
Bringing his experience heading Lexus with him when he defected to Ford, Jim Farley's got his eye on some premium-Toyota style brand growth. Ford's past party line has been that the Lincoln nameplate is strictly for North American consumption, but Farley's been conferring with other Forders like Peter Horbury about taking Lincoln worldwide. Lexus is enjoying rapid growth in markets like Russia and Saudi Arabia, so it's not a new concept for Farley, and Horbury has previous global-brand experience, as well. Whether Ford intends on turning Lincoln into an American Lexus (whatever that might mean) isn't clear, but our domestic luxury marques sometimes enjoy a better reputation elsewhere – witness Buick's stature in China (Counterpoint: witness Cadillac's stature in Europe). The newly unveiled MKS is a good weapon to shoot across the globe, riding on a platform that originated at Volvo. We don't think Lincoln will swipe customers from Volvo, as they're likely different groups of buyers - so what it really may mean is more potential buyers to snap up Ford's production capacity.
Thanks for the tip, throwback!
[Source: Auto News - sub req]





General Motors reported global sales of 2,296,000 vehicles in the third quarter, which is a 3-percent decline versus Q3 of last year. That's only 66,000 unit off what was sold during the same period in 2005, and the GM spinmeisters attribute the difference to the employee pricing war last year and the company's commitment to reduce rental and fleet sales this year. Aight, we can buy that, so perhaps GM really did hold its ground this year in the global market. 











