February 21, 2007 - Lincoln seems to be having a bit of an identity crisis these days. The stuff that made a Lincoln "a Lincoln" is long gone; Ford's luxury brand no longer makes large luxury barges or stylish rides with suicide doors. It seems that these days every vehicle in the car maker's line up is nothing more than a warmed-over Ford. Lincoln's current offerings are the textbook definition of "badge engineering" - the only thing really separating a Lincoln from a regular Ford is the badge on the grille.
Sometimes this badge engineering doesn't work that well. Lincoln's MKZ is a nice car, but it's just a Ford Fusion, and not many people aspire to drive a mid-sized Ford sedan... On the other hand, Lincoln's Expedition-based Navigator is an example of how this badge swap can work. People actually want this luxury SUV, but we don't know if it's because the Navi appeals to the bling-bling SUV set or if it is because it actually uses the winning Lincoln formula of yore (big car, big engine, RWD and some luxury).
Lincolns' new crossover, the Edge-based MKX, falls somewhere in the middle. It's certainly a nice car built atop a good platform, and its large-ish size does make it seem like more of a luxury vehicle (at least when compared to the MKZ). That said, the MKX is still a Ford Edge at its core, a fact that may hurt the MKX as it attempts to steal customers away from "dedicated" luxury rides like the Lexus RX and Infiniti FX.
http://cars.ign.com/articles/766/766518p1.html