Lincoln Mark LT test drive since 2005 pickup

Detroisky letter

Having missed a new market niche with its Blackwood luxury pickup, Lincoln gave another salvo, taking as a basis proven election technologies: a F-150 top platform, a liter of chromium, five liters of engine, natural tree and an exclusive name.
 
Lincoln - the luxury division of Ford Motor, the main American competitor of the unsinkable Cadillac, could not come to terms that, having played Va -Bank in 1998 and released the car unique for that time, he suffered Fiasco. The luxury class pickup time has already come, but manufacturers have only developed such models, honing the settings and listening to the opinion of potential customers on numerous focus groups. The hurrying Lincoln put his Black-Wood, not bringing it to the proper condition. The pickupian turned out to be expensive, clumsy and unreliable. Having released only 4,000 copies, Ford turned the production of a model that had already received a consonant with the nickname Black-Hole (a black hole) for the ability to pull out funds for maintaining a mentioned space object, devouring interstellar dust with megatons, often along with stars.
 
However, failures temper the character, and who, if not the Ford leadership, knows this on his own experience! Therefore, going on a raid for the next deafening salvo, aimed primarily on Cadillac and at the Japanese who quickly fit to the topic, Lincoln did not risk it. He prepared a torpedo tested in battles, providing it with a proven detonation mechanism. True, the Lincoln Mark LT pickap presented on the Detroit automobile show did not make the effect of Hiroshima’s bombardment, but it was like a session of the Lumier brothers on the Kapucin Boulevard. Everyone heard about the train flying to the audience with a white sheet, laughed at the reaction of the public, but they themselves shied off the places, seeing the impending shadow of the locomotive in the clubs of steam and smoke. There are rumors, the Lumiere brothers showed a stereophil, which served as a catalyst for the known reaction of the audience ...
 
So in the case of a new pickup - looking at him saw a reflection of the Blackwood loser and therefore required even more perfection than in the case of a simple comparison with competitors. At this place, Lincoln has made a special emphasis, adding an exclusivity liter to the car brand - the word Mark, which means a lot for an expert in the American automotive industry. For the first time in the name of his cars, Ford applied the word Mark as a symbol of the exclusivity of the model in the fifties. This designation came up with, as they say, Edsel Ford himself is the son of the great grandfather. He gave it to the first Continental. For reference: the full -size Lincoln Continental sedans were presented as direct competitors of Cadillac cars, and if you do not know what this means, you will never understand! In 1956, Mark II appeared, which became a real classic due to its style, reliability and comfort. Mark III sold in the amount of 40,000 copies, confirming not only the uniqueness of the car, but also its popularity. In a word, the Mark additive actually made Lincoln brand in due time. The same noble mission is assigned to the named Litera now. The suffix LT has two meanings: Light Truck - a light truck according to traditional classification and, what I like better, Luxury Truck is a luxury truck. And sounds, and understandable.
 
Unprofitable weapon
 
Without becoming slyly, to wake up with the invention of bicycles, Lincoln took the Ford F -150 pickupa as a platform - the most popular light truck of North America. The basic car shortly before this was modernized and comply with the most modern requirements of strength, reliability and safety. The design of the pickupa is traditional in a good way: a hydroformed staircase frame, an independent spring front suspension on double levers of unequal length, an uncertain bridge on the springs from behind. By the way, not everyone may know that the type of suspension that is used from the back is called the Hotchkiss scheme, and the a characteristic feature is the springs lying over the beam and earrings turned upside down. The eight-cylinder V-shaped engine of the Triton series is boiled with a 5-speed automatic box and then with a two-stage hand-up box equipped with a front axle connection mechanism on the move-Shift-on-The-Fly. The proper level of controllability is designed to provide a rack steering mechanism and a thick stabilizer of the transverse stability of the front suspension. It should be noted that in the current generation F-150, the designers used several new solutions to the model that radically change the characteristics of the car. Firstly, the frame is made of a closed rather than ordinary C-shaped profile, which increased the overall stiffness of the design, and secondly, the placement of shock absorbers inside the front suspension springs and the use of the rhealhic steering mechanism improved handling, and thirdly, the original location of the rear shock absorbers beyond The limits of the frame provided the best comfort.
 
The basic version of the Lincoln Mark LT, like the F -150, is rear -wheel drive, and you need to pay extra for all -wheel drive - however, not too much. Residents of the southern states who do not face the problem of snowy winters sometimes prefer more economical rear -wheel drive models. Most consumers will choose all -wheel drive versions. As a target audience, Lincoln sees landowners and people living an active life who prefer to travel and rest in the fresh air. Unlike the Mark LT basic pickup, it is equipped with an exclusively four-door five-seater cabin and a short body of 167 cm long. Neither the ATV nor the cross motorcycle will fit into it, but the thrown back the wall with a door withstands up to 200 kg and, if the body is supplied with a special rotating grate, quite quite It can serve as an additional cargo platform.
 
Chrome pie
 
The solidity of any car can be increased if you add chromium in the finish with a generous hand. More chrome, a lot of chrome! It is best, of course, to cover the entire body with chrome ... Lincoln stylists almost succeeded. The dominant in the appearance of a pickupa should be considered a false radiator-player. This sparkling monument forces us to recall the golden age of the above Continental, whose front was caused by a dental rattle among Cadillac artists in the sixties. The bumpers, door moldings and pens, side mirrors, edging of the rear lights, huge crosses of the emblem and a number of the most noticeable elements of the cabin are trimmed with chromium. The angular silhouette did not make a stylistic revolution, but thanks to the general monumentality, the desire of designers to create a car with a claim. The father of the American Chopper Mr. Paul Teutul Sr. came to the presentation of Lincoln Mark LT (Paul Teutul Sr.). For the appearance of a pickupa, he prepared a motorcycle of custom-class custom-class. This act implied the removal from the image of Caddy Escalade Ext - a pickup for rappers and other similar African Americans with a thick gold over a fur coat. It is clear that the black brothers themselves created the dubious Renom of the Ji-Emovsky Luxury Luxury Pickup and the manufacturer has nothing to do with it, but the white owner of the ranch from the south or the intellectual from the north looked at the unfortunate echt, already grimaced in advance. Here for them a luxury truck was created with the appearance of the Lincoln memorial or the library of Congress.
 
The pickup salon is finished, one might even say, modestly. A little cloudy metal, plastic, slightly skin and chic inserts from a natural dark tree veneer. Equipping the cabin is a mixture of European and fresh American trends. The automatic sector lever is installed on the floor, the steering column is adjustable only according to the slope, but the pedal node moves. The range of setting the chair is sufficient, but the process of the process is strange. The tilt, height and movement of the pillow is controlled by the key on the sidewall. Next to it is a lumbar shutdown. But the inclination of the back is carried out by the simplest lever, as well as twenty years ago. In fact, five adults can actually fit in the cabin. At the back they will not feel like passengers of a limousine, but they will not experience obvious inconvenience. All chairs are wide, soft and fantastically comfortable. You go along Koltseva, sitting in this, and you recall road adventures, travel, sunsets in the rocky mountains, fog over the great lakes and piercing sunrises near Zabriski Point. Bob Dylan is very to the place, whose hoarse voice convey to us five speakers of a proprietary audio system. I must say that Infinity with the built -in six -disc chainer MP3 sounds very good for the standard system. The volume of music increases with a set of speed decreases with the discharge - very convenient.
 
Easer in turn!
 
A ride on any car begins and ends in the parking lot. This is the worst minutes on Lincoln Mark LT. Excellent visibility through giant side mirrors, visible dimensions of the body and hood almost do not save. The reason is simple - the pickup is very great. The side glasses are tinted, but this does not interfere, but the incident came out with Lobov. It is covered with a delaying ultraviolet film, a peculiar shade of which in winter makes all snow covered with snow. It is impossible to ride along the crossed terrain - it is not visible where the hillock is, and where is the pit. At the same time, the characteristics of the pickupa allow the driver to feel off -road quite confidently - of course, taking into account the parameters of geometric cross -country ability. Among these parameters, the most critical is the length of the wheelbase. Many will envy the road clearance of 236 mm, the engine is too, but the lack of electronics in the 21st century is already perceived as a drawback. The anti -wings system would not hurt. And so Mark has only ABS. With demolitions and drifts, the driver is fighting his own hand. And there is something to fight in winter ...
 
The Lincoln Mark LT has a 5.4-liter Triton engine, equipped with three valves on a cylinder, which develops 300 liters. With. at 5000 rpm and more than 500 nm at 3750 rpm. The capture of the motor is more than inspiring. If the front is turned off, tear off the wheels into the boxes and get the skid when leaving the curb can easily. In the summer, it would hardly be so simple, but it is better not to turn off the front axle on slippery asphalt. Since the pickup drive is non -disciplinary, in 4x4 mode it has a pronounced insufficient rotation. You have to put up with this, since the BFG Longtrail T/A tires installed on Lincoln did not give a single chance either in vihi or when maneuvering in the snow on the rear drive. The problem of winter driving was somewhat exacerbated by the fact that the steering of the river type turned out to be surprisingly accurate and alive. It provokes a pilot to certain folly, but ice and snow quickly cool the ardor. It will be very interesting to bring Mark LT in the summer on dry asphalt, and now I can say that the inertia of a large car and the bad grip of tires with the surface do not allow its entire potential to realize. In the meantime, you can safely bring praise to engineers and testers who brought the suspension, especially the rear. They say that for the smoothness of this pickup, for more than four months, and, it should be noted, not in vain. I do not immediately remember the pickup, which would be so comfortable and at the same time, it is detrimental. Even on solid bumps, there was never a sensation of loss of control that appears when the wheels break away from the road. At the same time, riding all these pits and Bogram did not force passengers to fly along the cabin, on the contrary, I wanted to get a little more and jump a little more!
 
DEAR GUEST
 
And not only expensive, but also very rare ... Full -sized pickups in general, but American and luxury in particular in Russia are still found infrequently. Here they are dear, gasoline consumes as loaded minibuses, farmers and lumberjacks not affordable, but to drive such a colossus along the city streets is a doubt pleasure. However, it is in such machines that a striking feeling of calm confidence in their own abilities, and just a sense of peace, appear. You fly yourself on the freeway as a locomotive, comfortably settled in a comfortable chair, listen to good music, and you do not want to stop. You turn the lane, click on the switch and calmly roll on, without thinking especially what under the wheels ... only two points stop: 66 thousand dollars and the good eyes of the tanker, lowering the pistol into the bottomless tank of this letter locomotive.
 
Text: Igor Gubar
 

A source: Magazine 4x4