Remember that teaser image from last week indicating the Lincoln Continental would get suicide doors? Well, it’s happening, and we got to check out a prototype late last week. As you can see from the photos, the vehicle is essentially a stretched Continental with rear doors that latch forward. Lincoln doesn’t call it the suicide door edition, of course. No, the proper name is 80th Anniversary Coach Door Edition. Semantics aside, the car is here to pay homage to the suicide doors of the 1960s Continental and celebrate 80 years since the original Continental was introduced.

That’s the why; now here is the how. To build this special edition, a Continental begins life as a normal Black Label model, and leaves the factory with normal doors intact. From there, Lincoln ships the car to Cabot Coach Builders in Massachusetts for the stretch and other modifications we’ll get into later. Before you start cursing Lincoln for not really screwing together a suicide door Continental, know this: Lincoln engineered all the components, metalwork and everything else that goes with the build.

To begin, the Continental gets a six-inch stretch. It was a relatively long car before, but boy does this thing look like it’s lounging now. That’s exactly what you’ll be doing once inside those suicide doors. Lincoln claims best-in-class legroom, and yes, to our eye that is surely accurate. Someone well over 6 feet tall could easily stretch all the way out and still have room to spare back there.

We should really get to the doors, though. They’re larger than before, but they still open with the same type of button on the inside of the handle as before. Apparently the production doors will be lighter and open to a full 90-degree angle. As it was, the doors were heavy and difficult to close for an occupant. One has to lean a great deal outside the car to grab the interior handle once seated. Basically, get yourself a chauffeur and don’t worry about it.

Pricing for this special-edition Lincoln will be somewhere just north of $100,000, we’re told — the Black Label it’s based on is a bit over $70,000 depending on how you equip it. And all of these will come with every option in the book. The 80th Anniversary Coach Door Edition is available to order at your local Lincoln Black Label dealer today, and the cars will reportedly ship next summer.