#2015NewYorkAutoShow

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I was at the press conference in Chicago a few years back when Lincoln announced that they had decided to jettison billions of dollars worth of brand equity and go with alphanumeric model names (well, the announcement didn’t quite go like that, but that’s a pretty close approximation of what it meant). Around that time Ford was still trying to sell luxury F-150 pickups under the Lincoln brand, first the Lincoln Blackwood and then the Mark LT, before they realized the margins were greater on Platinum F-150s. When the sedan model now known as the MKS was introduced as a concept, the press kit referred to it as the Mark S, with Mk S badging, just like Mk IIIs and Mk IVs of yore – alphanumeric badging but the model name was spoken as “Mark x”. By the time it reached production, though, the new large Lincoln was simply the MKS. I asked a Lincoln rep what happened to “Mark” and was told that customers associated the name with old fashioned land yachts, not contemporary cars. With the new Lincoln Continental concept it’s clear that Ford Motor Company’s luxury brand has decided to embrace their inner land yacht.

Most of the big news at the 2015 New York International Auto Show took place on the first day of the media preview, with the introduction of the Cadillac CT6, production bound Lincoln Continental and Honda Civic concepts and an all-new Chevy Malibu, as well as the Porsche 911 fighting McLaren 570S. With that in mind it’s easy to understand why the press conferences for Elio Motors and Lyons Motors were relatively sparsely attended, being held on the second press day, though the two startups faced different obstacles in getting attention. Elio’s stand at the show was with the trucks on the lower level of the Javits Center, away from most of the cars, and reporters, upstairs. Lyons Motors’ head Kevin Lyons held his press conference in the concourse on the main level, but it was easy to miss as they had no car on display, just an empty piece of carpet and a lectern.