Mainstream ingredients and some luxury spice, but slightly undercooked.
It’s hard not to root for Lincoln in its struggle to become a bona fide
luxury brand, but it’s also hard to find compelling reasons to do so.
The MKZ, poster car for the Lincoln Motor Company’s renaissance program,
is a case in point. In test after test, the MKZ has come across as a
fancified Ford Fusion but not upgraded enough to justify the price
premium, in this case some five grand more than a Fusion 2.0T AWD in Titanium trim.
Whatever one might think about the MKZ’s styling and interior
furnishings, the extra investment doesn’t pay any dividends in
performance. Equipped with all-wheel drive, our test car tipped the
scales at 3906 pounds, not an unusual number in this class but
nevertheless a load for a 2.0-liter turbo. Generating 240 horsepower,
the four-cylinder transmits power to the pavement via a six-speed
automatic and works hard to haul the MKZ to 60 mph in 7.4 seconds. The
quarter-mile comes up in 15.8 seconds at 88 mph, and the engine makes no
secret of its toils, with a rather raucous exhaust note at full
throttle.
If you want haste, you need the 300-hp, 3.7-liter V-6,
which propels the MKZ to 60 mph from rest in 6.3 seconds. Of course,
the 2.0-liter is pitched as balancing fuel economy against modest
performance, but here the jury is out. With the EcoBoost 2.0
four-cylinder and all-wheel drive, the MKZ is projected to achieve an
EPA-estimated 22 mpg city and 31 highway. The test mileage for this car
was accumulated during our annual weeklong 10Best Cars evaluation, when
we run cars even harder than usual, and with the throttle open more than
not, the MKZ achieved 20 mpg. We’re sure real-world driving would
produce better results.
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