Lincoln Zephyr Reflection is the bold car design we've been waiting for

Lincoln has revealed its latest concept car, and the Zephyr Reflection is a striking reminder that "American Luxury" can be darn handsome too. Unveiled at Auto Shanghai 2021, the shapely sedan is focused entirely on Chinese tastes, Lincoln says, and pushes beyond some of the more monolithic cues of the automaker's current line-up.

The goal, Lincoln claims, was to draw in a younger audience. The grille gets a starburst pattern, and is considerably larger than usual, extending into the leading edge of the hood and down deep into the lower fascia.

It's bisected with a line that links the narrow headlamps, and then trails back into the sharply creased shoulder-line. Flush door handles and high-end trim like tinted chrome, copper, and satin silver add some sparkle, while a trunk-spanning light bar joins the slimline clusters. A blacked-out A-pillar give the Zephyr Reflection a profile like no other Lincoln sedan in the range right now.

The automaker has been thinking about lighting a lot, it seems, with new welcome patterns and ambient lighting promised. The same goes inside, with glowing controls that only appear on touch-surfaces when they're required. A huge, dashboard-spanning display dominates the dashboard, and can be split into three virtual sections.

As for the UX, that's a new system being called Lincoln Constellation. Themed around the night sky, it'll have three different versions – Normal, Sport, and Zen – each with unique animations and graphics.

What Zephyr Reflection doesn't appear to be, however, is anything more than a styling exercise at this stage. Lincoln's announcement is conspicuously absent of any sort of powertrain discussion, instead focusing entirely on the design of the sedan. That "hints at the future of Lincoln's design philosophy and signature features ahead of the production model debut later this year," the automaker says.

China is aggressively pushing EV adoption – and, indeed, Lincoln is using Auto Shanghai 2021 to debut the locally-produced version of its Corsair PHEV there – but though we're expecting full-electric Lincoln news soon, it doesn't seem like the Zephyr Reflection will be the model for that. Indeed, look closely at the dashboard display render, and there's clearly a little gas pump icon there, suggesting this is a PHEV at best.

Of course, trying to read into production plans from a concept car is usually a shortcut to confusion, and so we'll have to wait a little longer to find out Lincoln's actual production plans. Certainly, sedans are still popular in the Chinese market, as is the concept of "American Luxury" itself, meaning whatever the Zephyr Reflection evolves into will likely be more of a hit there than it would be in Lincoln's home market.