Almost all major auto makers in the industry have its own luxury brand, and Ford knows the importance of keeping a luxury brand of its own, which is Lincoln.
Many people have the impression that Lincoln vehicles do not sell well and are never major competitors to the big players such as Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Lexus, Acura, Infiniti etc. The reason that Ford has not build a solid foundation for Lincoln earlier is because previously, Ford owned other luxury brands such as Jaguar, Land Rover, Aston Martin and Volvo. But these have all gone during the 2008 financial crisis which makes Lincoln the only hope for Ford’s luxury branch.
Currently Lincoln vehicles are sometimes criticized by some consumers, stating that they are merely a dress-up version of a corresponding Ford model. For example the Lincoln MKC actually shares a certain amount of parts and design with the Ford Escape.
Even though Lincoln does not perform as well as Ford’s expectation, and in fact we can sense Ford is obviously unsatisfied with Lincoln’s current status. Instead of dumping it down the sink, Ford is planning to inject an investment of 5-billion dollars to overhaul the Lincoln product line.
Part of this investment will go to the development of the D6 platform, which is said to be flexible enough to build both rear-wheel-drive and front-wheel-drive layout cars.
Besides the shared platform design, Ford has also bet heavily on the aluminum car body, which will also be used extensively in the next-generation Lincoln Navigator.
Five-billion dollars sounds like a lot of money, but consider how ambitious Ford is and the big plans it is going to execute. I am interesting to see what is the outcome of this big investment.
How do you feel about Fords 5-billion dollar Lincoln overhaul? Will it be a success?
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