Ford Spending 'Billions' on Lincoln Brand

[wingsnut]

The Wall Street Journal, Jan-15-2013 – DETROIT-Ford Motor Co. is investing billions of dollars to invigorate the Lincoln brand, said Jim Farley, the company's global Lincoln brand chief and marketing director, at the North American International Auto Show on Monday.


Mr. Farley, who added the new title to his job last fall, has championed the brand and pushed for its expansion into China as the company attempts to make its luxury line into a global player.


The company's commitment to the Lincoln brand has strengthened over the past year. In addition to the promise of four new or redesigned models to come over the next several years, Ford has made efforts to give Lincoln its own design team and parceled out engineering resources specifically to the brand in an effort to make it distinct from Ford.


Bill Ford Jr., the executive chairman for Ford, said his family, which controls the company through class-B shares, is fully behind keeping Lincoln and investing in the brand.


"We had to fix the Ford brand first, because without the [blue] oval, there is no Lincoln. Now it's time to turn our attention to Lincoln," Mr. Ford said. The family and the board of directors "talked a lot about whether it was worth the trip and decided that it was."


Ford, Monday, unveiled the Lincoln MKC prototype vehicle, a small crossover utility vehicle built on the same underpinnings as the Ford Escape, at the auto show. The small utility segment grew by 200% in sales in 2012 and Ford and other companies see it as a big area for growth.


Ford is at the beginning of an effort to revitalize its luxury brand with redesigned models. Late last year, Ford began selling a redesigned MKZ sedan and the crossover would constitute the second vehicle to come out under the new direction.


Ford launched a new marketing campaign for Lincoln late last year and renamed the brand, The Lincoln Motor Co. Ford executives have made national television appearances touting the brand, including a Times Square event featuring the MKZ. These efforts, however, haven't immediately translated into sales. The brand's U.S. results declined 4.1% to 82,150 in 2012, primarily because Lincoln stopped selling its Town Car, which was sold to black car liveries.


The Lincoln concept's interior expands on the brand's moves to eliminate as many levers and buttons as possible. There is no shift lever and no emergency brake handle. Like the just launched MKZ sedan, the concept has the new Lincoln grille, featuring chromed louvers that sweep up to suggest the wings of a bird of prey.


The MKC has a few fanciful touches-including a wine cooler in the console between the rear bucket seats-but overall this show car is intended as a signal to Lincoln dealers and would-be customers that the brand intends to chase rivals that have fielded smaller car-based luxury crossovers in the U.S. The segment is one of the global auto market's fastest-growing-sales expanded 60% last year, Lincoln executives reckon, and could grow by as much as 20% globally during the next five years.

http://professional.wsj.com/article/...&mg=reno64-wsj

[joseodiaga4]

what model is next? mkx? navigator? mks?

[falcon lover]

by the informations until now, the next will be the MK X. after that, the Navigator, and finally, the next MK S.... And i hope the next will be a RWD car, based on the Mustang platform...a coupe or a 4door coupe

[john1168]

This is good news for Lincoln. They need the money and this will help them to not only help the brand to survive but to help them to create some truly great designs.

[scford58]

This is great news for Lincoln and it's followers in several ways. The investment of billions is great but its not the only good news coming from Ford. I think Bill Ford's statement that his family is fully behind the company gives buyers who might be on the fence the reassurance they need to pick Lincoln over the competition. I now have a much better feeling about the long life of Lincoln.

[2b2]

the timing of this makes me think that the extremely positive reaction to the MKC "flipped a switch"

(any model railroading guys here?)

I see FoMoCo as having many scenarios planned out maybe a decade or more into the future,
like a switchyard with branch after branch, and branches ON branches
AND conditions necessary for each switch to go GREEN
so
We're now on a new 'track'

[wingsnut]

hey 2B2, you must be a train nut.

Cool

[ausrutherford]

As I was saying last year, the $1B talked about Ford was just the downpayment.

[All-Or-Nothing]

Lincoln is definately gonna be fine. The Haters will surely not like this article.

[2b2]

hey 2B2, you must be a train nut.

Cool

I had to reach back to little-kid-hood for that, Wings

but it was my first thought & better than the computer flow-chart I thought 2nd
cuz
imho FoMoCo is very concrete in their planning - much more like multiple steel rails than a virtual-cloud
(all just imagining on my part)

This is great news for Lincoln and it's followers in several ways. The investment of billions is great but its not the only good news coming from Ford. I think Bill Ford's statement that his family is fully behind the company gives buyers who might be on the fence the reassurance they need to pick Lincoln over the competition. I now have a much better feeling about the long life of Lincoln.

we have an app for that, scford58
or actually a Poll choice (LINK)
1st Annual Lincoln-NAIAS Smilie Poll
How do you feel about FoMoCo's handling of Lincoln now?