Fastest Cars: Lincoln

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Ford Posts Biggest Profit Since 1998 but only Thanks to One-Time Gain, Gives $6,200 Bonus to Workers

Piggybacked by a one-time tax gain, Ford Motor Company has posted its highest annual profit since 1998 and the second biggest in the firm's 109-year long history. The Blue Oval's net income for 2011 was US$20.2 billion or US$4.94 per share, an increase of US$13.7 billion, or US$3.28 per share, from a year ago.

However, most of the profit came from a one-time, non-cash special item of US$12.4 billion from eliminating a valuation allowance against the company’s net deferred tax assets.

Ford said that full year pre-tax operating profit was US$8.8 billion, or $1.51 per share, an increase of US$463 million from 2010.

At the 2012 Detroit Auto Show that comes to an end on Sunday, January 22, Lincoln put on display the MKZ Concept to preview both the looks of its soon to be launched mid-size sedan as well the brand's new styling direction.

But FoMoCo isn't the only one to present a design concept for a future Lincoln as the Lawrence Tech University had its own proposal in the form of a quarter-scale model for a pure-electric Continental for 2025.

The study for a luxury sedan model is the work of Lawrence Tech students Colin Bonathan and Jeeho Cha and it was endorsed by the Ford Motor Company.

It all started in the summer of 2011 when Bonathan and Cha came up with plans for a Lincoln concept as part of their undergraduate degree program in transportation design. The university said that Ford officials liked the concept so much that they commissioned the quarter-scale model for display at the Detroit event.

Talk about a driver with a license to kill; a 60-year old woman in a Lincoln LS drove about 18 miles on the wrong side of Interstate 5 in Washington at speeds of up to 100mph (160km/h) before state troopers were able to stop her!

Miraculously and even though several drivers called in to the police to report near misses, there was no crash or injuries.

As it turned out, the Pamela Drawsby, was heavily intoxicated after she mixed alcohol and prescription drugs. "I compare her to a bullet out of a gun; she was just waiting to hit something," Washington State Patrol Trooper Guy Gill told KVAL news.

There's a reason why the crowds aren't allowed to touch most concepts and prototypes, let alone take them for a spin. With a few exceptions, these models are created purely for show and lack the painstaking attention to detail under the skin found on production vehicles.

But while a mishap is understandable and perhaps even excusable, it's also hugely embarrassing -no matter how small it is- when it happens to a vehicle like the Lincoln MKZ Concept with which Ford itself says it's not only introducing a new car but "essentially a new brand". Even more so when the incident occurs at the largest auto show in North America…

To make matters worse, Detroit's Free Press was on hand to film the smoke coming from the MKZ (or at least that's what it looks like in the video). Hop over the break to watch the clip.

The problematic luxury child of the Ford Motor group is trying to recuperate from years of neglect with a fresh concept model that not only previews the next MKZ mid-size sedan due in dealerships later this year but also serves as a vision of Lincoln's next-generation vehicles.

Of course, those of you that have been following the automotive industry will know that this is not the first time that Ford has attempted to rejuvenate its luxury brand. All the same, the Blue Oval claims that the MKZ Concept, which debuts at the 2012 Detroit Motor Show, marks a new era for Lincoln.

“With the Lincoln MKZ Concept, we are not introducing a new car. We are essentially introducing a new brand,” said Derrick Kuzak, Ford's vice president for global product development. “The MKZ Concept is the next step in the reinvention of Lincoln, something we’ve been quietly but aggressively pursuing.”

The same people that brought us an early glimpse of the 2013 Ford Fusion sedan over the weekend are further testing the Blue Oval's patience by dropping pictures of the Lincoln MKZ concept model ahead of its planned world premiere in Detroit on Tuesday morning.

The conceptual MKZ appears to be a little bit more study than what we were expecting given that its role is to preview the production model that will be unveiled withing the next year or so.

Whereas Ford will be revealing the production version of the 2013 Fusion sedan at the Detroit Auto Show on Monday, its premium brand Lincoln will debut a concept of the next generation MKZ sedan.

The current model is heavily based on the soon-to-be replaced Ford Fusion and that won't change with the new MKZ. What Lincolns promises, however, is that its lowest priced sedan will have a more unique design inside and out.

The one thing we knew for sure after the manufacturing disruptions in Japan caused by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami was that Lexus wasn’t going to top the premium segment in the U.S. market for the first time in a decade. In fact, we also knew something else, the two contenders to the throne: BMW and Mercedes-Benz.

What we didn’t know up until Thursday is which of two brands was going to win, since both were caught in a neck-to-neck sales race. Going into December the gap was so small - less than 1,600 cars- that the win could go either way.

Another auto show another promise from Ford to reignite interest in its underperforming Lincoln brand. This time the place is the upcoming 2012 Detroit Motor Show and the product is a concept model that will preview the next generation of Lincoln's MKZ mid-size sedan.

Along with the new study, Ford says it plans to highlight the relaunch of its struggling luxury brand with a new display area at the Cobo Center in Detroit, which will be 50 percent larger than last year and feature an art gallery with art and decor by artist Chuck Hoberman.

If there's one luxury brand (or better put, one that aspires to be premium) that has failed to deliver anything remotely close to exciting, that would be Lincoln. In recent years, even Lexus and Acura at some point offered products that have managed to capture the attention of luxury car buyers.

And this is something and that is clearly reflected in Lincoln's weak sales numbers. In the first 10 months of the year, Lincoln sold 70,935 cars in the States (+1.2% from the same period in 2010), whereas GM's Cadillac delivered 124,985 vehicles (+5.6%), Buick 151,779 cars (+19.9%) and Lexus 153,739 units (-16.2%).

Aside from the MKZ sedan (+31.7%) and the MKX crossover (+5.3%), Lincoln's other models saw their numbers plummet this year, including the MKS sedan with 9,824 deliveries from January through October (-18.9%) and the MKT crossover with 4,126 sales in the same period (-33.5% from last year).

The flagship MKS sedan isn’t the only revamped Lincoln model on display at the 2011 LA Motor Show. The MKT crossover has also received a makeover to bring it in line with the rest of the brand’s offerings.

Like the MKS, the MKT now has an all-new split front grille with more densely placed vertical slats and reshaped bumper.

For many years now, Ford has been trying to transform its Lincoln brand into a credible contender in the luxury car market, though unlike its Cadillac foe, it just can't seem to get it right.

Set to make its world premiere later today at the 2011 Los Angeles Auto Show is the refreshed 2013 Lincoln MKS sedan. The first thing that you'll notice on the 2013MY is the reworked split front grille, though as Lincoln points out, every exterior surface from the A-pillar forward is new including the bumper, hood, headlamps and front fenders.

More teaser photos have gone public today of Lincoln's redesigned MKS sedan, which is due to make its world premiere alongside the revamped 2013 MKT crossover at the Los Angeles Auto Show on November 16 (press days).

Following the release of a single photo of the saloon's bonnet, we now get a picture of the MKS' redesigned tail lamps with LED fixtures and a cropped image of the new dashboard that adopts FoMoCo's reconfigurable instrument panel LCD screens integrated with a central speedometer.

A cropped image showing off the hood design of either the 2013MY MKT crossover or MKS sedan has popped up on Lincoln's official Facebook page.

The photo is supposed to tease the new design language that Lincoln will implement on the two models, which as we've already told you , are scheduled to receive their world premiere at next week's Los Angeles Auto Show.

Consumer Reports has published its 2011 annual auto survey in which the main point of interest, as the report states, is a sharp decline in Ford’s so far “solid reliability record”: the Detroit carmaker dropped 10 places in the overall reliability ranks.

According to CR's survey, which is based on responses from 1.3 million vehicles owners, Ford’s drop from 10th to 20th place among 28 carmakers can be attributed to two main factors. The first is that all three of Ford’s new models, i.e. the Explorer, Fiesta and Focus, scored below average in reliability in their first year on the market.

[2012 Lincoln MKS pictured above]

As we're getting closer to the grand opening of the 2011 Los Angeles Auto Show on November 18, more news is breaking out about the production and concept cars that will receive their world premiere.

Today, Carscoop learned that Lincoln is planning to display the facelifted versions of its not-so-successful MKS sedan and MKT crossover in Los Angeles.

Ford Motor Company’s CEO, Allan Mulally, recently told Bloomberg Television that his company might build electric cars with its partner in China while the automaker is also looking to introduce the Lincoln brand into the market.

“As we move towards electrification, you’re going to see more hybrids, plug-in hybrids and all-electric cars”, said Mulally while on a trip to Chongqing, China, for the founding of a new transmission plant in partnership with Changan Automobile Group.

Nearly eight decades after Edsel Ford, the son of the founder of the company, commissioned the one-off 1934 Model 40 Speedster, the historical sports car made a comeback at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance show in Monterey, California.

The custom made model, which served Edsel Ford as a personal roadster had changed many hands after his death in 1943 until its last owner, a Texas car collector, bought the car in 2008. After the collector’s sudden death in 2010, the Speedster returned to Edsel's home, now operated as an historic site called the Edsel & Eleanor Ford House.

Cruella de Vil, your car has arrived. This 2006 Excalibur limousine was once a scanty 2000 Lincoln Town Car Signature Edition and challenges the notion that anything would be better than the latter.

It now has a front end styled like a 1930 Stutz, though this car has more in common with the hideous Stutz Blackhawk of the 1970s.

Maybe you can help us out here. A Carscoop reader, who prefers to remain anonymous, nabbed these photos of an identical pair of camouflaged prototype sedans at a tollbooth in Ohio.

The photos were shot from a distance with a cell phone camera, so it’s difficult to tell the brand and make of the vehicles. Our unnamed reader told us that the front end looked like a Cadillac but the rest of the car reminded him of a Buick, and we’ll agree with him.

Ford Posts Biggest Profit Since 1998 but only Thanks to One-Time Gain, Gives $6,200 Bonus to Workers

Students Design an All-Electric Lincoln Continental for 2025

Woman Drives a Lincoln 100mph for 18 Miles…on the Wrong Side of the Highway!

D'oh! Lincoln MKZ Concept up in Smoke at the Detroit Auto Show

New Lincoln MKZ Concept Previews Production Model and New Design Language [Updated]

2012 NAIAS: Early Reveal for Lincoln MKZ Concept

Lincoln Teases its MKZ Concept Ahead of the Detroit Motor Show

And the Best-Selling Premium Brand in the U.S. for 2011 is…

Lincoln to Reinvent itself with New MKZ Sedan Concept at the Detroit Auto Show

The Not so New Faces of Lincoln's Botoxed 2013 MKS and MKT on Film

2011 LA Auto Show: Lincoln Refreshes the MKT Crossover as well for the 2013MY

LA Auto Show: 2013 Lincoln MKS Grows a…Bushier Mustache

New Teaser Photos of Redesigned 2013 Lincoln MKS Sedan

Lincoln Teaser Previews New Design Language for LA Auto Show-Bound 2013 MKS and MKT

Ford’s Reliability Suffers in Consumer Reports Survey, Japanese Brands Rule and Europeans are a Mixed Bag

Lincoln to Show Updated 2013 MKT and MKS at the Los Angeles Auto Show

Ford Says it's Considering Building Electric Cars and Selling Lincolns in China

Edsel Ford’s Restored 1934 Model 40 Special Speedster Makes a Special Appearance at Monterey

It Came From eBay Hell: 2006 Excalibur Limousine

Mystery Scoop: Is this the 2014 Cadillac ATS, a Future Buick or Something Else?

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