The time has come for the iconic Lincoln Town Car to retire. Purchased primarily for use as a livery vehicle – limousine, executive car, or the like – and almost always painted black, the Town Car is nearing the end of its life. The all-new 2009 Lincoln MKS is its replacement, a large luxury sedan advertised as a starship that doesn’t need keys because it has an integrated touch-sensitive SecuriCode pad embedded into the driver’s door frame and a push-button ignition system called Intelligent Access.

To create its keyless starship, Lincoln started with a fortified version of the Mercury Sable platform, itself a fortified version of the original Volvo S80. Whereas the Lincoln Town Car is a traditional body-on-frame vehicle with rear-wheel drive (the car’s body and frame are separate pieces welded together), the new MKS is a unibody vehicle with front- or all-wheel drive (the underlying body architecture is a single piece to which the parts are attached). Like the Town Car, the MKS is a full-size automobile with plenty of room inside and plenty of sheetmetal outside. It’s also the first new Lincoln to showcase the design themes that will carry the luxury brand forward, highlighted by a new double-wing grille inspired by the 1941 Continental.

Once you’ve decided if you’re willing to part with $1,890 for the AWD system, the only decisions involve paint color, interior trim, and options. The test car pictured above is painted Sangria Red Clearcoat Metallic, and came equipped with the Ultimate Package and polished 20-inch wheels for a total of $47,920. The only option missing from our loaded MKS AWD was the available Adaptive Cruise Control system. That’s because the Ultimate Package includes a long list of features including a voice-activated navigation system, a 600-watt THX-II surround sound system, a dual-panel glass roof, adaptive front headlights with automatic high-beam feature, front and rear sonar sensors, a reversing camera, a power rear window shade, and rain-sensing wipers.

The Lincoln MKS is powered by a 3.7-liter V-6 engine making 273 horsepower at 6,250 rpm and 270 lb.-ft. of torque at 4,250 rpm, operating on regular unleaded fuel. Next year, a new Ecoboost twin-turbocharged V-6 will be available on the MKS, making about 350 horsepower. The only transmission choice is a six-speed SelectShift automatic with a manual shift mode, driving the front or all four wheels. According to the EPA, our MKS AWD test car should return 16 mpg in the city and 23 mpg on the highway. We got 16 mpg during our test driving.

The 2009 Lincoln MKS comes standard with 6 airbags: dual front airbags, dual front seat side-impact airbags, and side curtain airbags with rollover protection for both rows of seats. The Lincoln MKS also comes with antilock brakes, an AdvanceTrac traction and stability control system, and an S.O.S. Post Crash Alert system that unlocks the doors, sounds the horn, and activates the flashers when an accident has occurred. Furthermore, specially designed body construction helps deflect crash energy in a side-impact accident, and an adaptive collapsible steering column is designed to reduce injury in frontal impacts. An available Adaptive Front Lighting System can swivel the optional HID headlights to help illuminate around turns and includes an automatic high-beam function that extinguishes the brighter lights when oncoming traffic is detected.

The Lincoln MKS’s competitive set includes a wide range of vehicles such as the Acura RL, Buick Lucerne, Cadillac DTS, Chrysler 300, Hyundai Genesis, Infiniti M, Mercedes-Benz E-Class, and Volvo S80.