A massive Lincoln MKT, seen in Beijing in 2019, painted in a dark shade of black with gray multi spoke alloys. The Lincoln MKT has always been an interesting and somewhat odd car, mixing elements of a wagon and an SUV. It shares much of its underpinnings with the similarly interesting Ford Flex.
The MKT was made from 2010 until 2019 with a facelift in 2013. Our car is a facelifted model. The MKT was all about over the top design, just check the grille, and further over the top design details, like this Lincoln logo faux-air vent on the front fender.
The interior was loaded with luxuries including leather seats, a large screen, and a CD player. The rear windows were too dark for photos. It normally has two seats in the middle row and three seats on the third row.
The Lincoln MKT is a giant car: 5273/1930/1712, with a 2995 wheelbase. The MKT was officially sold in China between 2010 and 2015. Lincoln didn’t change a thing to make it China-spec; the license plate areas were not even enlarged to held the wider Chinese plates. That doesn’t matter that much at the front but it looks ugly at the rear. Lincoln only sold one variant of the MKT in China, the 3.5T EcoBoost AWD. Power came from a 3.5 liter turbocharged V6 engine, with an impressive output of 355 hp and 475 Nm. The engine was mated to a six-speed manual transmission. Price in 2010 was 1.19 million yuan, a lot of money for a relatively unknown car of an unknown brand. No wonder then that Lincoln didn’t sell many or them.
The rear light ornament is just crazily kitsch, an thus beautiful, because I love kitsch.
Lincoln and China never had a very easy relationship. Since the 00’s Lincoln announced a zillion times they were going to go big in China, make lots of cars there, China-specific this and that, just to cancel these plans time and time again. And the brand was never particularly famous in China to begin with. But finally, in 2020, Lincoln meant business. They started producing their first car in China; the Corsair crossover, at the Changan-Ford joint venture. The Corsair was soon joined by the Aviator and the Nautilus, which, in a way, can be seen as a successor to the MKT.
Art deco? Art? Bling? Pure kitsch! A very complex designed kind of kitsch, rarely seen anything like this on a modern American car.
Lincoln didn’t sell of lot of MKT’s in China, so they are a very rare sight on the road. But every one of them counts for two, thanks to the totally over the top-ment.
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