Ford has been hitting them out of the ballpark with its newer products like Fiesta, Focus and even the updated Fusion. With Focus and Fusion far in the lead, the entire ford passenger car line is 26 percent ahead of last year in sales at the half year mark. Lincoln sales, however, appear to be just marking time. For the first half of 2011. sales are down by four percent despite a 16.5% jump in June.
Ford gathered its Lincoln dealers early last month to assure them of the company’s commitment to the Lincoln brand. Former Lincoln-Mercury dealers, facing the loss of both the Mercury car line and the ever-staple Lincoln Town Car, are particularly vulnerable. At the start of the year, Ford had well over 1,100 Lincoln-Mercury dealers, including about 300 Lincoln-only stores.
Ford intends to reduce those numbers and those that remain are expected to invest $1 million in their facilities, including showroom upgrades and Lincoln-exclusive sales and service personnel.
However, Ford executives predicted that Lincoln sales might fall below 80,000 this year and they are trending toward that number, perhaps a little higher by year end. The average Lincoln dealer, then, will sell around 75 vehicles this year. It doesn’t take much math to see where that could end poorly for some.
On the product side, Lincoln will apparently not be exempted from the company’s “One Ford” policy, so product will continue to developed on common platforms. Upcoming Lincolns will differentiate themselves in styling, additional technology, higher levels of standard equipment and powertrains to deliver better performance.
You can dress that up as much as you like, but to many, it still sounds like badge engineering. Lincoln dealers desperately need new product, have been promised new product, concepts have been shown, but the pipeline is still full of aging MK-whatevers. Industry sources are predicting the emergence of an MK-Focus in 2013 and an MK-Explorer the following year. So, do those possibilities set your anticipation-meter rocking?
As was the case in GM’s revival of Cadillac, it might seem obvious that some “Bold Moves” are needed. Once a corporate slogan, there appear to be none on the horizon for Lincoln. The company has said that it will spend $1 billion on Lincoln’s renewal, but it sounds like those upgraded dealer showrooms could be looking a little dog-eared by the time something truly new arrives.
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