Ford’s Lincoln looks to SUVs for salvation as car models stall
JUST two years after Ford bet the revival of its Lincoln luxury line on the return of the Continental sedan, it’s reversing course and going all in on sport utility vehicles instead.
Despite its retro Rat Pack allusions and elegant evocation of Bentley styling, the Continental didn’t sell as expected. Sales are down 30 per cent this year, as buyers spurn traditional cars for spacious SUVs. By contrast, the new Lincoln Navigator, a brash behemoth that can top US$ 100,000, flies off dealer lots in less than a week.
So new Chief Executive Officer Jim Hackett now has Lincoln seeking salvation in high-profit SUVs, starting with the introduction of the Aviator model at the New York auto show this week.
Another new Lincoln SUV is coming by 2020, the company says. Forecaster LMC Automotive predicts Lincoln’s cars will dwindle to just 7.8 per cent of its US sales by 2021, signalling a possible end of the road for the Continental and Lincoln’s other slow selling sedan, the MKZ.
“It’s a complete pullback on the car side,” said Jeff Schuster, LMC’s senior vice president of forecasting. “Lincoln will essentially become an SUV brand.”
Ford showed dealers a sneak peak of updates coming to the Continental aimed at reviving sales during the National Automobile Dealers Association annual convention last weekend in Las Vegas.
After a decade of searching for an identity and spending billions, Lincoln is finally finding itself in the SUV space, said Jim Farley, Ford’s president of global markets. The success of the new Navigator recalls how dominant the original model was when it became the squad car of hip-hop moguls like Jay-Z two decades ago, driving Lincoln to the top of the luxury sales charts in America in 1998.
With the arrival of the Aviator, expected to be a three-row, mid- sized model, Farley said Lincoln is finally getting its swagger back. And it’s hoping its expanding SUV line-up will attract moneyed millennials forming families, thereby lowering the average age of Lincoln buyers, which now stands at 60 -- eight years above the average for the luxury car market.
“You’re going to see a more opinionated Lincoln,” Farley said. “It’s just a confidence we feel that we have found our place.”
Increasingly that place is China, where Ford expects Lincoln will eventually sell more models than in the US. The Chinese seem to love brash American style more than Americans and have been snapping up Cadillacs and Lincolns, which saw sales soar 66 per cent there last year. Ford, which introduced Lincoln in the country three years ago, is rapidly rolling out high-touch dealerships and expects to have 125 there by year’s end.
The well-wheeled in China are just as wild about SUVs, with the big rigs accounting for almost half of luxury auto sales there last year. Strict new air pollution regulations are requiring Chinese consumers to buy more battery-powered vehicles, which explains why Lincoln is planning electric or plug-in hybrid versions of its expanding SUV lineup.
“There certainly is a growth opportunity for Lincoln in China,” Schuster said, “if they can establish themselves as an American brand that’s desired and a status symbol, like Buick is there.” — Bloomberg