“Leading the New Lincoln” Autoline

Re: “Leading the New Lincoln” Autoline Show

^ DYNAMITE, Topnotch!! :thumb: :thumb:

still watching, but
~11:00 Yurpland!:clap:...specifically, "WHEN...Yurpland", Not *IF*

direct:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxE9IYD7juk

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ZanatWork said:

Very cool interview, though he's as good a politician as any major company president...he refused to take the bait regarding comments on Cadillac, and kept things as vague as possible while still trying to answer the questions.

Click to expand...

I loved his non-response regarding Cadillac. He completely focused on what Lincoln is doing without any comment or concern for what Cadillac is doing, professional and classy! Beyond that though his answer to the three focus groups, product, experience, and brand is really encouraging. It bodes well for Lincoln long term specifically because you cannot short cut such a focus, it requires a long term commitment on Ford's part before you could even attempt it.

The only part I found questionable were his comments regarding RWD which strike me as bluster designed to distract from the fact that it simply isn't an option right now so we'll pretend it doesn't matter. I think we're all confident RWD is in the near future for Lincoln, so clearly he realizes its importance but didn't want to acknowledge that current shortcoming.

One other thing he said regarding RWD that I found interesting was his suggesting the reason they would consider it would be if a design required RWD proportions. So Lincoln would consider RWD just to get the proportions right strikes me as odd.

All in all an enjoyable, if not particularly informative conversation.

That was the most I have heard of Kumar and he presented himself very well as President of Lincoln Motor Company. I wished the interview was longer, but it was clear he was not about to offer any new product info other than the current Navigator launching in China, and the New Continental.

It's also understandable about China sales numbers, since it's only been about 11 months and those numbers can be distorted compared with the well established competition. But he did say that 3 Lincoln China stores are their top sellers.

Looking at the US and Canada combined, Lincoln sold about 100 cars per dealership in 2014 on 'average'. Understanding that the top sellers might sell much more than a smaller market Lincoln dealership. But just looking at averages, we are looking at about 100 cars per Lincoln dealership in China per year, or about 9 cars per month. And that's an average expecting the older dealerships to sell more and the newer dealerships to sell less.

It was also interesting to see that Kumar stated that the 300+ annual global sales would be split evenly between the US and China. Along with the other 28 smaller markets where Lincoln models are currently sold. So we should expect sales of over 150k by 2020 in the US/Canada market. Lincoln was already over 100k sales in the US/Canada for 2014 and set to exceed that number for 2015 with the inventory building of the MKX and before the launch of the New Continental. I expect Continental to have a big year in 2016 with sales over 25k. MKS best year was 2009 with 17k.