Driving Sports

Back in 2002, Cadillac made a bold play to shed its image as an old man’s car by introducing the CTS. They even picked Led Zeppelin’s iconic tune “Rock and Roll” as the theme music.  I have never in my life felt so squarely targeted by a car company. You see, when I was in high school in the late 70s, Led Zeppelin was It – the only band you cared about. And I had just turned 40 and in all my adult life, never even considered buying a Cadillac.  Long story short, Cadillac did it right. The CTS is a great success story and probably dropped the average age of a Caddie buyer by 20 years. The CTS is also a successful racing platform, and it has established Cadillac as GM’s new performance brand.

So, fast forward to this week, and I’m driving the new Lincoln MKS. This is Ford’s answer to the CTS, and it’s a good start. They even picked an iconic rock tune (Peter Schilling’s “Major Tom Coming Home”) as the theme.

There are some differences between Cadillac’s answer to the customer age problem and Lincoln’s offering. Where the Cadillac is front-engine/rear-drive, the Lincoln is a front engine/front drive design. Cadillac also offered a V8 and a 5-speed manual transmission (imagine that - a Caddie with a stick!) where Lincoln offers only a V6 and a 6-speed automatic. However, next year, Lincoln will offer a twin-turbo V6 that’s supposed to close any performance gap with V8-engines and maintain the V6 fuel economy. Cadillac and Lincoln also both offer an AWD version of the CTS and MKS.

Lincoln has set the base price on the MKS at $37,665, and as-tested the press car came out to $44,570. So it’s not an everyman’s car yet, but it’s aimed at buyers from 40-60 years of age, so it’s not out of sight, either. The difference between base price and as-tested is a $5,715 “Ultimate Package” that gets you GPS navigation, moonroof, rain-sensing wipers, rear-view camera, better paint and nice aluminum wheels, THX audio system, and leather on your seats and steering wheel.

An additional $995 gets you Lincoln’s way cool adaptive cruise control that will adjust to changing traffic speeds without disrupting your cruise.

In the base price, you get HID headlights, a nice AM/FM/CD/MP3 stereo, with satellite radio, the Ford/Microsoft SYNC voice-activation system for onboard systems, heated and cooled seats,  zone climate control. Plus, you get the full alphabet soup of safety gear - traction control, brakes, and the whole enchilada.

So, the MKS costs a few shekels, but you get a lot for your money. But unlike our grandfathers, we also want a car that performs for our money. So, what’s the Lincoln
like on the road?

The answer is: throw out everything you ever thought about the way a Lincoln’s going to drive. The car is solid on the road, tight in steering, powerful, and generally as fun to drive as it is comfortable. They haven’t lost sight of luxury – the car’s quiet and has every bell and whistle you can name. But it’s also a good performance buy.

Getting back to the comparison with the Cadillac, it’s clear where the decision-makers came down at GM and Ford. The CTS is a sports car and someone won every battle to keep it as a sports car. Rear-wheel drive, V8, manual transmission. But the MKS is not a worse car for its front wheel drive and automatic. Those 6-speed automatics are tight - not the slushboxes of prior decades. And you can shift this one on the fly if you like.

The tame 3.7-liter V6 in the MKS produces a perfectly adequate 273 horsepower and
270 pound-feet of torque on regular gas – and a little more with Premium. For that, they drink gas at the rate of 17/24 in the FWD configuration, and a little more if you have AWD. The hot-rod 3.5-liter twin turbo V6 expected for next year will deliver 340 horsepower and 340 pound-feet of torque.

The bottom line on the MKS is that this is a good first effort from Lincoln to attract a new generation of buyers to the brand. I’d love to see them put a racing version of the MKS head-to-head against Cadillac and their CTS-V. This year, we should all be rooting for the Big 3 to make fresh, forward-looking cars, and the MKS is definitely that.