Ford's Lincoln Brand Debuts New Face for its Best-Selling Model

Kuala Lumpur: Ford Motor Co’s Lincoln brand rocked the Los Angeles Show on Wednesday by revealing the changed look of its best-selling vehicle, the MKZ sedan.

Ford has planned to unveil the look of 2017 Lincoln MKZ at the Los Angeles Auto Show long back and this show time was the perfect platform to make an official debut. The new Lincoln MKZ look debuted on the Continental prototype earlier this year and drew comparisons to British luxury brands such as Jaguar or Bentley.

The Lincoln MKZ’s entrance marked the third time this year that Ford products have stealthily stolen the show, with the Ford GT supercar debuting in Detroit and the Continental in New York.

The MKZ’s new, one-piece grille is a sharp departure from the current generation’s “split wing” grille. It is anchored by the brand’s logo with a subtle, repetitive Lincoln continental motif forming the grille’s mesh. Together with swept, 12-LED headlamps, the face bears an unmistakable resemblance to Jaguar’s graceful luxury sedans.

“While our competition’s grilles emphasize aggression,” said designer David Woodhouse in a clear reference at rival Lexus’s polarizing grilles, “our design is more about seductive harmony.”

To complement its new look, the Lincoln MKZ will get a more capable powertrain, with a twin-turbo, 400-horsepower, 3.0-liter V-6 engine - an engine exclusive to Lincoln’s lineup. Only BMW, Cadillac and Mercedes offer twin-turbo 6-cylinders in the compact sedan segment and only in low-volume, performance models. The twin-turbo will come with an all-wheel-drive system. Currently, the car's six-cylinder engine offers a power of 300 HP. Here, you can see the difference and change in the model.

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The new Lincoln's Continental interior also gets upgrades in keeping with Lincoln’s three watchwords: quality, performance and style. The console eschews the old car’s sliding controls for hard, round knobs found in the new MKX and will come stuffed with autonomous technologies including: pre-collision assist, parallel and perpendicular park assist and for the first time in the Ford family, “park-out assist.” The cabin will also receive optional material upgrades including more seat stitching and Alcantara roof liner.

The Lincoln MKZ’s wheelbase, roof line and rear lighting remain the same. It will go on sale next summer competing with compact luxury sedans such as the General Motors Co Cadillac ATS, BMW 3 Series, Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz C-Class and Audi A4.

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