I have been asked to share “what I really think about the new Lincoln”. OK. You asked for it. Watch out.
I think Lincoln is in big trouble. This is not because it is a luxury arm of Ford, and its cars are luxury versions of standard Ford models. Lexus is in exactly the same relationship with Toyota and seems to be doing fine. I would never consider buying a new Lexus (although a used one is always an option), but Lincolns used to move on and off my “I’d buy that if I was rich because it’s so big and fast and comfy and sort of sportier than a Cadillac in a vague non-quantitative way and stylish (if you squint) and I’m an American and not ashamed of it” radar fairly regularly. I am not anti-Lincoln on principle. The marque has a distinguished history in both design and performance. There is nothing wrong with the idea of Lincoln.
The problem with Lincoln, and the reason Lincoln is in trouble, is that for the past 15 years or so all their cars but the Town Car have pretty much stunk, and then they cancelled the Town Car. They were unable to create a coherent design theme to distinguish their cars from the Fords sharing the same platforms, or to create substantive differences in value that would make it make sense to pay the price premium for the Lincolns. To succeed they must accomplish both tasks, and they were failing pretty spectacularly at both.
Then the Mercury nameplate was eliminated and that budget, as far as I understand it (and I am not a Ford insider), was transferred over to Lincoln to revive that brand. The first cars from that revival project are coming out now, and the most interesting of them is the new MKZ.
I saw this car in the metal for the first time at the Auto Show, and I was instantly ashamed by how much I like it. I know it’s just a tricked out Fusion , but it really is very handsome: a sleek, modern car that will make an elegant addition to the fleet. It’s quite emphatically American and the outside of it is nothing to be ashamed of whatsoever. The flying wing grille nicely references the grilles of some of the great Lincolns of the past, and would make a great “identity face” for the next generation. Please go to the MKZ website and look at the professional photographs– my grab shots in a crowded show hall do not do it justice.
Just, whatever you do, don’t look at the interior. The inside is a real horror show. You would think that in a car this size there would be, I don’t know, room to sit down? Room to ride and drive long distances in comfort? Room to adjust your feet, your knees, your hips, your shoulders? It is not a cheap car, even if it looks more expensive than it is, and many of its owners will not be in their first youth. And they will be Americans. Americans are not a small people. Luxury cars, by definition, should be comfortable to ride in, at least in the front seat. If you want to spend a large sum on a car with a tight fitting “cockpit” interior where you can sit surrounded by gadgets and gizmos, you will almost certainly will want a sports car. If you buy a large and handsome cruiser, you want to cruise. This is yet another beautiful car that fails the “you don’t drive the outside” test.
I explained this at length to a corporate rep from Lincoln, and the best he could offer me was a business card from a local dealership which offers a nice selection of low mileage Town Cars and Mercury Grand Marquises, if I “want a car with room in the front seat”. Funny. I never knew that was a dirty word.
(Also, the color chart for this car stinks on ice. Any color chart where medium red metallic looks like (very bad word) Carnival in Rio is a bad color chart.)
I’ve never understood the “luxury” marques. You pay thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, more for exactly the same car, except it has stuff that you could, if you really wanted to, add yourself for less money. Premium sound systems, alarms, bells and whistles, leather seats. Is it really worth several grand to have a bit of walnut burl in your dashboard? Some folks say yes. If you have gobs of cash to blow, I guess you can blow it on whatever you want. I guess if you’re brand-conscious, you want the logo and the nameplate. I’ve never understood it.
The answer, I suppose, lies in the history of the American auto industry. In the days when US manufacturers had 80 or 90 percent of the US market, the big three competed primarily with each other and nameplates proliferated as each manufacturer tried to make a car for each and every person in the country. That way no customer would go to Ford because of some psychological need that wasn’t being met by any of the hundred different car models made by GM. I am perfectly serious– marketing books from the 50s and early 60s are *insane* to read today. Basically, the car companies were selling cars as symbols– symbols of status, sex appeal, security, whatever– and the important thing was designing enough different symbols so that everyone could have one that fit them perfectly. The practical transportation needs served by a car, or the pleasure a driver might get out of driving it, were secondary. (Even then, sensible people didn’t buy into this– they bought cars from the cheapest lines, or some of the few imports like the VW Beetle.)
This was a pretty crazy situation, and it didn’t survive the introduction of large number of cars from other countries, particularly Japan, where the industries were focused on more rational goals like designing and building quality products using efficient manufacturing processes. The money started going to the people offering good cars at lower prices and the US manufacturers had to follow suit. This was a long process and it is still going on. Ford is now down to a two channel system as used by other pairs like Honda/Acura and VW/Audi, and GM is heading, much more slowly, in the same direction. (Anyone who thinks they can explain the marketing behavior of the new Chrysler/Fiat group is welcome to take a shot at explaining it to me.)
None of this is to say that people don’t still attach symbolic value to their cars, but with all the manufacturers represented in our market, you’re much more likely to define yourself by choosing a Toyota over a Honda or a Ford over a Hyundai at any price point, rather than buying a Lincoln version of the Fusion over a Ford. And if you do the latter it will make more sense, since those new manufacturing techniques also make it possible to put completely different sets of body panels on a platform to make cars that at least look much more different from each other than those badge-engineered cars of yesteryear. That MKZ doesn’t look much like its Fusion cousin, or the new Dodge Dart like the Alfa Romeo Giulietta with which it shares a platform.
The one thing the old style luxury marques are good for is making excellent used cars. The price differential between a Chevy and a Buick drops dramatically after about five years, so us bottom feeders can buy ourselves some nice leather lined rides at very reasonable prices. Quality across the board has gotten so good that I don’t know why most people bother buying new. There can be good reasons to do it, but for most of us, used cars are a much better deal.
Excellent analysis. I get the “car for everyone” marketing approach. I guess I’ve always thought of cars more as tools than anything else. I recognize the need to buy a quality hammer (a Black & Decker over whatever they sell at the dollar store), but I’m not paying extra for an alpaca leather grip and gold accents on the claw. That’s not to say I don’t love a pretty car as much as the next fellow, or would drive one if it fell into my lap, but I’ve never gotten the “what you drive = your status” thing.
Well, this could be because you are more sensible than other people, or just because you get your status fix/psychological identity from other things. My guess would be a combination of the two. Even at the height of the “what’s good for GM is good for the country” period, when the automobile was widely considered pretty much a one-to-one equivalent to the American Dream, there were people who weren’t with the program. They got their identities from their political positions, their houses, their hi fi rigs, their vacations abroad, etc. etc. Some of them, then as now derived a strong identity from being above the trivial concerns of “ordinary” people.
As society becomes more diverse and economic and environmental concerns make cars both more problematic to own and operate and more alike visually and functionally, their symbolic importance has been reduced. Other symbols have risen in value to take their place, particularly electronic gadgets. If you read the car magazines, automotive and business blogs, the WSJ, etc., you will find many, many words of commentary about the threat posed to the auto industry by the rise of the smartphone as both a tool for communication and a status object in its own right. These young people coming up, the pundits write, don’t care about cars enough. They don’t even seem to want to drive. They aren’t rushing to get their licenses and when (or if) they do, they are happy using car sharing services or driving used cars. They don’t see owning a series of shiny, ever more expensive new cars as a major goal of their lives. All they want to do is fiddle around with those damn phones. This sounds silly when I put it that way, but the sense of panic is genuine.
Personally, I would love to establish my psychological identity with a Citroen DS, a 1959 Buick convertible and a new Kia Soul for bad weather, along with a pocket full of extremely expensive fountain pens, but the realities of life have intervened.
(Oh, and If your idea of a deluxe hammer is something with an alpaca grip and gold accents, you have obviously never spent a happy hour perusing the Garrett Wade catalog. I don’t even *like* that kind of tools but I could spend many hundreds of dollars on their beautiful, elegant stuff without breaking a sweat. http://www.garrettwade.com.)