Interlocked molecules, such as rotaxanes and catenanes, contain cavities within which donor atoms can be positioned to bind metal ions. Indeed, some of the first observations of the properties of the mechanical bond, including its ability to kinetically stabilize metal complexes, were made by Sauvage and co-workers over 30 years ago. More recently, we demonstrated that rotaxanebased ligands can be used to produce complexes the non-interlocked equivalent of which are inaccessible, including examples reminiscent of the distorted "entatic states" of metalloproteins, suggesting that interlocked ligands could allow engineering of the properties of metal ions. However, to date, mechanically chelated metal ions with desirable catalytic behavior, luminescent properties, or unusual reactivity have only been reported based on coordination environments that can be accessed both with and without the mechanical bond. Thus, to our knowledge, the ability to engineer the fundamental properties of metal ions by controlling their coordination environment using the mechanical bond has not been demonstrated in prototypical functional systems, let alone the potential of the enforced environment of mechanically chelating ligands to allow the prediction of such properties.