The 2017 Lincoln Continental’s blue-on-blue interior might look unassuming, but apparently achieving that effect was harder than you’d think.
During Lincoln’s heyday in the 1950s and 1960s, blue was one of its signature colors. The color, though, seldom finds its way into interiors nowadays, which made the design of the 2017 Continental’s cabin somewhat risky.
“Blue is a color on a knife edge,” Continental chief engineer Michael Celentano recently told USA TODAY. “It has elements of green and red that are incredibly difficult to match on all the materials in an interior, especially when you consider the differing grain and gloss of materials ranging from the seats to the dashboard to the headliner.
“If you’re not careful, blue will ‘flop’ and look like those other colors when the light hits it from some angles.”
Personally, we think the Continental’s interior didn’t come to close to flopping. The fact the colors are striking is even more impressive given Celentano’s comments.
A concept version of the vehicle made the rounds at recent auto shows, according to USA TODAY. The response to the interior’s color scheme apparently was so positive that the Continental’s design team created Rhapsody, a shade of blue available for the vehicle’s Black Label packages.
All photos courtesy of Lincoln
