Lincoln is planning to attack China with a huge marketing and product push. I don't know how successful it will be in China, where it is a bit of a late starter, but Lincoln looks to be making the right moves in North America.
I have always felt that among all the luxury sports sedans, there is a huge place in America for a brand that understands that plenty of buyers, regardless of age, don't want a sedan that is capable of lapping the Nurburgring in record times.
They want an American luxury car that is quite different in personality. There are already plenty of German luxury sedans and wannabe German luxury sedans.
But equally important is what you call these cars. If you've been using letters and numbers for decades, like the German companies, it makes a lot of sense to use S class or 7 series. That's logical.
But Lincoln is smart to go back to names it has used for decades and that belong on its car models in America and maybe even China. Continental or Town Car immediately bring to memory vivid recollection of Lincolns of the past.
When everyone is trying to be a German luxury sports sedan, there is plenty of room and, we hope, lots of sales for a distinct personality in the category.
Certainly, reverting to a historical naming system makes a lot of sense for this brand.
Lots of Detroit nameplates have been discarded or replaced with unknown names that require tens of millions of marketing dollars to get even the smallest amount of recognition on the part of consumers.
I remember one of the first decisions Alan Mulally made when he arrived at Ford was to switch the name of the 500 sedan, a name which no one knew, back to Taurus.
There are plenty of names languishing out there that have great recognition and have died and been ignored.
So Lincoln seems to be on the right track.
Now maybe Cadillac will return to Detroit from New York.
