2011 Lincoln MKS Review

The 2011 Lincoln MKS.

Stock shots from car manufacturers are usually well lit, nicely shot and extremely flattering. At a minimum, they're in focus. Rarely do they tell a story. But the one above does. This year, after two seasons running behind the big dog Lincoln Town Car, the Lincoln MKS has a new role. It's the company's flagship. The road ahead is wide open. It's up to the MKS to conquer the drivers along the way. And having recently done a farewell review for the Town Car, I thought it was time to re-visit the MKS, so we borrowed one from Fiesta Lincoln in Mesa, Arizona.

As I wrote three years ago, I initally underestimated the MKS when I saw it on a stand at a 2007 auto show. And then I drove it.

The 2011 Lincoln MKS instrument panel.

Lincoln got the MKS very, very right. There's an elegance to the cockpit that impresses at first encounter and then slowly reveals deeper and deeper layers as you spend more time at the wheel.

And unlike other manufacturers, Lincoln has found a way to make technology a big part of the car's appeal without it being overbearing. SYNC is a brilliant interface for phone and portable music. Getting a Bluetooth connection on the first try is a given (it isn't with a lot of cars I drive)...ten seconds and done. And from that point on, it can all be handled by voice command. It's tech doing what tech should be doing....reducing driver distraction, not adding to it.

The standard THX audio system is terrific. The step up to 5.1 surround (600 watts and 16 speakers) is well worth the price of admission. 

Regular readers know I'm not a huge fan of factory in-dash nav systems. The MKS gives you a choice. There's a voice-activated navigation system with traffic, directions and information standard...and there's also an optional full satellite navigation system with an 8-inch full-color touch screen. It's the best I've seen so far, and it's bundled with Sirius satellite radio, Sirius traffic (showing current conditions on the nav map), and Sirius Travel Link with an introductory six-month subscription. Up-to-the-second weather, gas prices and gas station location, live sports scores, movie times and theatre locations are part of Travel Link.  I'd be renewing early.

Front view of the 2011 Lincoln MKS.

And then there's the tech that's involved in the actual driving. The MKS ranks with the Volvo S60 T6 as one of only two cars so far that I've driven where I actually trust the adaptive cruise control to maintain a safe following distance when there's a car in front of me and not throw up a false alarm and throw on the brakes when there's not.

And while you're enjoying seat time behind the wheel, your passengers will be happy, too...luxurious accomodations include a sunroof up front and a fixed-glass moonroof (both with powered shades) in the rear.

Starting price is $41,500. Our tester from Fiesta (we're now thisclose to rejected lyrics for Steve Miller's "Take The Money and Run") added Rapid Spec package 102A. That's the voice-activated nav system, the THX 5.1 surround sound system, a rear view camera, dual panel moonroof and wood door trim package ($4,500). It also had the adaptive cruise control mentioned above and paired with a collision warning system ($1,295) and beautiful White Platinum Metallic Tri-Coat paint ($595).

Bottom line, with $875 for destination and delivery: $48,765. That's less than $500 above the Town Car we tested last week. You trade room for six for room for five, you pick up one mile per gallon in the  EPA city mileage estimate and stay flat on the highway (17 city and 24 highway, which is very strong for a luxury sedan), and a world of current and cutting-edge technology simply not available on the Town Car opens up to you, both in standard equipment and on the option list.

The Town Car was deservedly a hero of the limousine and executive sedan fleet owners. The MKS isn't meant to replace it there (though I'd be interested in seeing a mild stretch of the MKS...an MKS-L...with five or six more inches of wheelbase). But as fond as we are of the Town Car, as a top-of-the-line Lincoln that you drive yourself, the MKS represents a massive leap forward, and Lincoln has been all too quiet about its virtues.

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2011 Lincoln Town Car Review

The 2011 Lincoln Town Car. The end of the line, the end of an era.

The end of the year clearance sales are on. 2011s are leaving the lot to make room for the 2012s.

Except for the Lincoln Town Car. When the last one is gone, that's it. There will be no more. It's been years since Ford bothered to put one in the press fleet in TireKicker's hometown, so we arranged with Fiesta Lincoln in Mesa, Arizona to drive one for a week.

The last Lincoln Town Car is a big deal because it's not just the end of a body style or a nameplate, but of a type of automobile. The Town Car is what American sedans were from World War II onward...big, comfortable, rear-wheel-drive, V8-powered machines that sat six adults in great comfort.

The 2011 Lincoln Town Car interior. You may have had smaller apartments.

See that armrest in the picture above? Fold it up, and you'll find a seat belt. There's no center console. The gear selector is sticking out of the steering column. 3 in the front, 3 in the back...and even given contemporary American bodily dimensions (within reason), nobody's crowded. There's 21 cubic feet of space in the trunk for all your things.

It's more comfortable than a large SUV, certainly has a better ride and arguably better handling, and it definitely gets better mileage (the EPA says 16 city/24 highway, and we saw 22.5 on a long stretch of urban freeway, with our weeklong city street/freeway mix never dropping below 19).

Our tester? Basic as it comes. The Signature model. $47,225. 4.6 liter single overhead cam flexible fuel V8, automatic transmission, halogen headlamps, heated power windows with memory, heated 8-way power front seats with lumbar, leather seating surfaces, leather and wood steering wheel with audio, cruise and climate controls, a dual-zone climate system, an AM/FM/6-CD changer premium audio system,  power adjustable pedals, rear park assist, four-wheel disc brakes with ABS, traction contol and a security alarm. All that packaged with a 4 year/50,000 mile bumper-to-bumper warranty, a 6 year/70,000 mile powertrain warranty and 24 hour roadside assistance.

Complete enough that ours had only one option...whitewall tires ($125). Yes, whitewall tires. You can still get them. And, apparently, reasonably.

All told, with $945 for destination and delivery charges, the Town Car rang in at $48,295. And you know what? We loved it. It's the ultimate road trip car (I rented dozens, if not hundreds over the years as a traveling TV news reporter), and it's perfectly fine in city traffic as well. There is, in fact, nothing wrong with it that couldn't be fixed with some cosmetic and convenience updates, and driving the Town Car, I kept coming up with arguments why it should be saved.

But the Town Car got stuck with the label of "old peoples' car", and in an acutely image-conscious society thus was doomed to declining sales as its owner base aged, gave up drivers' licenses and, well, began dying off. Demand stayed strong in the limousine and executive sedan market, where the combined virtues of room, relative economy and near-bulletproof reliability (300,000 to 400,000 miles is not uncommon for a Town Car) are highly prized.

The 2011 Lincoln Town Car. Off into the sunset.

Why don't civilian drivers who buy large (in some cases, huge) vehicles prize those qualities, too? Room for 6, more than respectable gas mileage, decent cargo space, epic safety ratings and legendary durability and reliability with a starting price under $50,000 would probably be a big draw...on paper..for a lot of buyers in their 40s and 50s.

Until you say the words "Lincoln Town Car".

So we walk away from something that works in favor of more stylish things that don't quite work as well. Our fault and our loss for that. There are a lot of people for whom a Lincoln Town Car would be just about perfect. If you have an open mind, Cars.com says there are 746 new Town Cars on dealer lots in the USA as I type this. That's 28 fewer than there were when I began writing this review a little less than an hour ago. 26.64 more hours like that and they're all gone.

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Mercury Dies So That Lincoln May Live

We pretty much did our post-mortem of Mercury five days early...running down the cause(s) of the impending death.

So what happens now? Well, Ford says they're going to devote their energies into revitalizing their Lincoln brand.

On paper, this makes a bunch of sense. The successful model for car sales is one mainstream brand, one luxury (think Toyota/Lexus)...with no definable space for a "middle" brand (GM is bucking that wisdom by keeping Buick).

But where exactly is Ford taking Lincoln? Part of the problem is that for all the talk of how Mercury was done in by being nothing more than some re-badged Fords, it's hard to say Lincoln's in much better shape (the MKZ is a Fusion, the MKX an Edge, the MKS a last-gen Taurus and the MKT a Flex...though those last two are pretty well disguised).

Unique products? Well, there's the Town Car...but that's a dinosaur headed to extinction with no plans for a replacement. Oh, yeah...and they still sell the Navigator. Just not many of them.

Ford says a small car (based on the next Focus) that was supposed to be a Mercury will now be a Lincoln.

Depends on how they do that...but it sounds a little down-market for where Lincoln needs to be.

The TireKicker take? Lincoln needs to take serious aim at Cadillac. They need one car at least as good as the CTS. A CTS-V competitor would have to follow. And, you may have noticed, the CTS is not a re-badged Chevrolet. They need a larger sedan to do battle with the DTS/STS replacement that's coming. They need a crossover to compete with the SRX.  And, if there's a market for a premium sedan below the CTS in the U.S., Lincoln needs to play there, too.

Until and unless the Ford Expedition becomes as good as or better than the Chevy Suburban, Lincoln doesn't need to go chasing the Escalade (especially not the pickup version).

All this means engines, materials, and enthusiasm well beyond what we've seen from Lincoln before...plus a promotion budget to get the message across to buyers (it's been 10 years since Cadillac claimed "Breakthrough" with Led Zeppelin and they're just starting to see the results). And that's going to be way more than combining the money devoted to Lincoln now with what they would have spent on Mercury.

The situation calls for a world-class luxury brand. And until and unless Ford gets that, Lincoln's in danger of being a more expensive Mercury.

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