2024 Mustang-Based Mercury Cougar XR-7 and Lincoln Mark X Unofficially Add Luxury to S650 Family

By introducing the 2024 Mustang a full year ahead of its first deliveries, Ford may have earned itself some valuable time to gauge the market’s interest in various details that could make a difference later in the model’s life cycle. Sure, focus groups still work, but with digital art now allowing people to virtually live out their dreams, it’s much easier to notice trends. For instance, would the all-new S650 ‘Stang need an extra-lavish version? We’re asking you to be the judge of that, with the help of CGI Mercury Cougar and Lincoln Mark X versions of the 2024 Mustang.

For certain mainstream buyers, a class that the Mustang is no stranger to, the greatest addition of the 2024 model isn’t necessarily the more chiseled exterior or the upgraded Gen IV Coyote/turbo-four EcoBoost. Instead, the big screens that now adorn the interior are the ones that make a massive difference, taking the iconic nameplate straight into the future, one where Dodge is introducing an all-electric muscle car, for better or for worse.

And one way to take the seventh-generation Mustang further down that route would be to introduce a lavish sister car. This is something the Blue Oval did achieve back in the days of the first-gen Mustang. We’re naturally referring to the Mercury Cougar, whose first and second generations were essentially more lavish iterations of the Mustang.

An upmarket 2024 Ford Mustang done by Lincoln

Well, one of the two renderings we have here hits that mark, portraying a 2024 Mercury Cougar XR-7. For the record, the XR-7 package was not a performance-oriented offering, targeting an even more substantial upmarket climb instead.

However, the Mercury brand was killed off in 2010, as Ford found little room for this to coexist with its surviving luxury marque, Lincoln. There’s no reason to fret, though. Digital artist Jim (aka jlord8), who is behind this sharp 2D work, has also come up with a 2024 Lincoln Mark X, a proposal that could theoretically come to life.

As for the pricing, the only detail we can discuss at this point is the $50,000-$60,000 interval for the 2024 Mustang Dark Horse range-topperโ€”the finer-things iterations discussed here would likely have to add north of $10,000 to that.

As anybody who visited a Lincoln showroom will tell you, the carmaker introduced the MKX crossover back in 2006, as a rebadged iteration of the Ford Edgeโ€”the name soldiered when the second generation landed in 2016, but this became the Nautilus for its 2018 mid-cycle refresh.

However, Jim is always nostalgic and so are we, so we need to point out that the inspiration for his pixel painting is actually the Lincoln Mark X concept of 2004. Sure, that was more of a Thunderbird sister vehicle, but with the latter being put to sleep, when rumors of a luxury coupe/cabriolet done by Lincoln surfaced last decade, these involved the Ford Mustang.

Alas, the crossover detour we made above should be enough of an answer for the obvious questionโ€”could Lincoln build a luxury version of the 2024 Ford Mustang?

The again, with Ford reshaping how tuners tackle the S650 by locking the ECU, perhaps some aftermarket developers will shift their focus towards offering a more lavish S650, even though the changes would have to be dramatic for the transformation to work.

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