FORD’S NEW PLAN FOR LINCOLN: JUST SHUFFLING ON A SINKING SHIP
By Hydra.
Lincoln is dead.

Only Ford doesn’t know it yet. So they’ve announced the outline of a plan to take on Lexus with fewer dealers, concentrated almost exclusively in urban markets. Nearly 1000 dealers are getting pink-slipped.

However a Fox News story points to the manifold failures of Lincoln that make these dealer moves meaningless shuffling.

Right now, Lincoln's cheapest model, the MKZ mid-size sedan, starts at $34,330, which is $2,000 more than a Lexus IS and a few hundred more than a Mercedes C-Class. Lincoln also has no sporty models like Cadillac's CTS-V coupe and no rear-wheel-drive offerings [except the long-neglected, unadvertised, underpowered Town Car that’s getting canned in August 2011], which some luxury drivers prefer for their handling and acceleration.

Just as with the emerging Police Interceptor debacle, Ford’s product bosses expect a MKT "Katy" wagon to pick up the slack in Ford’s lucrative "black car" and airport limousine fleet business.

(Ford photo)
Dream on.

Lincoln’s decline into irrelevance is emblematic of America’s loss of elegance and competitiveness. That the marque which once offered the incredible, true-classic K-series, the groundbreaking original Continental, the Carerra Panamerica-winning Lincoln Capri, and the luxurious Continental Mark II has been reduced to selling over-stuffed Ford Fusions and Edges under an alphabet soup of meaningless initials is evidence of how far America has fallen in the world.

Simply put, without any V8s, turbodiesels, or rear wheel drive, Lincoln is uncompetitive. While the coming Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards will put heavy pressure on all luxury marques, Lincoln goes into this tumultuous period with a weak reputation and a thin slate of almost badge-engineered products.

Certainly Lincoln builds some well-padded, gentile, near-luxury models. But none of them are milestone vehicles. They’re neuters. They’re automotive metrosexuals. They’re lukewarm tea. They’ll all be soon forgotten.

Until Lincoln restocks the product pipeline with prestigious, world-class performers, it will remain a distant also ran.

Just imagine if Lincoln dropped a Coyote V8 into a suitably luxurious, high-performing RWD chassis. Just imagine if Lincoln melded EcoBoost and electric hybrid technology with DOHC V8 power. Just think about what would happen if Lincoln benchmarked Autobahn and Nurburgring leaders instead of shooting for rental-car-fleet FWD snoozers laden with needless gadgets.

Just don’t count on it happening. The bean counters won’t let it. Alan Mulally doesn't "get it."

Under the current platform-cutting Ford mentality, don’t expect any legitimate moves on the product side that will truly correct Lincoln’s flabby reputation and woefully deficient product offerings.

And don’t expect Lincoln to be competitive with athletic brands such as BMW, Mercedes or even Cadillac anytime soon.

TA, TA, MANGY KITTEN AND DOG.

[GET MORE "TRUTH WITH SPEEDZZTER" HERE]

It's official.

Ford Motor Company (R) has finally unloaded Jaguar and Land Rover on India's Tata Motors, Ltd. for $2.3 Billion.

Reportedly FoMoCo netted only about a third of what it blew in acquiring them.

(Of course, considering that the entirety of Ford itself is apparently only worth less than a third of what it once was, the "bargain" price is not altogether surprising)

But that's insignificant compared to the huge sums of intellectual and monetary capital that FoMoCo wasted on its "English Patients."

FoMoCo's "big cat and dog" adventure resulted in the abandonment and collapse of Ford's proud Formula One tradition.

It caused the alleged product planners in the Glass House and elsewhere to deprive Lincoln-Mercury of the resources to compete with Cadillac.

It resulted in millions spent attempting to remake a Ford Contour/Mondeo into an abortion of a "Jaguar."

It yielded odd mechanical alliances as Ford sold vehicles powered by derivatives of the antique Buick/Rover/MCT pushrod V8 and a BMW V8.

It failed to yield much in the way of volume or platform synergies or new technologies.

The largest failure of FoMoCo's foray into upscale British motoring is that it abjectly bombed in insulating Ford against poaching from the German and Japanese luxury marques and from market downturns. FoMoCo never achieved the necessary sales quantities of high-profit "quality" models to hedge them from downturns in the broader "quantity" market.

Certainly, FoMoCo should be commended for saving Jaguar from almost certain extinction. When Ford took over, Jaguar quality was legendarily awful and its product line almost entirely obsolete. Ford shepherded the development of the Jaguar AJ-V8, which for a time was considered one of Ward's 10 Best Engines. While Ford never achieved parity for Jaguar with BMW, Audi, Mercedes or even Lexus, it did manage to update Jaguar's model lines and reconnect them somewhat with the brand's historic D.N.A.

However, after Ford's disastrous Jaguar Formula One program, Ford mostly neglected the motorsports involvement that is essential to Jaguar's luxury sporting brand image. And Ford was never able to turn Jaguar into the next destination for FoMoCo customers who had graduated to pure luxury.

Ford's stewardship of Land Rover (the "Dog") was even more uncertain.

BMW had done a lot of the renewal work necessary to rehabilitate the brand from the neglect of the failed British Leyland years. Yet BMW's willingness to hand Land Rover over to Ford ought to have been a warning sign.

Range Rover's uber-luxury niche seemed to decline with the bloat of the luxury-badged SUVs and CUVs (including from competing products of other FoMoCo divisions) as well as Ford's mixed attempts to broaden the Land Rover line. Land Rover advertising always seemed to keep its distance from any identification with Ford. And Land Rover, for all of its storied history, always seemed to run behind legendary brands like Jeep and even upstarts such as Hummer.

Moreover, Land Rover seems ill-positioned to fend off growing Japanese power and increased pressures on fuel economy.

Both Jaguar and Land Rover undoubtedly held down FoMoCo's "import" Corporate Average Fuel Economy numbers in the U.S.A. and would have been an increased drag as the draconian 35 M.P.G. CAFE standard is crammed down on all participants in the U.S. market.

Unlike Ford's unnecessary fire sale of Aston Martin, it was past time for FoMoCo to spin off the Mangy Cat and its aging off-road Dog. It's just too bad that FoMoCo had to spend so many precious development dollars to learn of and extricate themselves from the mistake.