Lincoln’s MKZ concept is not just another show car but a pre-production teaser that will be revealed in showroom-ready form within four months according to Ford Group design boss J Mays. The mid-sized sedan gives a very good impression of how Lincoln wants to revitalize its look and feel and sat well within the stunning new Lincoln auto show exhibition stand (see previous separate post). Key to the new design is a new more angular take on the Lincoln grille with horizontal rather than vertical bars within it and slimmer front lights. The sides are simply rendered with one gently arcing feature line, a narrow DLO and a high waist. Inside the effectively four-seat cabin with a partially floating centre stack, features a signature Lincoln cream and taupe/gray colour scheme but with what interior design leader Soo Kang calls, “very calm surfacing” plus great luxury details like the neatly graduated perforation on the seats and leather steering wheel wrap.
The platform is shared with the new Ford Fusion also revealed at Detroit but while the MKZ shares the same wheelbase as the Fusion, it’s a little longer. It’s role is comparable to the Ford Evos concept shown four months before the Fusion too: namely to prepare and excite the public to a new design direction, although Ford Group’s North American passenger car design director Moray Callum says “the MKZ is actually even closer to its production version than the Evos was to the Fusion.”
Those wanting to verify that assertion will only have to wait until early April when the production car is slated to launch at the 2012 New York auto show. Here’s hoping…
By Guy Bird
