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Farley says Lincoln learnings in China could influence brand in US

Automotive News reports Lincoln is looking to Chinese luxury shoppers for customer service ideas. Those notions may eventually make their way back to the US in the form of new dealership training. Jim Farley, the executive vice president of global marketing for Ford, tells Automotive News, "In many ways, China will be a listening post for Lincoln in the United States. Soon China will be the largest luxury market in the world." Farley also said that in China, the Lincoln brand is currently where Lexus was when the Japanese brand first landed in the US.
Lincoln is slated to open its first Chinese dealerships in 2014. The brand is largely unknown in Asia, and Lincoln representatives have been visiting other luxury dealers in China for an idea of what buyers there expect. Lincoln has also studied non-automotive luxury shopping, paying special attention to high-end retail branding.
Of course, this whole song and dance feels awfully familiar. Lincoln has focused heavily on remaking the brand and recrafting its marketing here in the States, thus far without sufficient product to back the play. Lincoln is already late to the China game, and without the necessary products to lure buyers away from established bodies like Buick and Cadillac, Lincoln may be doomed to repeat its fate here in the US.

Would a Mustang-based Lincoln look like this?

Designer Josiah LaCalla has taken a stab at what a Ford Mustang-based Lincoln model might look like with the Continental Mark X1 concept. Make no mistake, Ford's luxury arm has made it abundantly clear that it won't be pursuing any new products outside of volume models, which means a flashy halo grand tourer like the one you see here isn't in the cards. LaColla used the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG as a basis for his creation, which explains the long nose, but we certainly don't mind the idea of a rear-wheel drive Lincoln with a cabin pushed to the aft.
While we're dreaming, there's certainly nothing stopping us from imagining what's under that lengthy hood. We like the idea of the 5.8-liter supercharged V8 from the Shelby GT500 pushing the Mark X1 down the road, but how about something a little more inventive? Something like a high-revving, buttery V12 with enough torque to push the contraption well past 200 miles per hour. Dream a little dream, people.

2015 Lincoln MKC

Back in 2012, Lincoln claimed its comeback bid was finally underway with the new-for-2013 MKZ. But don't you believe them - the renaissance won't actually begin in earnest until the shapely compact crossover seen here reaches showrooms in big numbers. That's because while the four-door MKZ was indeed a proper step toward rebirth, the 2015 MKC is the first wholly conceived vehicle under Lincoln as a standalone brand, a move first announced back in 2012.
That's an important distinction, because Lincoln's newfound emancipation from Ford's design and development processes has given the struggling marque both the corporate wherewithal and the will to develop a more fully formed product. The four-wheeled result seen here is a surprisingly cohesive luxury CUV, one with significantly more aesthetic and dynamic separation from its Ford Escape sibling than the MKZ and its Fusion counterpart. Said another way, after flogging Lincoln's latest for hundreds of miles over canyon roads outside of Santa Barbara, we've come to understand that this is far from a re-grilled Dearborn special with luxury tinsel - it's a bona fide standalone product that readily displays the sort of clear differentiation seen in platform cousins like the Audi Q5 and the Volkswagen Tiguan. It's the real deal.