When the Lincoln MKZ was introduced, Ford Motor Co. took the unusual step of pricing the MKZ Hybrid the same as the non-hybrid version of the car, $35,925. Assuming that would mean a good take rate for the Hybrid, Ford production planners for the 2013 model year set the mix at 20% for the gas-electric MKZ. The take rate turned out to be so good that for 2014, 40% of MKZs made will be hybrids. That’s what Raj Nair, Ford’s group vice president of global product development, said at the automaker’s Dearborn campus on Tuesday. Hybrid sales in the U.S. market overall are up 18.3% for the first six months of this year, compared to 2012, and Ford has been benefiting from that surge. Ford’s share of the hybrid and EV market is now close to 16%, a huge improvement of 12% over last year. The C-Max, Fusion and MKZ hybrids have given the company a strong presence in the hybrid market. Ford attributes part of it’s overall U.S. market share increase of almost 1% over 2012 to electrified vehicle growth. For the first six months of 2013, Lincoln sold 3,090 MKZ Hybrid models, an average of 515 cars a month, but now that production delays that hampered the revised MKZ’s launch have apparently been overcome, for the 2nd quarter sales exceeded 715 units each month, closely matching the current build rate at Ford’s Hermosillo, Mexico assembly plant.

Source: The Detroit News

Lincoln is cutting their free maintenance program in half, from 4 years/50,000 miles to 2 years/24,000 miles. (Read More…)

The Lincoln MKZ has come in for a fair amount of abuse from the automotive press, particularly here at TTAC. The Cadillac ATS, on the other hand, has the press literally doing flips.

In April of 2013, however, the American consumer chose the MKFusion LOLZ Edition over the Autobahn-bred Cadillac CTS. And the American consumer chose the Steer-The-Script-Disaster-Chunky-Butt-Mobile over the even more sporty and awesome cancer-curing ATS.

Luckily, the two Cadillacs together managed to outsell the MKZ. By a little bit.

What’s this mean?

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This is a post that I’d rather not write. As a Detroiter, in an ideal world I’d rather that the domestic auto manufactures made tons of money selling great cars. I’m willing to take an unvarnished look at them, after all, those of us who live here are more likely to have some kind of personal interaction with the auto industry than most folks who live elsewhere, but I don’t feel the need to gratuitously slam GM, Ford and Chrysler the way some people do. I just want to be fair. In addition, it grates on me when people accuse TTAC of having a bias against those three Detroit based car companies. Sure, we’re not cheerleaders, but the writers and editors at TTAC don’t have conference calls or Skype sessions where we choose which of the domestic automakers we’ll slam that day. So it’s with some reluctance that I have to note what I considered to be a couple of quality control issues with the all new Lincoln MKZ, now finally arriving in dealerships after a botched launch.

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I do a lot of traveling (to such exotic places as Kershaw, South Carolina and South Haven, Michigan) in my travels with the 24 Hours of LeMons, which means I have plenty of dead time in airports to contemplate puzzling car ads. The Economist is the best possible magazine to have on hand when you get hit by a six-hour weather delay at George Bush International, because of its incredible bang-for-buck density. It’s clear that marketing flacks take the Economist‘s word for it when they talk about readership demographics, because the split between self-proclaimed readership (powerful and influential globe-trotting executives) and actual readership (geeked-out history/politics junkies with unkempt beards and Dead Kennedys T-shirts) makes for some entertaining car advertisements. Here’s one for the ’13 Lincoln MKZ, which attempts to woo the 72-year-old owner of a 6-store dry-cleaning chain into feeling that the purchase of an MKZ will transform him into a focus-group-perfect 42-year-old entrepreneur. Let’s take a closer look at what Lincoln’s marketers picture as the idealized MKZ buyer. (Read More…)

Is Ford about to re-name the Lincoln brand? A Detroit News reporter asked Jim Farley that question point blank, and his answer was evasive.

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That split-grille that graces the front of the 2013 Lincoln MKZ? Don’t look for it on every single Lincoln product going forward.

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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.

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Lincoln’s free-falling sales will apparently be remedied by allowing customers to watch their cars get serviced via smart phone, if you can stomach the party line coming from Ford marketing boss Jim Farley. Also outlined were Lincoln’s idea of “luxury” and powertrain details for the upcoming MKZ

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The next Ford Fusion is set to debut at next week’s North American International Auto Show, and while details are still embargoed, the blokes at Auto Express have given us a preview of the next Mondeo. Which is essentially the next Fusion.

(Edit: Here’s a “leaked” look at the car)

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The automotive world largely yawned when Ford announced the 2011 Lincoln MKZ hybrid. After all, Ford already offered the Fusion and Mercury Milan in hybrid flavor, and the standard MKZ is hardly setting the world on fire with only 11,214 models sold in the first half of 2010. In search of a bigger publicity bump for its luxury hybrid, Ford has pulled a fun little gimmick out of its bag of tricks: the 2011 MKZ will offer a hybrid drivetrain for no price premium over the standard V6 version [press release here]. According to the AP [via Yahoo], this is the first time a manufacturer has offered hybrid and non-hybrid versions of the same car for the same price. And really, the move comes as no huge surprise. With Mercury on its way out, Ford doesn’t have to worry about the$35,180 MKZ Hybrid encroaching on the $32k Milan Hybrid, and if it had charged a hybrid premium, the MKZ hybrid could have cost closer to $40k where it would have faced tougher competition from better-established luxury brands. Besides, Lincoln needs to build some momentum somehow… but is value a good place to start rebuilding a worn-down luxury brand?