Lincoln just rolled out one of the most hyped cars of the year - here's the verdict

The Lincoln Continental is just one of those cars. It really isn't even a car - it's an ideal, a dream, an evocation.

Ford introduced the Continental in the late 1930s, and over the decades it became conjoined with American history, most tragically in 1963 when President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas while riding in a 1961 Continental limousine.

Ford discontinued the Continental as its flagship Lincoln luxury sedan in 2002, but the nameplate never really went away. You could say that it haunted Ford.

And then, in 2015, a new Continental concept car took the New York auto show by storm. Ford had considered killing off Lincoln after the financial crisis but decided against it and put billions into a revival of the brand. By 2016, we saw the production version of the big new sedan, as it hit the car show circuit.

More recently, as autumn settled on the Northeast, we finally found ourselves behind the wheel of a 2017 Lincoln Continental Reserve with all-wheel-drive, stickering at $56,000, but then benefitting from ten grand worth of options, taking the final price up to $76,000.

Does the new Continental live up to expectations - not to mention the lofty reputation of its name? Read on to find out: