It's no secret that Lincoln has been struggling lately to establish itself as a serious luxury brand, often being criticized of not differentiating itself enough from its parent, mainstream company, Ford. Motor Trend's most recent test of the MKZ line-up is in line with all recent Lincoln reviews. I think part of the problem is with the reviews, though, not Lincoln and its offerings. Let's look at this latest review. You don't need to read a whole lot to notice the problem ( 2013 Lincoln MKZ Full Line First Test - Motor Trend ). In fact, you only need to read past the first couple of lines. They said that the Lincoln MKZ has changed things but is it good enough to be more than "Ford-Plus? That's still a tough case to make, when given all the data." Notice the problem? The problem is the data. Or rather, using data. Over the years, performance figures have become a huge factor in judging a luxury car. So huge, in fact, that the vast majority of the
Mitsubishi Evo X GSR at Atlantic Motorsport Park - Kevin Doubleday © If you live in Canada or the US, you'll find that plenty of people hold sacred the terms '4x4' and '4WD' to describe a 'true 4x4', where you have a butch transfer case with a low speed, perhaps a body on frame chassis, and ideally a solid axle or two. I'm not sure how that translates to the rest of the world. My extensive research into the motoring industry in Europe (which exclusively consists of watching Top Gear and The Grand Tour...) concluded that most people across the pond simply refer to any vehicle that is capable of sending any power to all four wheels as a 4WD vehicle, further muddying the waters. Where I grew up, 4x4 was more or less synonymous with 'Jeep' so that's not much help either. However, despite all various systems attempting to do the same sort of thing - distribute power between all four wheels instead of two - not all systems are created equal,