2013 Lincoln MKZ: Thick In All The Wrong Places

Derek Kreindler
by Derek Kreindler

Here’s the 2013 Lincoln MKZ, and just as many of us suspected, the Ford Fusion is the much nicer looking car. Redundancy, thy name is Em Kay Zee.

The MKZ’s oddly thick C-pillar, kangaroo hips and pseudo-Aston rear deck treament look like a mismatched, mis-shapen pastiche that tires too hard to be an Audi A7. The front, as previously discussed, isn’t the most elegant either. We’ll leave it to Jack and the rest of the TTAC crew to see how it looks in person. The MKZ concept wasn’t so impressive in person, but it didn’t look all that bad in the flesh.



Derek Kreindler
Derek Kreindler

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  • Bryanska Bryanska on Apr 03, 2012

    Looks good. Smooth. Cribs from the outgoing Saab 9-5 more than the Audi. Screw the Audi anyway. I'm sick of 'em. They are BO-RING. The Lincoln is probably available with a nice brown interior with wood too. Better than the coffins from Germany or the grayscale Japanese or Cadillacs.

  • Axual Axual on Apr 05, 2012

    Memo to Lincoln: Think different. Memo to Self: Never consider a Lincoln until they think different.

  • Kjhkjlhkjhkljh kljhjkhjklhkjh A prelude is a bad idea. There is already Acura with all the weird sport trims. This will not make back it's R&D money.
  • Analoggrotto I don't see a red car here, how blazing stupid are you people?
  • Redapple2 Love the wheels
  • Redapple2 Good luck to them. They used to make great cars. 510. 240Z, Sentra SE-R. Maxima. Frontier.
  • Joe65688619 Under Ghosn they went through the same short-term bottom-line thinking that GM did in the 80s/90s, and they have not recovered say, to their heyday in the 50s and 60s in terms of market share and innovation. Poor design decisions (a CVT in their front-wheel drive "4-Door Sports Car", model overlap in a poorly performing segment (they never needed the Altima AND the Maxima...what they needed was one vehicle with different drivetrain, including hybrid, to compete with the Accord/Camry, and decontenting their vehicles: My 2012 QX56 (I know, not a Nissan, but the same holds for the Armada) had power rear windows in the cargo area that could vent, a glass hatch on the back door that could be opened separate from the whole liftgate (in such a tall vehicle, kinda essential if you have it in a garage and want to load the trunk without having to open the garage door to make room for the lift gate), a nice driver's side folding armrest, and a few other quality-of-life details absent from my 2018 QX80. In a competitive market this attention to detai is can be the differentiator that sell cars. Now they are caught in the middle of the market, competing more with Hyundai and Kia and selling discounted vehicles near the same price points, but losing money on them. They invested also invested a lot in niche platforms. The Leaf was one of the first full EVs, but never really evolved. They misjudged the market - luxury EVs are selling, small budget models not so much. Variable compression engines offering little in terms of real-world power or tech, let a lot of complexity that is leading to higher failure rates. Aside from the Z and GT-R (low volume models), not much forced induction (whether your a fan or not, look at what Honda did with the CR-V and Acura RDX - same chassis, slap a turbo on it, make it nicer inside, and now you can sell it as a semi-premium brand with higher markup). That said, I do believe they retain the technical and engineering capability to do far better. About time management realized they need to make smarter investments and understand their markets better.
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