If You Were In Charge Of Lincoln, How Would You Turn Them Around?

Lincoln as a brand has been greatly diluted by the large sales volume of Towncars. If the brand were to compete with likes of Lexus / Mercedes, then it would have to separate Towncar from its product offerings. Second, Lincoln should not play the "full line-up offering" game like BMW and Audi. Ford can do that with upscale version of its current product line up. Instead, Lincoln should restore its prestige by focusing on 3 major body-types: [1] CUV for well-to-do family, [2] High-end sedan for more established male drivers, and [3] finer version of a Mustang variant to capture the essence of style-GT travel (ultimately, American verison of Jaguar). My 2-cents.

Lincoln should become a Lincoln...Big, bold and luxurious ! Do not follow anyone else's path and there by dilute what you are. Be a more reasonably priced Bentley competitor and a higher priced/optioned version of Chyrsler's 300C, which showed the way for an American car to be an American car again. Big bold sedan. Big bold convertble. Big bold SUV. Lots of room, lots of chrome, lots of luxury materials. Make people say as you drive by 'My God that's a Lincoln (again) !" Let Cadillac chase the Germans. Do not go too retro BUT DO NOT FORGET YOUR HERITAGE.

Lincoln needs to focus on current Ford owners who are brand loyal and want a "luxury" auto. Start with RX/ES size autos with great style and reliability. Upgrade Lincoln dealers (Detroit Art Deco?) and strive for the best customer service. Next, produce a new, RWD large sedan and SUV. This can wait 2-3 years. First work on customer service and reliability. Forget BMW, MB, and Jaguar. Go after Lexus in terms of strategy.

They need to take a lesson from Cadillac and Buick.

I think Lincoln should do something bold and daring, like they did with the Mark II...make a car so beautiful, so unique and so well made that it blows everyone's mind and sets a new standard for what luxury means. Using a dedicated platform, bespoke craftsmanship and upper tier pricing would show the world they are serious about entering the fray once again.

Lincoln should use some of Ford's profits to actually BUILD a hot car instead of trotting one hot "styling exercise" after another and then build luke warm vehicles while they talk for at least the last decade about "reinventing" Lincoln. They are just pissing off people that were listening and paying attention at the beginning. If they are lucky they will end up with aging Lexus defectors and they will be where they were..stuck with last time buyers.

Make every car with top of the line interiors/materials and make customer service #1. Pickup and drop off of loaners for oil changes, wash/detail during routine service, free regular maintenance for the life of the warranty, take away sales gimmicks and quotas (pay the salesmen a salary to make sure the customer is 1st instead of just a source of profit). Just doing the above would make a LOT of strides for the brand.

Ford has focus on the cars so I have faith that they can change Lincoln's slide like they have already done with Ford in the US.

stop selling re-badged fords ( for example, the MKX and edge are virtually indistinguishable from the side except for the wheels). Develop their own RWD chassis (a good start would be the Mustang for a 2 door upscale coupe/convertible, and the Falcon from Austrailia for a midsize and larger car) The MKX could work to compete with the Lexus RX if it didn't look exactly like the Edge minus the grill and rear fascia. A Larger crossover based on an explorer could possibly work if they could make it look completely different and tune it better, since Ford has no real 4wd vehicles, and a re-badged expedition won't cut it against the likes of Range Rover, Lexus LX, Infinity Qx etc.

...Dude, Lincoln cant even think about competing with Lexus. I think they should drop that old fashioned name, but I dont know how they could actually compete. It seems they are the wild cards. It'll have to be by luck or something.

For one thing, I think they should rename their models. Imagine telling someone you have a MKT --- or MKZ --- or MKX. What are they????

Make premium models and be sure that they are premium. No blah handling/ride/materials/reliability. It's not rocket science. How about that for a slogan - "Not Blah" "Not Ordinary".

Look at the hottest cars like Aston, Rolls, etc and employ the same type of design motif and style in the Lincolns. Make the interior so appealing people won't be able to resist buying.