I’m struggling to make sense of this. Never mind that the Taurus-Continental was very much not what a luxury car should be. That one’s easy. But the Concorde is what a commute should be? Makes no sense to me. Spend two hours getting to the airports and checking in, for a commuter flight on what was one of the loudest (on the inside) airplanes ever? Would you like to commute to work on the Concorde twice a day?
The only logical comparison would be:
Concorde – What a transatlantic jetliner should be
Lincoln Continental – What a luxury car shouldn’t be
But then they didn’t ask me.
Def a bit of a head scratcher there indeed.
Not sure what year this was printed but I couldnt help but make a couple associations;
Concorde: a new and innovative option from a competing automaker
Lincoln Continental: a jumbo jet-sized lookalike of that competing automaker’s midsize
Is it more or less ridiculous than this 1982 Renault 18i & Concorde comparison ad below?
I wonder if there were other Concorde auto ads out there too? I know the Concorde was used in a lot of advertising (watches come to mind), so I wouldn’t be surprised if there were several car ads over the years. But I don’t think the Chrysler Concorde was one of them.
What makes this even more ridiculous is the claim that the Renault is from the country that designed the Concorde. It’s not….. the Concorde was a joint project between France and the UK. But I guess it does make sense… in the 18i you get wallowy, sloppy French handling and wierd ergonomics combined with British reliability and build quality.
Concorde: An impractical and expensive vehicle which is a bit cramped inside, is of mechanical design not usually used for this purpose, and which gets surprisingly poor mileage, all while being ill-suited for the purposes of a daily commute. We will not mention a historical tendency towards poor reliability and expensive maintenance since true patriots filled with chauvinistic national pride insist that this problem is vastly overstated by the jealous.
Taurus-Continental: ….well, uh…
Well, the same company also brought out this analogy:
https://youtu.be/MHPD2WWqIS0
This makes even less sense.
“The more aerodynamic styled a vehicle is, the easier it slices through the air.”
In space, where there is no air?
Well, the shuttle eventually had to come back down into the atmosphere, so there’s that. ;o)
Then there’s the whole piggyback ride on a Boeing 747…
(Photo Credit: Taken by RetroStang Rick on April 17, 2012 just of the runway threshold for Dulles’ Runway 1R using an Olympus C-700 digital camera – this photograph can be duplicated, printed, republished, I don’t really care… Are photo credits and copyrights even a thing anymore in the age of the internet? – Ok, I’ll stop now.)
I’m scratching my head too, AMC should have used this for one of their ads:
Concord, what a warmed over Hornet with extra trimmings should be? Both were technological dead ends too.
Maybe a Concorde commute would have been feasible when it was first in service, one could breeze through the airport in those days.
THIS IS A CONCORDE
Or this….
What’s ironic about this ad is that – in Lincoln’s quest to look modern and cutting edge – they compared their car to a plane that had been in commercial service for 12 years, and had first flown almost 20 years earlier.
Back in the day I traveled on the Concorde six times. First class & fast. Agree, comparing this Lincoln to the aging Concorde was not the best comparison.
The idea is to associate the fabulous Concorde, the world’s only ever SST airliner and built on the Continent, with a wrong-angled pushrod V6-engined FWD wheezebag of muted poor taste built on the continent that never did make a passenger SST. It could work: you can’t afford this super-luxury commute, but you can afford to commute in this superlative luxury car. (Of course, that the first remains true and the second could never be is not of consequence in the land of ads, where desire is created and sold).
Yes, the Concorde is – was – what a commute should be, glamor location to glamor destination, a vast indulgence at impossible speeds, and an imaginary event for most.
I must say I’ve never heard of the plane being especially loud inside, or certainly never of it being amongst the loudest of turbojet types.
> the world’s only ever SST airliner
There was also the Soviet Union’s Tupolev Tu-144, though it only did passenger service for a few years.
My close friend Dr Howard Moon wrote THE definitive book on the Tu-144. [Soviet SST: The Techno-Politics Of The Tupolev-144] I have Howard’s personal copy of the book, presented to me after his death, by his son, David.
If my memory is still good, Howard said the Tu-144 only did one trans-oceanic round trip at supersonic speed, basically to prove it would survive the flight. After that, it was relegated to flying back-up long distance flights inside the USSR, never again attaining supersonic speeds. Most of the Tu-144 airplanes were either never finished, or sat unused until their destruction. There is a recent YouTube video of a huge abandoned warehouse in the middle of nowhere, Russia, and inside are 2 unfinished Tu-144 aircraft, covered in dust and bird poop.
One of my favorite parts of the book is where he describes the Soviet’s attempts to gain the knowledge of how the USA SST tires were constructed, and the secret formula for the synthetic rubber used. The USA team leaked the information on the secret recipe to the Soviets. They spent many years trying to make it work for their SST tires. Problem was, the recipe they leaked, was for a new secret formula for Wrigley’s synthetic chewing gum!
Concerning another Soviet plane and tires…
The Soviets reproduced a B-29 bomber that made an emergency landing, called it the TU-4, and it went into production (NATO reporting name: BULL).
The only thing they were unable to duplicate were the tires, which they bought on the open market.
justy baum,
I had a wealthy client in the middle east who always paid my air travel to his country, and it was always via first class tickets. My trips always included a several day stay over in London, each way. Usually by British Air on the Dulles to Heathrow leg, and Gulf Air the second leg.
On a trip in 1987, I had been offered an upgrade. As I was flying first class, what was the upgrade I asked? “Why Concorde” the BA agent said cheerfully, “Would you like to change your ticket to Concorde?” she asked. So I accepted her offer.
The good:
Food was delicious, served on fine china, excellent wine choices. Service was impeccable. We did arrive a lot faster. On arrival at Heathrow, I was given a special pass to a VIP line thru HM’s border and customs.
The bad:
the flight really was much louder than a regular 747 jetliner, and the subtle drumming sound was constant the entire flight. I found it interesting the flight crew offered foam ear plugs if asked.
I always like to get a window seat, so no one is climbing over me every half hour. Problem with a Concorde window seat is because the cabin is a much smaller diameter tube, sitting upright in my seat, my head was against the cabin. And I might add, the seats seemed smaller [thinner] than the BA 1st class seats. Comfortable, yes. But a bit claustrophobic for the amount of time the flight takes.
Conclusion:
When I consider the overall time spent from the time I arrived at the car park, to the point I found my rental car, the couple of hours I saved, simply were not worth the insane cost increase between 1st class and Concorde. Free upgrade, sure. Pay for a Concorde ticket, nope, not worth it.
I would rather take the overnight BA 1st class, and after a nice dinner with wine, sleep all the way over, arriving fairly refreshed & ready to go.
Thank you for confirming what my parents (and many others said) about the Concorde: cramped, noisy and generally not very comfortable. It would have been intolerable for a much longer flight.
Oh! Well, there bursts a bubble. That’s confirmation bias right there for you. I’d only ever paid attention to those tales which fitted my liking for the audacious idea and the sheer outrageousness of the thing. It remains a beautiful object, of course.
Braniff had a Concorde service from January 1979 to May 1980, serving Dallas-Fort Worth and London and Paris with fuel stop at Dulles to change the registrations and crews.
I was 12-year-old lad when I saw Concorde taking off at DFW. That was one of the gooseskin moments in my life. I had never seen any non-military plane taking off so fast and making so thunderous noise. Being deaf and without hearing aids (I hate them), I could actually hear the engines roaring. Watching the long flame cones forming out of Concorde’s engines as the plane flew into the sky was so awesome!
I learnt that DFW was only aeroport back then that allowed Concorde (during the revenue service) to take off at full power—all the way to the cruising altitude. In 1979, DFW was mostly surrounded by the prairies so the noise wasn’t issue as it was at JFK, LHR, and other aeroports.
No Concord flights around here too far away and Lincoln didnt put any effort into this market either, we did see the Taurus in ovoid form and you say they are related ok that explains it.
I don’t know if this was the impetus for this feature, but it’s worth noting that, with all the attention of The Billionaire’s Space Club, there seems to be some accompanying focus on returning to another commercial supersonic airliner. As one would hope, this time, the experience should be much more refined than that of the Concorde.
Regardless of its real world shortcomings the idea of the Concord was really cool, and I for one find it a human accomplishment to be proud of…
…the Taurus derived Continental on the other hand has real world shortcomings but cool and inspirational it is not
Problem is….they used a French one….;-)
But you’re right, it’s an odd concept for an ad – there’s nothing at all to link the car and the plane.
“Campbells – what soup should be
Continental – what a big car might be like”
Doesn’t work, does it?
Comparing the Lincoln to the Concorde is silly. The Concorde, even two decades after starting paid service, was a technological marvel; the Lincoln, not so much. OTOH the Lincoln was a commercial success; the Concorde, not so much. I’ a fan of supersonic passenger service though and was heartened by United’s purchase agreement for 15 of Boom Supersonic’s ‘Overture’ airliners last June.
What has me genuinely worried is something the CEO of the Boom company said; He commented that the company’s goal was to bring the cost down and the speed up to the point where someone could buy a ticket to anywhere in the world for $100, and get there in 2 hours or less.
My first thought is; Yeah, 2 hour international flight, but ya still got to get to the airport 3 hours ahead of the flight!
But let’s get serious folks. 2 Hours to anywhere in the world for $100 or less? and right now we are dealing with yet another Covid19 variant that is already traveling all over the world due to people flying while infected {FWI}. Imagine when these same infected people can go anywhere in 2 hours and for only $100.
I wish I had the opportunity to fly on the Concorde while it was still operational…..even if it were for bragging rights.
I have friends who are pilots (including former military pilots) who always brag how fast they flew. Imagine the reaction had I been able to say, “Guys, I got you all beat. I flew at Mach 2 and enjoyed a filet mignon at the same time.” Then produce a picture shot through the window showing the curvature of the earth, to rub it in.
Oh well……
IIRC, the Taurinental was well-received by the press and the public, but was also heavily criticized for its wimpy engine. The late eighties was something of a renaissance for Lincoln as it modernized and began to eat Cadillac’s lunch.
This is actually one of my favorite cars. I just wish Ford put a head gasket in them capable of hanging in there for the long run. They were everything I liked in a Taurus/Sable, but more room, more upscale, and even quieter. I liked the dash design, the airy interior and the quality.
But that damn head gasket! Sigh!
I’m surprised to read the comments on here about how noisy the Concorde was on the inside. I watched a few take off from JFK so yes, they were extremely loud on the outside. I just thought that the fact they flew at twice the speed of sound they would be pretty quiet inside.
Learn something every day!
The sounds I heard on my Concorde flight were not comparable to the wind sounds we hear when our cars are at high speeds. When air is pushed at extreme speeds, it builds up in sound waves that are bouncing off the airframe. On my return from the trip, I mentioned this drumming sound to my dad.
My dad worked for the Army designing various bomb detonating devices, and he related the drumming sound to one of the WW2 bomb detonation devices: A series of conical ridges tapering down to a point. Located at the front end of the bomb, as air was forced into it, the air pressure flowing over the ridges, would build up into a pulse that pressed a trigger at the interior base of the cone, causing the bomb to explode at fairly precise levels above ground.
What I heard was a constant drumming sound that never stopped during the supersonic phase, and when I mentioned it to some of my seatmates who were not first time Concorde users, they said eventually you get used to it, or go back to 1st class instead.
I was on the Concorde when it flew from Los Angeles to New York, subsonic, then on to London and it was a trip. Definitely tight inside, but we were treated like royalty.
My Dad had that Lincoln – I was not impressed, it was a cheesy POS.
Every now and then there’s a guy who drives a Lincoln who likes to pretend he’s piloting a jet.
So why not go with something exotic like the Concorde?
https://nihilistnotes.blogspot.com/search?q=concorde
On paper, the US Boeing 2707, even without the swing-wing, would have been the most capable SST had it entered service. The Americans could make the engineering work but understood the economics never would. The economics didn’t work for Concorde either; that it generated book-entry profits in some years for BA and Air France was because the British and French governments effectively wrote-off the development costs. It was an early example of that favorite of modern embedded industry: capitalize your profits, socialize your losses.
Visited the Long Island shore often in the late 70’s. Will never forget the noisiest and smokiest take offs I’ve ever seen. Special for me, I had filed the cargo rates for this aircraft with the CAB. Very pricey. mostly items for medical emergencies is what I recall. Also recall helping my girlfriend with a college report she was doing on the Concorde. Her name was Maria. English was her second language and grammar was never my best subject. Her paper passed though. Don’t remember much about the Taurus Lincoln. Too bad they didn’t try something like this with the Meteor back in 1962. Wonder how a Meteor based Lincoln would have done then? Seems like they missed a unique opportunity.
Something I just learned about the Concorde: Raymond Loewy designed the original Air France interior trim, as well as the flatware used at mealtime.
https://www.denverartmuseum.org/en/object/2014.120.1-3
I flew on Concorde in 96 and dont remember that drumming sound at all. I just remember being sat right in front of the mach meter and the fancy bread rolls
I knew a fellow who father was a bigwig in JP Morgan and got him a summer job there while he was in university. Prior to quick and secure electronic communications, his summer job was to be the courier between their London and New York offices, taking the days financial accounts from one office to the other.
His day started by going to the London office and picking up the paperwork, and going to Heathrow to catch the 10:30 flight, arriving at JFK at 9am. Head to the NY office in Manhatten, drop off the papers and pick up the previous days records. Back to JFK for the noon flight to LHR, arriving in London at 8pm and head home. Repeat the next day etc.
So he was a regular commuter on Concorde, but one of the very few who would use it as a commuter route. Said the smartest thing he ever did was sign up for the frequent flyer program as there was massive bonus points for flying on Concorde!