A Deeper Look Into the Lincoln Brand: Reviving or Dying?

[RSS Robot]

Filed under: Trends, Ford, Lincoln


The Lincoln MKR may be a key ingredient to reviving Lincoln
A night at the Ford theater: The Lincoln brand has been on a streak that 's been seldom duplicated over the last 10 years. Of course, we all know that the streak has been a bad one. Terrible, in fact. Sales have gone from well over 200k in the mid-90s to only 120k in 2006. The individual vehicles within the Lincoln brand have been left to rot in many cases, and the ones that have been updated are in the worst-possible market situation (see Navigator). In the rotting category, the livery special of the millennium, Town Car, rides on an ancient body-on-frame car platform. The Panther platform stems from the early 1970s LTD. Almost as ancient as the platform on which the Town Car rides is its powerplant. The 4.6L, two-valve V8 and four-speed transmission are shared with the F-150 of all things. There are still a slim minority that say the Town Car is classic American luxury, but with a chassis and powertrain that's older than many of Autoblog's readers, classic would be the operative word.

Many more products have been unceremoniously killed off without the benefit of a redesign. Since 2000, the Aviator and LS never saw a single design change and came to market severely disadvantaged. The Aviator has been a well-chronicled failure. It reportedly shared only 40% of its hardware with the Explorer off which it was based. Amazingly, just about the only area of the Aviator that is common with the Explorer is the exterior design. That's just crazy. What executive team approves new everything except the sheet metal? Sure it had a different grille and different front and rear lights, but the decision-making there was weak. Then you have the LS, which sold 50,000 copies in 2000. It sold 8,500 just six years later. When it came out, the LS had the BMW 5 Series within leaping distance. At the end, it had $10,000 rebate stickers on the windshield.
Continue reading A Deeper Look Into the Lincoln Brand: Reviving or Dying?
Continue reading A Deeper Look Into the Lincoln Brand: Reviving or Dying?

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[SandyBoy]

I went to the reader comments after the article. What a bunch of dip****s there. Guy in comment #7 critiques guy in #6 for not even knowing what cars are in the luxury class, but guy IN #6 knew how to spell Infiniti while his critic in #7 referred to InfinitY!

The most overrated 2 cars are BMW & Mercedes. I bought a 2003 Town Car, new, and have yet to have "problem #1" with her. She's a dream to drive, corners better than any prior, witht the new Watts suspension and is a great car. Granted, it has NO i-pod connector and who cares?

Neighbor to my right bought a 2003 Benz. SLK 2 seat convert.
He has had 1 problem after the next. On 2nd tranny, oil leak messed up his white concrete driveway, top got stuck (down) and underdash water leaks
Neighbor to left bought BMW 3-series 4-door. It has been flat bedded outta his garage 3 times (It's a 2005) Electrical problems. His A/C (he says) is not much better than opening the windows, and if he puts on his left turn signal and steps on the brakes, it blows the fuse.....

Yet, I guarantee each will again buy a foreign car. The deep routed mentally here is that they hate this country. This began over Viet Nam and all the flower power wackoos and the Woodstock generation. They still hate American Commerce.
My .02 cents

[Alexander]

Town Car, rides on an ancient body-on-frame car platform. The Panther platform stems from the early 1970s LTD. Almost as ancient as the platform on which the Town Car rides is its powerplant. The 4.6L, two-valve V8 and four-speed transmission are shared with the F-150 of all things. There are still a slim minority that say the Town Car is classic American luxury, but with a chassis and powertrain that's older than many of Autoblog's readers, classic would be the operative word.


This is bunch of bull. Yes, the platform for the Town Car stems from the seventies, but it has been so improved over the years, it bears little resemblance to the original.

That the engine is ancient is ridiculous. That engine debuted with the 4.6 liter dual overhead cam in the Mark VIII in 1993. It is a reliable engine with little possibility of oil leaks due to engineering foresight that made most of mating sufaces flat. Many of these engines last in service over 400,000 miles. A friend of mine who has a mechanic says that he has never seen one of these engine go bad. Can any other maufacturer match the reliability of this engine? I doubt it.

Instead of saying that this is the same engine that is in a F-150, they could have said that it is the same engine as in the Mustang GT500 or the Ford GT.

It is amazing how reporters in this country disparage American cars.

Reporters could say the turbo diesel (a great motor) in a Mercedes is similar to the one a garbage truck, but they would never do that.

[tarps3]

Hi Sandy,

I'm not sure that the buyers of the Benz and BMW's actually hate this country - that would imply an actual thought process. Probably a more accurate statement is that they have the prevalent "flock of sheep" mentality and get all their opinions from the idiot box. Flashy commercials and "keeping up with the Joneses" coupled with very little independent thought or common sense is a likely scenario. They, like most of the buying public, prefer not to think for themselves. They like to be told what to buy and how to dress, etc. The TV tells them all they ever need to know.
Isn't it interesting that the fall of common sense and individual responsibiltiy mirrors the rise in broadcast journalism almost identically? I don't think it's a coincidence.

[SandyBoy]

Oh My God

Oh My God.....this ***IS*** GOSPEL ! Printing this....THIS is TOO Good TO Be Lost. Terrific
TARPS-3 ya da man of da hour! Take a bow.

I'm not sure that the buyers of the Benz and BMW's actually hate this country - that would imply an actual thought process. Probably a more accurate statement is that they have the prevalent "flock of sheep" mentality and get all their opinions from the idiot box. Flashy commercials and "keeping up with the Joneses" coupled with very little independent thought or common sense is a likely scenario. They, like most of the buying public, prefer not to think for themselves. They like to be told what to buy and how to dress, etc. The TV tells them all they ever need to know.
Isn't it interesting that the fall of common sense and individual responsibiltiy mirrors the rise in broadcast journalism almost identically? I don't think it's a coincidence.

[Alexander]

I can imagine that if this article was written about a European or Asian car, they would say, " The car rides a proven chassis that has been fine-tuned over the past three decades and it is has a engine that is so over-engineered and bullet-proof that they even use it in their ever-popular trucks."

[SandyBoy]

Which brings us back to my Anti-American comment, but perhaps should be attributed more towards journalists.

[tarps3]

thanks Sandy.
I call 'em like I see 'em.