Every Lincoln on sale today is a gussied up version of a Ford. True, most mainstream automakers with luxury divisions, like Toyota/Lexus, Honda/Acura and Volkswagen/Audi, use a similar strategy of platform and technology sharing to save costs, but U.S. domestic automakers have never been particularly good at it.
A Volkswagen is usually praised for being Audi-like, but a Lincoln is usually decried for being too similar to a Ford. Sharing can so easily become rebadging, and Lincoln dealers are wondering how they'll live off a lineup of simply "more expensive" Fords.
The answer may lie in the 2011 Lincoln MKX, which is the lux version of the Ford Edge. Since the latter received a significant mid-cycle freshening for the 2011 model year, so has the former. With their first significant update since 2006, the duo is poised to upset the status quo in the premium mid-size CUV segment. We've already told you how impressed we are with the 2011 Edge, so you won't be surprised to learn we feel much the same about the new MKX. The difference is that the Lincoln has a lot further to go to be competitive within the Luxury Car CUV set. Does it succeed? Will we now praise the Edge for being Lincoln-like?
The answer may lie in the 2011 Lincoln MKX, which is the lux version of the Ford Edge. Since the latter received a significant mid-cycle freshening for the 2011 model year, so has the former. With their first significant update since 2006, the duo is poised to upset the status quo in the premium mid-size CUV segment. We've already told you how impressed we are with the 2011 Edge, so you won't be surprised to learn we feel much the same about the new MKX. The difference is that the Lincoln has a lot further to go to be competitive within the Luxury Car CUV set. Does it succeed? Will we now praise the Edge for being Lincoln-like?