Lincoln MKT Concept

Ah January … in these cold, bleak days, things are also pretty bleak for the car guy.

Apart from Paris-Dakar (canceled this year, due to parts of Mauritania being crazier than an ER on Halloween night), there’s only one thing that holds interest for a car guy: Auto Shows.

And the big one for America is the Detroit Auto Show, a chance for America to roll out the best and blithest, and try out new ideas and all that (and yeah, I know, both the Euros & the Japanese car manufacturers show there too).

And on offer from FoMoCo’s Lincoln division we have the MKT

Quoth the Blue Oval: “Lincoln today pulls the wraps off a new premium utility concept vehicle – unsurpassed in its balance of spaciousness, comfort and fuel efficiency – that shows customers a new way to tour in style.”

Or to put it another way: “Look, it’s a big luxurious SUV/wagon-thingy that would be real great to drive from San Berdoo to NoLa!”

And they’d be right … a big friggin’ ark with a whole bunch of gizmos & gadgets is a great way to chew up miles and miles of road, whether you want to get from Berlin to the Urals or, well, Southern Cal to The Gulf Coast.

But let’s face facts here … Lincoln needs to sell more cars. A lot more cars. There have been rumors of the ax man sharpening his blade for months now, and that’s rather disquieting to people who like Lincolns (like me). And it’s even more disquieting to people who make and sell them.

Unfortunately, Lincoln has kind of been finding itself, more and more, being a purveyor of luxury SUVs. And that might have been a nice place to be sitting, say, ten yeas ago … but today?

Big, leather-clad SUVs might not be the hottest ticket in the Darwinian thunderdome that it once was.

Look at the polar bear, for example. Emperor of The North, baby. Nearly ten feet long and weighing more than a Lotus Elise. Funny thing, for something that big and bulky, they can accelerate like a cannon shot; easily capable of chasing down a full grown man in little more than 100 yards (if that). And then devouring him. Talk about an apex predator, they’re it.

And by “they’re”, I mean they were it.

Sadly, current economic conditions aren’t playing to the polar bear’s favor.

Sort of like SUVs.

Alas for the polar bear.

This car is a new approach for Lincoln, and that’s a good thing. For a number of years now Lincoln has been in danger of becoming extinct, mostly because they didn’t have anything cool anymore— much like the situation Mercury is in right now. This car, however, is an SUV, and I pretty much hate SUVs of all kind. Lincoln’s MKR concept, however, is a sedan offers the same (but better) futuristic design in a package that’s a hell of a lot better looking.