**UPDATE**Suicide doors return on new Lincoln article

[ImpJay]

such as an annual tax on vehicles over a certain size or engine displacement

This is a normal practice here among the bonus system. If you don´t wreck, you get bonuses that mean a lower tax payment, if compressed to a nutshell.

 

[Snotty]

Talked to my buddy who has a 61, 62 and 63 Continentals. He has been begging Ford forever to bring back the suicide doors. One thing he pointed out that I never thought of was Ford wanted a 4 door convertible,and this was the reason for the suicide doors to begin with.

It was the only mass-produced 4-door ragtop made after WWII. Interesting fact.

 

[ImpJay]

It was the only mass-produced 4-door ragtop made after WWII. Interesting fact.

Things get scary, when you have to detect flaws... eleven switches, about 164 yards of wire, four (or five) hydraulic pumps, hoses, etc.

 

[Carmine]

Yes, but that's true of almost all concept cars. As you are well aware, concept cars highlight the design direction that the brand is thinking of taking. Elements seen on the concepts often appear on production cars in the next design cycle.

Well then I'll put it this way... There isn't anything particularly innovative about the Sentinel showcar and it was soon forgotten, except for the gimicky doors. It looks like a kid's drawing of a generic car-shape. Of course that's my subjective opinion. If the car had "adapted" to contain actual passengers and pass crash tests, it probably would have looked like a less-sporty sedan version of a CTS coupe, which was a sales flop.

You were complaining that Lincoln lost its way in the 2000s. I was comparing them to Cadillac. Lincoln actually had the "Art & Science" look before Cadillac came up with it, but their production cars stuck with the dated jellybean look through most of the decade. My point was that if Lincoln had followed through on their concept designs like the Sentinel, they may have taken the styling that Cadillac ultimately adopted and done better through the 2000s

Except that Cadillac sales are also down, "art and science" is being abandoned and I was talking about actual production cars.

Adding end-user taxes to skew market forces on the demand side, as they have done with the auto industry in Europe, would be the most direct way to encourage change. Countries can get away with that more easily where the public won't or can't protest. However, raising consumer taxes is usually political suicide in North America, where politicians need voter support to get (re)elected.

Another issue particular to the US is that the federal government relies very little on excise taxes, and I've read that it doesn't have the power to impose ad valorem taxes, such as an annual tax on vehicles over a certain size or engine displacement. This would make implementing an end-user strategy to encourage more efficient vehicle use difficult

No disagreement. One idea was political suicide, the other helped kill domestic jobs and cars like the Viper. German brands were free to build as many 12 mpg image cars as they could sell, and Dodge must curtail production of something that sells 2500 units because its fuel economy numbers drag down the Neon/Caliber/Dart corporate average. Meanwhile buyers start asking for leather heated cupholders in 1-ton trucks. Only a politician could do something with that many negative, unintended consequences.

I have to disagree. Carbon cap-and-trade systems are another example of manipulating a market from the supply side. A number of countries have implemented pollution cap-and-tradesystems. China has experimented with them and is even planning to implement carbon cap-and-trade nationally. .

...and if any of that had existed from 1977 to say 2015, you would have a valid point. So when I say "the only" country, you can pretty much figure I'm talking about this 40-year period.

 

[Mike66Chryslers]

Well then I'll put it this way... There isn't anything particularly innovative about the Sentinel showcar and it was soon forgotten, except for the gimicky doors. It looks like a kid's drawing of a generic car-shape. Of course that's my subjective opinion. If the car had "adapted" to contain actual passengers and pass crash tests, it probably would have looked like a less-sporty sedan version of a CTS coupe, which was a sales flop.

Except that Cadillac sales are also down, "art and science" is being abandoned and I was talking about actual production cars.

If you don't realize it, I was trying to reinforce what you said about Lincoln losing its way in the 2000s, not pick an argument with you. If Lincoln had come up with a coherent design language like Cadillac in that timeframe, they may have done better.

IMO the Sentinel looks a lot like the Cadillac "Art & Science" design language. Make it a convertible and ignore the wonky beaked grille and it could be a precursor to the Cadillac Ciel. I thought it made a good example of where Lincoln could have gone, instead of sticking Lincoln front-ends on ugly Ford jellybean bodies. Also, I think that Cadillac has done an overall decent job of translating their concept looks to their production cars.

...and if any of that had existed from 1977 to say 2015, you would have a valid point. So when I say "the only" country, you can pretty much figure I'm talking about this 40-year period.

You wrote your paragraph in the present tense, and you're qualifying it after the fact to say you were only referring to the past. I tried to avoid this kind of nitpicky response by suggesting that there are other examples of supply-side controls if one stops to think about it.

A good example of governments, including those other than the US, imposing supply-side market controls in the arbitrary timeframe you've specified, would be commercial fishing quotas. Since the 1980s, many countries have voluntarily imposed fishing quotas to regulate their commercial fishing industries, with the goal of protecting ocean fish stocks, even though it has been detrimental to the economies of coastal communities and would give an advantage to countries which did not adopt quotas.