Lincoln Pulls the Plug on MKS
The Lincoln MKS is heading out to pasture. Lincoln plans to cease production of the full-size sedan, which shares its platform with the Ford Taurus, in 2016. The automaker’s Chicago Assembly Plant will continue to produce the Taurus and Ford Explorer.
Related: Video: Lincoln Continental Concept
“Chicago Assembly Plant is vital to our global manufacturing footprint and will continue to manufacture the Ford Taurus, Ford Explorer and [Taurus- and Explorer-based] Police Interceptor vehicles even after we phase out production of the MKS in 2016,” Ford said in a statement. “We will continue to match production to demand.”
Lincoln reportedly plans to replace the MKS with the Continental. The imposing near-production concept made a big splash at the 2015 New York International Auto Show, though not all our editors were impressed by it.
Until then, shoppers should find big discounts on the MKS. As luxury sedans go, Lincoln’s flagship has a fairly narrow price range, starting around $40,000 and topping out around $55,000 with factory options. But sales have been slow, amounting to just 3,304 cars year-to-date through May 2015, according to Automotive News. That’s down 19.1 percent versus the year-ago period.
Part of that’s due to limited supply; Cars.com has just 1,116 MKS sedans in its new-car inventory as of June 10. But the discounts are significant. You can lease an MKS for less than $400 per month in many parts of the country, and total incentives on the sedan (including lease and financing deals) averaged $5,700 per car in May, according to Motor Intelligence. Compare that to the Hyundai Genesis, another big luxury sedan with similar transaction prices: The Genesis thumps the MKS in sales, and Hyundai incentives in May amounted to just $2,762 per car. Even the Cadillac XTS, which has its share of discounts, has lower incentives than Lincoln’s flagship.
