Lincoln to Consider "Legacy" Names Due to Chinese Influence

I'm 56 years old. Definitely not young, maybe not quite old enough to be a card-carrying curmudgeon. The names have some importance, but if Lincoln came out with a truly luxurious V-8 sedan that wasn't a rebadged Taurus they could call it Barney the Dinosaur for all I care.

Ahhhh the Zephyr...now that was a real driver's car. I remember driving it off an LST onto the beaches of Normandy on D Day. Those Nazi's knew better than to fk with a Zephyr, I can tell you that. Thanks for the memories.

@thelaine Lucky you. My uncle said he drove a greyhound on the beach a week after D-Day and almost got stuck in the surf. I had to make a trip to the library to find out it was an A8 armored vehicle, not a bus. After that 1-1/2 mile walk to the library, my uncle told me he knew a British guy who rode a kangaroo onto the beach, and I decided to just take his word for it.

@Lorenzo Yeah Lorenzo, best not to question the WWII guys. Whatever you say, sir, and thank you. My old man actually did fight in in that war in France after the Normandy invasion. His job was to dig up land mines. Thanks, Army. That's about all he would tell me about it.

30-something I have been reading this and a few other automotive blogs for many years, and I honestly still won't be able to tell what's the difference between MKS and MKZ, much less between the other MK-cars. Is it because the name or the car is so forgettable? I don't know. I bet an average car buff will know the difference between a 528i and 328i, as well as between TSL, RL, and TL, but most will have no clue about the Lincoln MK-names. This naming scheme was a marking disaster for Lincoln IMO.

I'm in my late 20s, and I think Lincoln's alphabet soup is confusing. I think the problem is two-fold: Lincoln's vehicles themselves are forgettable, and their naming scheme is whack. I think BMW has the best alpha-numeric scheme. It's obvious that the first number in their car names translates to size, which makes it easy to keep straight. And anything with an "X" is a crossover, with the second digit being size. Audi has a system too - an "A6" is clearly greater than an "A4" - there's a progression everyone can grasp. Mercedes is a bit confusing, but you can kind of keep it straight. "E" is "Executive", "C" is compact some of the time, etc. I suppose many years of marketing help there. But Lincoln? I'm not interested enough to want to expend the mental energy to try and keep up with their hair-brained naming scheme. What's bigger/better? An MKT or an MKZ? I guess the Z? That comes last in the alphabet, so it must be the range-topping "best"? See the problem? That and BMW, Mercedes, Audi, etc are all cars people aspire to. They can get away with having silly alphabet soup names, because people will still want the cars, and therefore remember their names, even if the scheme wasn't the best (like Mercedes). Lincoln isn't there, and thoughtlessly aping some naming scheme doesn't help. You can't have horrible names AND forgettable vehicles. IMO it's the worst of all worlds - people will just forget the names AND the vehicles.

@wolfinator Audi, BMW, and Mercedes have always had the numeric or lettered naming scheme. Lincoln has not. 3-series means something to people. The S-class has been officially around since the early 70s. Lincoln has four names in their history that actually meant something: Continental, Mark series, Town Car, and Navigator. Now they only use one of those names. It also happens to be on their oldest product that is based on two generations old F-series. Unfortunetly, not enough people buy what those names were anymore; large sedan, personal luxury coupe, and BoF SUV. I would agree that many of Lincoln's products have been forgetable lately. They aren't bad, but most are "meh". I am actually glad the current products haven't ruined the badges of Lincoln's past. Only in the crossover space will they be class competitive. The MkC is very nice, the next MkX will be an excellent product, and the MkT, despite its looks, drives better than all of the other large crossovers (besides $80k+ M, RS, and AMG models). If Ford is really going to bring back these Lincoln names, we better have the product to back up the names. It should start with a Mark X as well as a four door version that is based on the Mustang.

@bball40dtw I love Lincoln and have owned a 97 Town Car and 98 Mark VIII. I was fortunate to have arguably the best version of the TC and the last hurrah of the Marks. The world has changed and Lincoln has not adapted like Cadillac. I think Lincoln's only chance to survive is to come out with a highly desirable Continental that would appeal to the kind of driver who is now driving a Chrysler 300.

@bball40dtw Well, sort of. Audi has changed its scheme so many times that it really can't claim history beyond the mid '90s. I will credit them for having a system that intrinsically makes sense. Mercedes is just drifting into confusion. If S means big, why is a CLS smaller than a CL? And if CL means coupe, why is the CLA available as a sedan? The biggest problem with Lincoln is that it's NOT alphanumeric; it's just alpha. There aren't any numbers to indicate relative size/class, and the first two letters don't mean anything. So you're basically stuck with a single letter model differentiator.

@Panther Platform I am a big fan of the 300, and I would buy a Lincoln that resembled one. But despite it being the only car left of its kind, it's only selling in moderate numbers -- about 70k last year. That's not a big enough market segment to save Lincoln or anyone else, sadly.

@dtremit The mid-90s is farther away that 2007, and the A4/A6/A8 were the right products at the right time. When everyone else was going RWD and/or sporty, Ford decided that Lincoln needed to be a FWD cross between Lexus and Audi. The problem was that the Lincoln MKZ was original supposed to be the Mark-Z or MkZ, but then it became the em-kay-zee because of focus groups. Then Lincoln was left with a FWD car that had no naming heritage, and wasn't much better than a Fusion. Instead of recognizing the error, they slapped that MKSomething on everything. I love my MKT, but I hate the name. Maybe I should buy Lincoln Aviator badges for it.

@Panther Platform Thats why they have to utilize existing and shared platforms. A new Navigator, CD4 based sedans and CUVs, and a Mustang platform based coupe and sedan are what will keep Lincoln alive.

@thelaine LOL