The new MKX concept is a good start, but without a detailed plan of where and when Lincoln will be launched or relaunched outside North America, will Ford’s luxury division ever become a major premium brand?
The newly appointed head of design for Lincoln, Max Wolff thinks so, telling the media at the Detroit show, “The MKZ is the first of our transformational Lincoln products”. The Australian was last year poached from Cadillac and is part of a newly assembled team charged with reinventing Ford’s luxury division.
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The MKZ concept lacks door handles and a few other production necessities but is said to be otherwise close to the future production model.
Items such as the new grille, which replaces the so-called ‘waterfall’ design in all current Lincoln cars and light trucks, will feature in future models from the brand. The new MKZ will also have an eight-speed automatic gearbox and a retracting glass roof, while EcoBoost engines in capacities not yet seen in Ford vehicles should also be reserved for Lincoln.
The second generation MKZ, a rival for the Lexus ES, will again be built alongside the Ford Fusion. It and a follow-up to today’s MKZ Hybrid are due to reach dealers in North America in October for the region’s 2013 model year. Interestingly, there is no mention of a Lincoln version of the plug-in Fusion, the Energi.
Lincoln’s peak was in 1990 when it sold a total of 231,660 vehicles in the US market. Americans bought only 85,643 Lincolns last year and the loss of the Town Car should continue to see sales decline in the coming months until new products such as the MKZ kick in.
A Lincoln crossover based upon the new Escape is said to be in the pipeline, with a Focus-based rival for the future Acura ILX and Audi A3 sedan also believed to be under development – the second of these will surely be a reinvention of the cancelled Mercury Tracer project. Whether or not the Navigator and Navigator L giant SUVs or the Mexico-only LT pick-up will be replaced is not yet known, but a version of the highly successful Ford Explorer seems a certainty as a challenger for the new Infiniti JX.
