Lincoln rides again

AN Australian designer is helping an ageing US carmaker take a turn for the better.

Lincoln Continental

WHEN the Americans organise a presidential motorcade, the vehicle with Barack Obama in the back seat is a Cadillac, a byword for US automotive luxury.

But Cadillac hasn't always had the top job to itself. For 50 years, starting with Franklin Roosevelt before World War II, the White House wheels came from the forgotten other pinnacle of Detroit, Lincoln. Dwight Eisenhower rode in one, and so did Ronald Reagan. And when John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, he was in the back of an open-top Lincoln Continental.

Lincoln's heyday, however, is long past. Since its peak in the 1990s, buyers have been lured away by imported rivals and last year it finished eighth in the US luxury charts, far behind the trio of premium German brands, three Japanese badges and, of course, Cadillac.

The man charged with turning that around is Australian designer Max Wolff, 40. He comes from Victoria, but for the past four years has been living and working in Detroit. For the first three he was at Cadillac, but he made the switch early last year after being approached by the design boss at Ford, J Mays.

Wolff says he wasn't looking for something new, but Mays persuaded him that Lincoln offered a unique opportunity. "It was a chance to be part of the reinvention," Wolff tells the deal from Detroit. "Something like this doesn't happen very often. It was a bit unexpected, but I couldn't pass it up."

Ford, which owns Lincoln, had cleared out its stable of European badges - Aston Martin, Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo - as it restructured during the decade after 2000. When turnaround specialist CEO Alan Mulally had Ford back on track, Lincoln was its last luxury brand standing and resources were marshalled to turn its fortunes around. "Ford realised how important it was to have a viable, world-class luxury brand," Wolff says.

While Lincolns were not sold in Australia, Wolff grew up a car enthusiast, so the name was part of his lexicon. However, after graduating from Monash University his career began on the other side of the street, at General Motors, with a design job at Holden. An early highlight was the SSX concept car, an all-wheel-drive version of the Commodore unveiled in 2002.

Success brought a posting to Korea, where he worked at GM's recently acquired Daewoo operation, before moving to Cadillac in the US. Cadillac was also being reinvented, but Wolff could see Lincoln had strayed even further out of the luxury lane. "I had the same observation as many others. It was a brand with a strong heritage, with some bright moments, but over the past 15 to 20 years it's been lost in the crowd."

The turnaround was already under way when Wolff joined the team, but he was disappointed when he saw the MKZ, the first of seven new models. "I sat down with someone from the team and we took a couple of weeks to sort out what we wanted to do. A lot of that was just sitting with designers and going back through some of the older work they'd done that for whatever reason hadn't got through. By the time we'd finished the only panels untouched were the door panels."

The MKZ became the public face of the Lincoln rebirth when it was unveiled at the Detroit show in January, with the final version appearing at the New York show last month. As with other Lincolns, it's based on a similar-sized Ford model, in this case the Fusion (known as the Mondeo outside the US). That reduces costs, but it can disappoint buyers who are looking for something out of the mainstream.

Wolff says the MKZ shows Lincoln's new generation will have greater freedom, with more expensive technology liberating interior designers, for example. "The centre console has an electronic shift transmission. There is no longer a mechanical linkage. That frees up a lot of space and the centre console is a beautiful piece of sculpture."

His global design experience was one of the things that made him attractive to Mays. Lincoln sells only in North America, but must win buyers from global brands such as Lexus and Mercedes.

Lincoln's heritage - of large presidential cars - is useful even in the development of a smaller car, based on the Ford Focus, that will be a key model under the revival plan. "I was looking at a 1961 Continental and it's got great proportions - big, wide, low - and exquisite detailing in the brightwork, but the surfacing and line-work are simple and subdued. If you compare that to some of the competition at the time, with tailfins and extroverted details, the '61 Continental stood apart as much for what it didn't do as for what it did do."

The MKZ is similar, he says. "It's obviously more modern, but exquisitely proportioned and has a great stance and detailing. But the line-work and surfacing are refined and elegant."

Wolff believes it's only a matter of time before Lincoln regains its place in the top tier.