by "LJ909" (lj909)
Published 06/24/2017 at 13:14
by "LJ909" (lj909)
Published 06/24/2017 at 13:14
No Tags
STARS: 5
For whatever reason, Ford has always been stingy with the modern Mustang platform. Its almost always exclusively been the sole vehicle that used its platform. Back in the late 900's-early to mid 00's, the 2005 redesign was supposed to see the Mustang move to a variant of the DEW 98 (Lincoln LS, Jaguar S-Type and XF, Thunderbird), but they redesigned it and it became the Mustang specific D2C platform, that was used right up until the current S550 platformed Mustang.
If Ford would share the Mustang platform with Lincoln it would do wonders. They could lengthen it and make it a sports sedan, a proper new age LS. Or they could give us what a lot of us have been asking for for a long time: a Lincoln sports coupe. I dont know if this has been covered on here before, but the image you see above I found on a site called Motor1.com through a Facebook page of drawn up concept cars called Hansen Art.
I have to say, this thing is a looker if it were to be real. They could easily do this and it probably would sell. It could be a BMW 4 Series competitor. Give it a base Ecoboost V6 and an optional, top line Black Label performance trim with the 3.5 Twin Turbo V6 and 10 speed auto from the Navigator and call it a day. I don’t think it should get the 5.0 though. That should stay with the Mustang. If they put enough know how into it to differentiate it from the Mustang and make it uniquely Lincoln, it could put Cadillac and other luxury marques on notice. What do you guys think?
"dogisbadob" (dogisbadob)
06/24/2017 at 13:22, STARS: 1
This x1000
They can do all of the above, and also make a RWD crossover/SUV thing out of it, too.
"LJ909" (lj909)
06/24/2017 at 13:23, STARS: 1
Yep. But they wont. It would surprise the hell out of me if they did. If they can make the GT and its stupid application process for a few thousand rich yuppies, why cant we have a proper luxury sports coupe from them for the masses?
"RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht" (ramblininexile)
06/24/2017 at 13:24, STARS: 0
Well, it’s kind of an interesting situation. Normal and respected practice would be for such a thing to be a Mark coupe, but they’ve gone and made the naming conventions all fucky. If they were still paralleling Lincoln and Thunderbird builds, then it would be a Thunderbird possibility as well or instead, but the Retrobird probably soiled that nest too thoroughly to recover anytime soon - and apart from four-door coupe (shudder) options, a Thunderbird would probably cut into the top trim levels of the Stang. Which is only a problem if it would cost more per unit and fail to expand market, of course, but it very well might.
I do think they need a Lincoln coupe, but apart from the sports versions of the Mark in the mid 80s, the sports-Lincoln idea is a tricky sell. Granted, Cadillac built more from less...
"Wacko" (wacko--)
06/24/2017 at 13:24, STARS: 2
Sharing the platform and a rebadge ain’t the same thing. What almost killed Lincoln the last time was rebadges, just like this drawing looks like.
What they should do is what GM is doing with the Camaro and the ATS.
"LongbowMkII" (longbowmkii)
06/24/2017 at 13:24, STARS: 1
It’s a great way to have both the ecoboost 6 and the v8.
Hell maybe even an ecoboost hybrid.
"LJ909" (lj909)
06/24/2017 at 13:35, STARS: 0
Yea if you follow that model, then Ford would have to do something similar. But the Big 3 got out of personal luxury coupes years ago, with the GM being the last holdout with the Monte Carlo going away 10 years ago now. I dont think a Thunderbird or anything like that would happen from Ford ever again.
Lincoln, if they did it right, could make it work. They just have to not have their expectations be so high. But I think it could work and with a Mark name as well. They revived the Continental name and word is the Aviator is coming back as well.
"LJ909" (lj909)
06/24/2017 at 13:39, STARS: 0
True. But like I’ve said before, automakers still rebadge, they’ve just gotten better at it to the point where some will call it platform sharing if you cant tell them apart. For instance, the MKZ and Fusion? Rebadge. But you cant really tell so people say platform sharing. And it goes on from there: Edge and MKZ, MKS and Taurus, famously Navigator and Expedition. If this coupe were to be built, I would expect it to be way different and have Lincoln specific styling cues so you couldn’t look at it and say “oh this is just a Lincoln Mustang”.
"LJ909" (lj909)
06/24/2017 at 13:40, STARS: 0
I could see an Ecoboost hybrid. But I would keep the 5.0 with the Mustang. It would make it too similar at that point and probably step on the toes of the upper GT trims of the Mustang. And it would be too costly to develop a specific V8 just for this car as well.
"HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles" (hondasfordsvolvo)
06/24/2017 at 13:42, STARS: 1
If they don’t call it a Cougar I’ll be mad
"RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht" (ramblininexile)
06/24/2017 at 13:45, STARS: 0
I think the philosophy used to be that a Thunderbird would move more units than a Lincoln that was too downscale (because it was a premium Ford, and therefore a bargain!), but it was literally a crypto-Lincoln from ‘58 on. The option of selling a downmarket twin of Marks wasn’t a bad thing and probably wouldn’t cost much to do - but it’s fraught with risk.
I think the Mustang platform permits setting up the car with a much more spacious driver’s position and maybe even more of a joke of a back seat, which lends itself well to the Lincoln coupe idea (and a four-door-‘coupe’-with-suicide-rears if needed), but it might realistically involve more reengineering than a simple rebadge, reinterior, reface job to have something worth marketing.
"LJ909" (lj909)
06/24/2017 at 13:46, STARS: 1
Ew no. For some reason Cougar is cheesy for a car name these days. It would have to be alphanumeric like MKM or MKR (MKC would fit but its on that stupid ass crossover) or Mark whatever.
"LJ909" (lj909)
06/24/2017 at 13:52, STARS: 0
Yea a premium Ford/Lincoln coupe is fraught with risk like you said and wouldn’t work now a days. 20 years ago maybe. But at the turn of the century things like that stopped being profitable I think. Its why the Big 3 pulled out of the luxury coupe game like I mentioned, and one of the reasons why the Thunderbird flopped.
I could see it being more of a two seater that just so happens to have a back seat thats really not usable in the same vein as the Jaguar XK and Lexus SC430. I would love if they did a 4 door coupe with suicide doors. But thats the stuff of dreams and concept cars. Ford doesnt have the balls to do Lincoln proper. Their priorities are elsewhere. How a new GT got approved and not something like this is beyond me. The Conti is a step in the right direction, but its a baby step.
"ranwhenparked" (ranwhenparked)
06/24/2017 at 13:56, STARS: 1
The side profile looks too obviously Ford, which is what killed the original MKZ for me, and I still don’t like the idea of a biggish luxury car without at least a V8 option. They could always detune it from the GT to keep a performance edge with the Mustang.
Unfortunately, don’t think it could ever happen. Coupe sales are miniscule and everyone wants crossovers.
"facw" (facw)
06/24/2017 at 13:57, STARS: 1
Lincoln definitely doesn’t need a rebadged Mustang as pictured. Maybe they could use a sports car, which could be based on the Mustang platform, but it seems unlikely they’d find many buyers for that either.
"LJ909" (lj909)
06/24/2017 at 14:01, STARS: 0
Yea thats one of the reasons why I dont like the MKZ either: its Fusion shows through. That would have to change. But like I mentioned I think it would be fine with twin turbo V6. The V8 should be Mustang only. if this think got a V8, what, besides its Lincoln trimmings, would make it appealing over the Mustang, or vice versa? But yea it wouldnt happen. Linclon wouldn’t build this just as much as Buick wont build the Camaro based Avista.
"LJ909" (lj909)
06/24/2017 at 14:02, STARS: 1
True. They need something though for a halo. Either a sports coupe or a larger than Contiential flagship.
"HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles" (hondasfordsvolvo)
06/24/2017 at 14:15, STARS: 1
I think something other than the MKx nomenclature would work better. Lincoln already made an exception by sticking with Navigator for the Big SUV. A sports coupe, and or sedan wouldn’t fit in with their regular line up so it would make sense to get away from the regular MK names. Maybe bring he Zephyr name back for the sedan Version, and do something new with the coupe.
"Turbineguy: Nom de Zoom" (will-alib)
06/24/2017 at 14:45, STARS: 2
A Mustang clone is not what Lincoln needs. Ford can stretch the S550 platform and give Lincoln a convertible (with Mustang powertrain). That’s what a lux brand needs; a convert. Lincoln hasn’t had one in forever.
"I have another burner, try to guess it!" (ihaveanotherburner)
06/24/2017 at 14:55, STARS: 1
Not really. Just leave all the performance suspenion/brakes on the Mustang. Plus you could tune the 5.0 for low end torque. Then they wouldn’t compete at all.
"LJ909" (lj909)
06/24/2017 at 15:06, STARS: 0
I agree with this. A halo convertible would work for them being that if they style and appoint it properly, it could be a proper halo. Not like Buick and its Cascada.
"Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo" (thetomselleck)
06/24/2017 at 15:32, STARS: 0
Well it didn’t work out so well last time
"PS9" (PS9)
06/24/2017 at 16:06, STARS: 1
Noooooo. That right there is part of the bad old days of us auto manufacturing, where you had like 4 versions of the same car cannibalizing sales of the whole platform. Part of the reason the F body twins died was internal competition meant even combined the two cars could not outsell the mustang.
No, no, no, a thousand times no. Even if we weren’t on the verge of another economic downturn due to a second subprime lending crisis (cars instead of houses this time!), this would still be the absolute wrong move. It’d be the F body twins all over again, but the camaro would win this time instead of the mustang. Nooooooo.
"LongbowMkII" (longbowmkii)
06/24/2017 at 16:12, STARS: 1
I meant “Lincoln TT6 and Ford V8"
"Master Cylinder" (mastercylinder28)
06/24/2017 at 16:16, STARS: 1
Yes, gimme a Mark IX. It’s time to bring back the personal luxury coupe.
"LJ909" (lj909)
06/24/2017 at 17:05, STARS: 0
You seem to either be forgetting or not aware that that very thing is still going on, espeically with the Big 3 but its industry wide with badge engineering/platform canniblization/sharing:
Cadillac XTS/Chevy Impala/Buick Lacrosse (though that might change with the new Sportback for 18)
Dodge Challenger/Charger/Chrysler 300
Chevy Sonic/Trax/Buick Encore
Profit margins aside, any Chevy/GMC fullsize SUV and truck
I could go on and on. SO its not something that necessarily would hurt the brand anymore. They’ve gotten better at hiding the facts.
"TFSIVTEC drivesavolvo" (drivesaswedishcarmadeinbelgium-)
06/24/2017 at 17:54, STARS: 0
Needs more 4 door coupe, those seem to be all the rage from German manufacturers.
"LJ909" (lj909)
06/24/2017 at 17:57, STARS: 1
I agree. But make it uniquely Lincoln and American with suicide doors.
"PS9" (PS9)
06/24/2017 at 18:31, STARS: 1
There is no ‘might’. The XTS is going away. The Lacrosse and the Impala will no longer share a platform in 2020, after GM migrates the Impala to E2XX. Side note; it’d be great if you stopped using the XTS, a car that is not being made anymore and was only a placeholder for the CT6, as a point of reference. It’s not valid as an example anymore
because it’s going away and never coming back.
Wait, Charger/Challenger? Did you just lump together a Coupe and a Sedan here? No. For the purposes of this comparison, that doesn’t work at all. There is no opportunity for a sedan to cannibalize the sales of a coupe or vice versa, no matter how big the coupe is.
The Challenger and Charger will be moving to a different platform in 2020. Given that Chrysler is considering killing the 300 instead of bringing it along with the Charger, it’s not exactly helpful to your point to bring it up.
But, aha! The Trax/Sonic/Encore certainly represent a successful and thinly veiled rebadging of the same platform, right? Not so fast. The Market volume for
small and subcompact cars represent 3.3M vehicles
. The volume for crossovers and SUVs is about 5.9M vehicles (
1
,
2
,
3
for reference). When the market volume overlap for your blended subcompact crossover exceeds ~10M vehicles, you can afford to have a compact car version, and a compact CUV version. You can even get away with a rebadge up market and charge a little more for better interior options or whatever. But when you want to play in a market segment that only supports half a million vehicles in volume, you can put your platform rebadging plans back up on the shelf, because internal competition and cannibalization will be your only rewards.
The truck example is not relevant at all, because buyers in that market have an ‘america first’ mindset that results in American trucks snatching a ridiculous 80% of all truck market volume up for themselves. It’s so bad that the fourth best selling truck gets to be a rebadge of the second best because buyers would rather just buy american again than buy anything else. This mindset is not seen in any other vehicle segment, so a Lincoln mustang would not be able to leverage this against other sporty cars in the market.
Now it’s time for some real talk; The mustang by itself nearly outsold all of Lincoln as a brand last year. That is less a compliment to the mustang than it is an insult to Lincoln. Sporty cars are a low volume market segment. Unless it is exclusive and loaded with six figure cars (and Lincoln isn’t), a whole brand of cars should be able to handily beat a single sports car in volume, including a market leader like the Mustang. This means only one thing; people don’t want to buy Lincolns.
It’s not really hard to see why, either. What does a Lincoln offer over a comparable ford right now? It used to be that you get a slightly nicer interior, as was the case with the Town Car and the Crown Vic. But those days are long gone and Fords already come with nice interiors now. So what do you get then, if not that? An ugly body kit? Keeping Matthew McConaughey employed? These are not reasons to buy a Lincoln over a Ford.
But hey, wouldn’t Putting a car people would want to buy in the lineup help Lincoln? And we already have this popular car we already make, and the body cladding is super cheap to produce. It’s win win!...right? No. Because turning the Mustang into a Lincoln would be a small boost to Lincoln at the cost of market leadership for a key product in Ford’s lineup. Compromising the success of the mustang to prop up what is the modern Pontiac of US auto brands right now is not even a tiny bit worthy of the trade, and it’s a road that ends with the competition at the top of the market and the Mustang(s) being cancelled. If you still want to think something as deeply entrenched as negative brand perception can be changed by just one good product, you should have a conversation with the Pontiac G8. It would like to have a word with you.
"LJ909" (lj909)
06/24/2017 at 20:42, STARS: 0
The XTS isnt going away. And if it is its not going anywhere anytime soon. I dont know if you didnt know but it was just refreshed for 2018 that give it front and rear styling in line with the rest of the lineup, specifically the CT6. And aside from the hot seller XT5 crossover, its Cadillac’s best selling model. GM would be foolish to get rid of it right now. Hence why they just gave it a refresh.
The Challenger example I gave can be used because while it is a coupe, dealers routinely put people that dont want a Challenger onto a Charger or vice versa Especially considering the Challenger is a 2 door variant of the Charger/300. Its just been shortened (they call it LC).
Ill give you the truck and compact examples though. But there is overlap and cannibalization. Its just the profit margins are there to allow it to be excused. But there is overlap, enough to make you question on some models is it worth it to get one over the other.
It might not be worth it to give Lincoln a Mustang based car, but they need something to give them serious market penetration and brand perception if their $1 billion dollar investment in the brand is going to mean anything. You cant give it that kind of monetary injection and then play it safe. They need to take a least some risk. The way the market is now, warmed over FOrds, no matter how differently styled wont work in the 21st century luxury car market. The Black Label personalization program, the Continental and new Navigator are good steps in the right direction, but its not enough. The need a halo to top out the lineup, and I think something like this could be it.
"Turbineguy: Nom de Zoom" (will-alib)
06/25/2017 at 10:35, STARS: 0
Oswald was a Mopar guy?
"PS9" (PS9)
06/27/2017 at 09:33, STARS: 0
The XTS isnt going away.
The XTS is going away. Dealers in the US are struggling to clear the six months worth of XTS inventory from their lots, resulting in the plant where it is being made shutting down for two more weeks beyond what was already planned for the summer , and layoffs at the engine and transmission supplier. It would not be the first time in automotive history that a manufacturer has tried tiny tweaks here and there to try to boost volume, and this would also not be the first time a newly refreshed vehicle was canned.
And aside from the hot seller XT5 crossover, its Cadillac’s best selling model.
The XTS is not caddy’s ‘best selling model’. Here is all the sales data for Cadillac . For 2016 YTD, it is in third place.
For may of 2017, it is dead last .
That is not a fluke on the part of the month, but reflects a trend that has seen month over month sales declines this year for the XTS. Sedans not made by Toyota and Honda overall are declining, but for Cadillac 2017 the XTS is falling the fastest and sells the least. This is not a recipe for the continued existence of the XTS.
The Challenger example I gave can be used because while it is a coupe, dealers routinely put people that dont want a Challenger onto a Charger or vice versa
You have just explained why the Challenger cannot cannibalize the Charger; people who don’t want a Challenger don’t want a coupe. People who don’t want a Charger don’t want a sedan. You cannot have internal competition if all your potential buyers are unwilling to see one product as an acceptable alternative for another.
Ill give you the truck and compact examples though. But there is overlap and cannibalization. Its just the profit margins are there to allow it to be excused.
If the ‘profit margins are there to allow it to be excused’ then there is no cannibalization to excuse. Internal competition and model cannibalization limit or eliminate margins and marketshare. Because of this, you cannot have growth, market leadership and model cannibalization. The 4th gen Camaro and Firebird were an example of cannibalization. The Silverado and GMC 1500 (and for that matter, the Spark, Trax and Encore) definitely are not.