One is a Volkswagen the other a rather posh Ford albeit a concept. One is an established ultra luxury brand, the other is trying to be… not a Ford. They both represent the very top echelons of car ownership or at least the Bentley does. Both look like the other which hasn’t gone unnoticed over at Bentley.

Lincoln is to Ford what Lexus is to Toyota and what Infiniti is to…….(pause)……..nobody. Its fair to say that Lincoln’s history has been predominantly stop start over the past 60 or so years.

With the rise of a global and wealthy elite Ford is resurrecting the Lincoln brand and hoping to jump on the back of this net wealth and the people it sweeps into the showrooms.

One more luxury brand on the market can’t be too bad for the competition. However, the designers over at Lincoln have been accused of looking for inspiration from a little island nestled in the North Atlantic which is full of stubborn native foreigners and also immigrants from the EU. Welcome to the United Kingdom in 2015.

And so it is, the designer of the Bentley Flying Spur has been pointing his finger toward the Lincoln Continental Concept saying it clearly, and some might say heavily borrows design cues from the Flying Spur.

It was headline news a couple of weeks ago but the sulking between the two camps continues to fester like an open wound caused by a Komodo Dragon bite.

Luc Donckerwolke, the foreigner who styled the “British” Bentley Flying Spur, even went so far as to break the etiquette of polite design society by publicly reacting to the Lincoln Continental.

Donckerwolke left a comment on Lincoln’s Facebook page ‘Do you want us to send the product tooling?’ he wrote. Why didn’t Donckerwolke throw a punch, Clarkson style.

Imagine if a Chinese auto firm copied the Ford Mondeo. Hold it the Chinese aren’t that dumb. Well imagine if they did and then resold it as “The Frying Wok Superspeed” what do you think Ford would say? or do?

Ford would do nothing because they know the Chinese state-run government would probably sever all trade ties. In other words China could flex its corporate and economic sanctions muscle.

Ford would have to grin and bear it just like BMW and Land Rover have had to do when homegrown Chinese copies of the X5 and Evoque have been made and sold in China.

Although we were at first excited about the look of the Lincoln Continental Concept we were blindsided by our disloyalty to Bentley. We are British first and foremost and will never again abandon Bentley.

Shame on you Ford, shame on you for copying the design style of a British luxury motoring brand that has been rejuvenated by the Germans.