated term in office follows. And then the moment no one will ever forget; the tragedy in Dallas, which has become an ongoing murder mystery and a fascinating Rorschach test about one's view of life, politics, and the nation's path since 1963.
I will offer some new perspectives on a fifty-year-old puzzle and take a balanced look at the charges and countercharges in the crime of the century. I have also been able to make significant progress in analyzing a key piece of evidence that sheds light on the events of November 22.
John Kennedy's life and death were just the beginning of the legacy making. The notion of Camelot, invented shortly after the assassination by JFK's widow, Jacqueline, took hold immediately. Practically the entire JFK agenda, which had been stalled in Congress, was passed as a tribute to the late president.
The new president, Lyndon Johnson, effectively used public remorse over Kennedy's killing to do far more than JFK had planned or even probably hoped for in a second term. This book traces not just LBJ's use of JFK but the ways all nine of Kennedy's White House successors have drawn from his record and image to support their own initiatives and to deflect criticism from their own performance.
The source of this long-lasting Kennedy influence is not hard to determine: It is public opinion. Americans had a positive view of JFK throughout his White House years, and the assassination solidified, elevated, and made inviolable the power of his name. For the first time ever, extensive polling and focus groups have been employed in the course of the research for this volume to study how adult Americans of all ages remember a U.S. president.
I believe the methods used for this book will become the standard for judging presidents' long-term influence. Conducted by the renowned polling firm of Hart Research Associates, and supervised by the firm's chairman, Peter D. Hart, and president, Geoff Garin, the study is the most extensive ever done to assess a long-ago White House. A large sample (2,009) of American adults was surveyed about every major facet of President Kennedy's record. The online poll included film clips of some critical moments in the Kennedy presidency.
The sample was representative of the overall u.s. population and also big enough to allow for conclusions about change across generations. Hart and Garin separated out the people who had lived through (and presumably had some conscious memory of) the Kennedy years -- those who were aged fifty-five and older at the time of the poll. The respondents younger than fifty-five perceive JFK in secondhand ways, from school textbooks, the media, older friends, and family members.
The quantitative survey was supplemented with six more qualitative, videotaped "focus groups" of fifteen to twenty people in each of three cities: Chicago, Los Angeles, and Richmond, Virginia. Focus group discussions can add depth to the bare-bones data yielded by a poll. The entire survey and the focus group findings can be viewed at this book's website, <a href="http://thekennedyhalfcentury.com/" target="_blank">TheKennedyHalfCentury.com</a>.
Only highlights are presented in the book, and I invite you to explore the rich trove of online information we have compiled about Kennedy. Supplementing the surveys are personal interviews with many individuals directly connected to the Kennedy administration, the assassination, and subsequent White House administrations.
This study of John F. Kennedy's life and legacy is far from dusty history; it is less about Kennedy in his time than about Kennedy in our time. I believe it reveals a great deal about our country, and about what matters to us as a nation as we cope with the enormous problems confronting us.
Leaders want to create a positive legacy, and citizens should encourage them to travel that path. At the end of the book, I identify some useful lessons that can be learned by presidents, and the rest of us, from the Kennedy example.
Political power is created in many ways, such as winning an election, facing down an enemy, or skillfully riding the waves of popular opinion. But lasting power is accorded to only a handful of presidents, especially after their death. There is no doubt that John Kennedy is one of the few. How did it happen? Why does his influence persist, and will it continue? What are the effects? These questions and more are answered in the pages of this book.
A complete list of sources can be found in the book. The above is an excerpt from the book The Kennedy Half-Century: The Presidency, Assassination, and Lasting Legacy of John F. Kennedy by Larry J. Sabato. The above excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction of text from print. Although this excerpt has been proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the scanning process. Please refer to the finished book for accuracy.
Copyright © 2013 Larry J. Sabato, author of "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Kennedy-Half-Century-Presidency-Assassination/dp/1620402807">The Kennedy Half-Century: The Presidency, Assassination, and Lasting Legacy of John F. </a><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Kennedy-Half-Century-Presidency-Assassination/dp/1620402807">Kennedy</a>"
Author Bio Larry J. Sabato, author of "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Kennedy-Half-Century-Presidency-Assassination/dp/1620402807">The Kennedy Half-Century: The Presidency, Assassination, and Lasting Legacy of John F. Kennedy</a>," is the founder and director of the renowned Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. He has appeared on dozens of national television and radio programs, including 60 Minutes, Today, Hardball, and Nightline. He has co-anchored the BBC's coverage of U.S. presidential returns and inaugurations, and has authored or edited more than a dozen books on American politics, including the highly praised A More Perfect Constitution: Why the Constitution Must Be Revised -- Ideas to Inspire a New Generation. His other books include Feeding Frenzy, about press coverage of politicians; The Rise of Political Consultants; and Barack Obama and the New America. Sabato runs the acclaimed Crystal Ball website, which has the most comprehensive and accurate record of election analysis in the country. In 2001, the University of Virginia gave him its highest honor, the Thomas Jefferson Award. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.

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