Ford knows a lot is riding on the concept sedan's sleek shoulders at the Detroit auto show.
Fitful attempts have been made by the company to revive Lincoln before, with little success. Now that Ford has sold its international luxury brands -- Aston Martin, Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo -- Lincoln remains as the automaker's sole luxury standard bearer.
"With the Lincoln MKZ Concept, we are not introducing a new car. We are essentially introducing a new brand," Derrick Kuzak, Ford's group vice president of global product development, said in a statement. "The MKZ Concept is the next step in the reinvention of Lincoln, something we've been quietly but aggressively pursuing."
Lincoln has not officially announced plans to make a production version. But the four-seat MKZ Concept is based on the same front-wheel-drive architecture as the new Ford Fusion, which is also making its debut at the show and will go on sale in the second half of this year. And Lincoln plans seven new or refreshed products by 2014, one of which undoubtedly will be a redesigned production MKZ.
A new vision of Lincoln can't come soon enough. The brand has been an also-ran in the luxury race for years, and Ford wants to change that.
In 2011, Lincoln finished with a 6.1 percent share of the luxury market, its smallest in the past five years.
After 11 years atop the U.S. luxury rankings, Lexus dropped to third place with a 14.0 percent share, due to supply disruptions following the March 11 earthquake in Japan. That allowed BMW to claim the luxury crown, as its 17.5 percent share edged out Mercedes-Benz's 17.3 percent. Cadillac, Lincoln's cross town rival, took fourth place with 10.8 percent. Lincoln took eighth place, behind Acura, Audi and Infiniti.
"They've got to do what they did with Ford -- pick one or two cars, make a halo car and build the franchise around it," he said. "We need a halo car, something that really jumps out there as something that is really exciting and gets people talking about Lincoln."
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