Can The Lincoln MKC Revive A Once-Proud Luxury Brand?

[Harry P.]

Charlie, you seem to have this very well thought out. I agree with pretty much everything you said, especially the idea that a "luxury" brand, as Lincoln is obviously trying to position itself as, shouldn't be building 4-cylinder cars. If you want a 4, you can find it down the block at your friendly neighborhood Ford dealer... they should not be sitting in a Lincoln showroom. Trying to be all things to all people doesn't mesh with trying to be an exclusive "luxury" brand. I think they need to return to the mindset they had in the '50s, when a Lincoln truly was something special, and not just a Ford with more chrome.

Why don't the big brains at Ford think that way?

[Tom Geiger]

If you want a 4, you can find it down the block at your friendly neighborhood Ford dealer... they should not be sitting in a Lincoln showroom.

Harry, now your friendly Ford dealer also sells Lincolns. Ford has consolidated their dealer network. In my NJ town there was Tom's Ford right next door to Straub Lincoln / Mercury. Different ownership, but there forever. Now there's just Tom's Ford / Lincoln. Even more of a reason not to do simple badge engineering on the same cars.

Edited November 20, 2013 by Tom Geiger

[cobraman]

Anyone remember the Blackwood ? Just a fancied up ( stupid IMO ) Ford F-150 with phony wood grain on the bed along with stupid ( again my opinion ) barn door tail instead of a flip down tailgate. They won't go anywhere with these kind of ideas.

[Rob Hall]

Anyone remember the Blackwood ? Just a fancied up ( stupid IMO ) Ford F-150 with phony wood grain on the bed along with stupid ( again my opinion ) barn door tail instead of a flip down tailgate. They won't go anywhere with these kind of ideas.

That one lasted a year IIRC..still see a couple around. It's replacement (Mark LT) lasted a few years and is still sold in Mexico.

[Harry P.]

Harry, now your friendly Ford dealer also sells Lincolns. Ford has consolidated their dealer network.

Well, if that's the case, that's completely stupid, and totally goes against the idea that Lincoln is its own brand, an idea they are trying to get consumers to buy into, with their new "Lincoln Motor Company" name.

Stupid, stupid, stupid corporate decisions being made.

I swear, I wonder sometimes how auto company bigshots ever got to the position they hold.

[Rob Hall]

Well, if that's the case, that's completely stupid, and totally goes against the idea that Lincoln is its own brand, an idea they are trying to get consumers to buy into, with their new "Lincoln Motor Company" name.

Stupid, stupid, stupid corporate decisions being made.

I swear, I wonder sometimes how auto company bigshots ever got to the position they hold.

That's how they are around here...with the loss of Mercury and the Town Car, Lincoln's volume is so low they can't really support standalone dealers anymore..

[Harry P.]

That's how they are around here...with the loss of Mercury and the Town Car, Lincoln's volume is so low they can't really support standalone dealers anymore..

Well, if that's the case, why now this attempt to push Lincoln as a standalone luxury brand? A "luxury" automobile that doesn't have its own dealer network???

Obviously Ford, like so many others, is counting on the collective stupidity/gullibility of the typical American consumer to sell them a load of crap.

[Rob Hall]

Then again, paired dealers hasn't been a problem for other brands...my Cadillac dealer also sells Buick and GMC...they used to also have Pontiac. I know there are some standalone Cadillac dealers also.

[Casey]

A "luxury" automobile that doesn't have its own dealer network???

Maybe they haven't forgotten how that worked out for the Continental and Edsel divisions, and Imperial over at Chrysler.

[Harry P.]

Didn't we learn anything from GM and their scheme of badge engineering that cost Olds and Pontiac their lives?

[Harry P.]

Maybe they haven't forgotten how that worked out for the Continental and Edsel divisions, and Imperial over at Chrysler.

Maybe I'm way off base here, but to me, if you want to sell the consumer the idea that your car brand is "special" and worthy of a price premium, you need to make the whole buying experience special and with an air of exclusivity.

If I can buy a Lincoln from the same store that sells a Focus, the "specialness" of the Lincoln brand is lost.

[Rob Hall]

Didn't we learn anything from GM and their scheme of badge engineering that cost Olds and Pontiac their lives?

Well, technically what Lincoln is doing isn't badge engineering..it's platform sharing, which car makers have done for ages--distinct bodies and interiors, shared dirty bits. Toyota and Lexus do it. Nissan and Infiniti do it. Cadillac does it to some degree with other GM brands. Dodge and Chrysler do it.

Examples of badge engineering would be the Neon (Dodge and Plymouth versions), Chevy and GMC trucks and vans, various Dodge and Plymouth models from the '70s until the end of Plymouth, for example.

[Casey]

Didn't we learn anything from GM and their scheme of badge engineering that cost Olds and Pontiac their lives?

Oh come one now, the death of those two divisions wasn't that simple.

Unless you're blaming the Aztek?

[Harry P.]

All I'm saying is, if you want the consumer to believe that your product is "special" and worth the extra $$$ you're charging for it, you have to present that product in a way that reinforces the idea.

Selling your "special" Lincolns in the same room with Focuses (Focii?) and Fusions doesn't exactly work to reinforce your marketing strategy.

[Harry P.]

Well, technically what Lincoln is doing isn't badge engineering..it's platform sharing...

Different term, same idea–selling the same basic product as two different things. When they're the same under the skin, they're the same. You can call it "platform sharing," but that doesn't change the fact that the platform (the basic guts of the thing) is shared. Or in other words... the same.

[Rob Hall]

Different term, same idea–selling the same basic product as two different things. When they're the same under the skin, they're the same. You can call it "platform sharing," but that doesn't change the fact that the platform (the basic guts of the thing) is shared. Or in other words... the same.

No, you missed the point. Different idea. Shared parts don't mean the same. It's the degree of sharing that is significant. Badge engineered products are virtually identical except for trivial differences like grilles and badges. Consider the '77 Monaco and '77 Fury. Or the Neon. Or the FR-S and BRZ. The new Chevy City Express is badge engineered from the Nissan NV200.

Platform sharing, on the other hand, results in different cars that have some dirty bits shared but different interiors, bodies, etc. it happened in the 60s and '70s--Mustang and Cougar, Barracuda and Challenger, Torino and Montego, Charger, Coronet, Belvedere. Today it happens with cars such as the Impala and LaCrosse. Malibu and Regal. Fusion and MKZ. Taurus and MKS. Camry, Avalon and ES. Modern Charger, Challenger and 300. Shared parts, distinctly different cars.

Edited November 20, 2013 by Rob Hall

[charlie8575]

Charlie, you seem to have this very well thought out. I agree with pretty much everything you said, especially the idea that a "luxury" brand, as Lincoln is obviously trying to position itself as, shouldn't be building 4-cylinder cars. If you want a 4, you can find it down the block at your friendly neighborhood Ford dealer... they should not be sitting in a Lincoln showroom. Trying to be all things to all people doesn't mesh with trying to be an exclusive "luxury" brand. I think they need to return to the mindset they had in the '50s, when a Lincoln truly was something special, and not just a Ford with more chrome.

Why don't the big brains at Ford think that way?

Well, if that's the case, that's completely stupid, and totally goes against the idea that Lincoln is its own brand, an idea they are trying to get consumers to buy into, with their new "Lincoln Motor Company" name.

Stupid, stupid, stupid corporate decisions being made.

I swear, I wonder sometimes how auto company bigshots ever got to the position they hold.

Well, in many cases, it's not what, or how you do your job, it's who you know. That's how they get their jobs. Then they run it all into the ditch, proclaim "mission accomplished" and move on to the next cluster-bomb.

Add in that all too many times, business decisions are driven by pure numbers- dollars and cents, that sense is removed from the equation. Instead, after market-studying and focus-grouping everything to death, you end up with the same cookie-cutter cars at different price points in various renderings of bland and/or hideous to please bean-counters and nannies, public and private.

And that, I'm afraid, is one of the reasons why so many industries, not just individual companies, are falling apart. We're getting too much information, have become too data-driven, and now can no longer think for ourselves.

Add in that, at least in my opinion (and after working as a teacher, I think I have some professional grounding in this), a lot of the people in the upper echelons of industry are, frankly, a combination of walking examples of the Peter Principle, combined with being "educated" (right now, "indoctrinated" really is looking good), far in excess of their ability to not only comprehend, but to use their acquired information in a rational, practical, and effective manner.

There is a difference between "smart" and "intelligent."

Smart is the ability to use your knowledge in a meaningful, practical manner in day-to-day life. Intelligent is the ability to acquire information and retain it for future use, as well as the ability to reason and use logic to at least some degree.

Some people are smart, some are intelligent. Some, sadly, are neither, but rely on cunning, which is spur-of-moment use of your wits (such as they are) to get you out of a jam.

People who are either smart or intelligent each present their own unique challenges. Smart people who aren't intelligent have great intuitive thinking, but can't do much for original thought and the retention of deeper knowledge. Intelligent people who aren't smart are like libraries you lost the key to, and the windows can't be broken- all that knowledge locked away and inaccessible. This is why it is so critical to develop a balance to both traits and learn how to use them as much as possible.

Sadly, many people were either not intelligent enough to begin with, or not smart enough to begin with and then watched all their schooling go right over their heads, frying what capacity they might have had.

It gives credence to the old-fashioned way of learning a business- internships, apprencticeships, and learning directly. It also says that we need to really think about information before making poor decisions. All of these MBA/MSF/MSM types are taught one thing- numbers, numbers, numbers, and nothing else matters, except perhaps being honest (but only perhaps). What about pride in your product? Or your work? Or even yourself instead of making such poor, ill-fated decisions and then forcing them on your firm?

Full disclosure: I'm filling out my application for an MBA at UMASS so, among all my other spinning plates, I can start to teach college business, possibly full-time in the future, but at least as an adjunct or lecturer. The pot might be calling the kettle black a little in this case, but it's a real conversation that needs to happen in business schools and in undergraduate and even high school business courses. Problem is, no one want to have the conversation.

Sure, mistakes will still happen, but when things are almost immediately being shown to be a bad idea from the start and you do it anyway...

I really do think in many cases, us "unwashed masses" could run the major corporations of this country better than those entrusted with such duty. And there are a lot of smart and intelligent people here on this board that prove my point.

Charlie Larkin

Edited November 21, 2013 by charlie8575

[lordairgtar]

badge engineering is a bit differnent than platform sharing. As was said, sharing a platform doesn't make it the same car. In days of yore, Eldorado and Toronado shared a platform with Riviera. Now everyone knows the Riv is a rear drive car when the other two are front drive cars. Even the Eldo and the Toro did not share sheet metal until they later were downsized. Wasn't Lincoln always paired with Mercury. I have seen stand alone Merc dealers but never a stand alone Lincoln dealer. i could be mistaken on that one though. Lincolns all look like SUV, CUV vehicles now. They need some real sedans and coupes. I say a hot coupe based on the Mustang platform (but no Mustang sheet metal sharing), A serious sedan similar to a Jaguar or Passat could be the basis for a Town Car that can handle well. Maybe just one CUV in the Cayenne vein.

[Tom Geiger]

Well, if that's the case, that's completely stupid, and totally goes against the idea that Lincoln is its own brand, an idea they are trying to get consumers to buy into, with their new "Lincoln Motor Company" name.

Stupid, stupid, stupid corporate decisions being made.

I swear, I wonder sometimes how auto company bigshots ever got to the position they hold.

I think it's the reality of the domestic car market. All three have cut many smaller dealers from their networks and consolidated brands into one store. Chrysler combined Chrysler - Dodge - Ram - Jeep into single dealerships. Some also have Fiat, but they've been slow in rolling out Fiat stores, and demand that those dealers sell them from their own show room.

I haven't watched GM close enough to see what they've done, past shutting down low volume dealers. There are an awful lot of abandoned car dealership properties in the NJ / PA area.

In the example I gave earlier in Central NJ of Tom's Ford and Straub Lincoln / Mercury being next to each other, Straub has taken a major hit in the consolidations. They originally had Buick - Pontiac- GMC - Lincoln / Mercury and Jeep. They originally had a Dodge / Jeep dealership down the road (it was originally their AMC store) and lost Dodge to the dealer down the road earlier. So they rolled Jeep into their other building and sold that property. Sad, it got knocked down and is now a pharmacy. In the last round of cutbacks, they lost Pontiac when it went out, Lincoln / Mercury (Lincoln to Tom's - Mercury went out), and Chrysler took Jeep from them and consolidated that up the street in another company's Chrysler - Dodge store. So at this point they are just Buick - GMC and the big Lincoln building is now a used car center. It's a shame since this is a long time dealer, my 1960 Buick was sold there new!

I don't think GM will be cutting Buick because it's their biggest selling nameplate in China. And part of that allure is that it's an American brand.

Edited November 20, 2013 by Tom Geiger

[Danno]

The lead paragraph in the article linked at the top may show that Lincoln has a long way to go here:

"As she prepared to introduce the 2015 Lincoln MKC at a press conference, a colleague’s remarks caught Lisa Drake, the car’s chief program engineer, off-guard.

Better know the Escape’s specs, the colleague advised.

"The Escape?," Drake said. "Why?"

She was dumbfounded."

That is priceless. Can you say, "Clueless?" PRICELESS.

And there you have it, folks. The chief program engineer has no idea why she should know anything about the vehicle they rebadged?

Polish up the 'Death of Lincoln' press releases, people. It won't be long now.

{You just can't make this stuff up any better, can you?}

[Chuck Most]

Say, Juju- if you want to buy a car from a manufacturer that was bankrupt just a few short years ago, be my guest. Me? I'm not a gambling kind of man.

John Morrison- Thanks for that link- wasn't aware Mays' retirement was coming that soon! Still, you'll be seeing his influence for a few years yet as new product comes out of the pipeline.

Skip- As an Infiniti owner, you should know the division's full name is Infiniti Motor Company Ltd. . Don't you think that "Ltd." tacked onto the end would make their name just a little bit snottier than Lincoln's? And no, I can't knock Infiniti- they're the scrappy underdog of the Japanese premium cars, after all. I just hope they don't screw themselves with their new naming strategy (all new Infiniti models from here out will be Q-Something-or-others...).

[sjordan2]

Insofar as the subject of selling little crapmobiles alongside luxury brands goes, it doesn't seem to matter that Corvettes are sold in the same showrooms as the wonkiest little Chevies. It's been a marketing tool for decades for dealers to bring buyers into showrooms using the cool cars to "halo up" the cheaper ones.

On the other hand, the powers that be divorced the Dodge badge from Viper and Ram and spun them off into their own standalone brands, presenting an argument for the other side. If GM came to spin off Corvette like that, they'd have to pry the keys from the dealers' cold, dead fingers.

As for sharing a platform (to one extent or another), though the Cadillac XLR was built in Corvette's Bowling Green plant on a Corvette "platform," it had its own unique Cadillac parts like the Northstar engine and assorted other mechanical and cosmetic bells and whistles. Its failure may have had more to do with a $100,00 price tag and a brand image disconnect than being as bland as the Allanté. Seems like they were trying to match the Mercedes range of models.

My point is, I think it all comes down to individual cases.

And most cars are price-engineered to meet a price point consistent with what the public will tolerate -- which the 56-57 Continental disastrously proved by having to sell each model at a loss of about a thousand per car. Wikipedia commented on brand confusion between that Continental and Lincoln:

"While technically never a Lincoln and manufactured by a separate new division, Continental, the Mark II was sold and maintained through Lincoln dealerships, featured a Lincoln drivetrain, and sported a Continental-emulating spare tire hump in the trunk lid, affectionally called a "Continental kit" for all the optional add-ons during the 50's. The outside mounted spare was 1st used on the 39-48 Lincoln Continentals. On its hood and trunk were four-pointed stars, soon adopted by Lincoln as its own emblem.

Handbuilt and resultantly expensive at around USD10,000 on launch, the quickly redesigned 1958 Mark III^[8] was cheaper at $6,000, mostly because it recycled Lincoln parts and technology. The result was that the two products were difficult to differentiate within the customer's mind, and resulted in the Continental marque's being reabsorbed by Lincoln.^[9]Confusion of the model as a Lincoln has reigned ever since."

Edited November 20, 2013 by sjordan2

[Tom Geiger]

Insofar as the subject of selling little crapmobiles alongside luxury brands goes, it doesn't seem to matter that Corvettes are sold in the same showrooms as the wonkiest little Chevies. It's been a marketing tool for decades for dealers to bring buyers into showrooms using the cool cars to "halo up" the cheaper ones.

On the other hand, Dodge divorced their badge from Viper and Ram and spun them off into their own standalone brands, presenting an argument for the other side.

I believe Dodge went to the RAM name on their trucks to make it easier to sell off the truck brand sometime in the future.

I don't think people even notice that expensive cars are sold out of the same showroom as cheaper makes. Multi manufacturer dealerships have been around forever. Back in 1982 I bought my Nissan Stanza from a Nissan - Ford dealership that had both in the showroom side by side. And mega dealers with many makes are more the thing now. The local Mopar store in Downingtown, PA here has Chrysler - Dodge- Ram - Jeep - Fiat - MItsubishi and VW all out of the same complex with the cars all mixed up on the lot, especially as visible from the road.

Edited November 20, 2013 by Tom Geiger

[charlie8575]

That is priceless. Can you say, "Clueless?" PRICELESS.

And there you have it, folks. The chief program engineer has no idea why she should know anything about the vehicle they rebadged?

Polish up the 'Death of Lincoln' press releases, people. It won't be long now.

{You just can't make this stuff up any better, can you?}

It does rather prove my point, doesn't it?

Charlie Larkin

[sfhess]

First thing they should do is bring back actual names. The alphanumeric designations that are in vogue now are meaningless. MK-whatever is stupid and useless.