10. (TIE) 3-Series Hybrid, Mercedes E400 Hybrid, Infiniti M35h, Buick LaCrosse/Regal eAssist: 29 mpg

Who is to say that luxury car buyers aren’t affected by high gas prices? If you want to drive in comfort, style, and have the latest high tech goodies in a car, you shouldn’t have to pay more at the pump for it. Here are our picks for the top 10 most fuel friendly luxury cars, ranked in order of their combined city/highway mpg numbers.

Quite a few luxury cars hit the 29 mpg mark combined. The most impressive of the bunch is the Buick LaCrosse, which manage to get solid fuel economy, despite its bigger size. The Infiniti, Mercedes and BMW vehicles make do with a high-power pairing of a six-cylinder engine and an electric motor, which gives the end result of over 300-hp.

The Buicks use a mild hybrid system called eAssist which pairs a 2.4L four-cylinder engine with a conventional automatic, and a compact lithium ion battery to get its impressive fuel economy numbers.

After numerous delivery delays on the MKZ, Lincoln is offering its dealers cash assistance to make up for customer’s lost money. 

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After a long hiatus from advertising during the Super Bowl, Lincoln has made a return with a creative commercial for the 2013 Super Bowl.

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With the aid of Jimmy Fallon, Lincoln has come up with a creative commercial for the 2013 Super Bowl starring its MKZ sedan.

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Ford is working hard to give its luxury Lincoln brand a new start, renaming it the Lincoln Motor Company and adding its own design and engineering team.

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A couple of years ago, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened a probe on the Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan for the possibility of unintended acceleration due to unsecured or stacked floor mats.

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Unintended acceleration is an ugly phrase to throw around in the automotive world after the scandal that involved Toyota in 2009 and 2010.

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Lincoln has released a video teaser of things to come, but left it as ambiguous it possibly could.

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Lincoln is celebrating opening its first design center since the 1970s. The all-new Lincoln MKZ that will be arriving later this year is the first of many vehicles from the new studio.

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Now that Lincoln has announced that its 2013 MKZ Hybrid will be available at no additional cost, the American automaker is proud to say that the car will also boast the highest fuel economy of any luxury vehicle in the US market.

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The redesigned 2013 Lincoln MKZ is ready to hit dealerships in late fall of this year, and when it does it will come with a $35,925 base price tag. 

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Most automakers tend to carry over a consistent front-end for a majority of their vehicles but Lincoln may keep the unique “winged” front grille design of the new MKZ for its luxury sedan.

Future Lincoln vehicles may carry a similar general grille design and headlight shapes as the MKZ, but individual grilles may differ from model to model.

“We haven’t made an announcement that every single car within the lineup is going to have the same grille bars,” J Mays, Ford’s group Vice President of design said. “We needed with the MKZ to signal a new generation of Lincolns. That’s the first of the new cars to come with what I would call a more innovative face on it.”

The American automaker doesn’t wish to limit the design team to a single grille texture, which will leave other Lincoln models open to differentiations in their front grille designs. Another big point that Lincoln is aiming for is to prove that the brand is looking to break from tradition.

Currently Lincoln’s “waterfall” chrome grille can be found on the MKS and MKT that are heading to dealerships now. The MKZ will be on sale later this year.

[Source: Auto News]

The 2013 Lincoln MKZ concept debuted at the Detroit Auto Show and ahead of its official unveil next week at the New York Auto show, Lincoln has released a video that shows us the car’s panoramic glass roof in action for the first time. 

The idea is simple: to get the best of a convertible while retaining the convenience of a full roof. This is the first step in a series of improvements that Lincoln is undergoing to re-introduce the brand as a unique luxury marque.

When fully open the roof sports an opening that is two-feet deep and two and a half feet wide, offering the largest glass roof opening on the market today.

The roof is rated at SPF 100 to avoid passengers being sunburned, and reinforced with a aluminum and boron steel frame that is integrated into the car’s architecture to deal with rollovers and chassis contortion.

The roof will debut on the MKZ at the New York Auto Show next week, probably as an expensive option though likely cheaper than a proper convertible.

Watch the panoramic roof in action in the video below.

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The 2013 Lincoln MKZ Concept originally debuted at the 2012 Detroit Auto Show sporting a panaromic glass roof. The production 2013 Lincoln MKZ sedan is scheduled to make its official debut at the upcoming New York Auto Show, and it appears that Lincoln is hard at work on offering a fully-retractable glass roof on its new sedan.

It’s believed that the roof design has been under development for several years at Lincoln and will make its production debut on the MKZ.

As we heard back at the Detroit Auto Show, the glass is actually integrated into the MKZ’s structure, constructed from steel and boron and is designed to give the passengers a personal, open-air experience. The retractable glass roof is just one of many efforts Lincoln is pursuing to help differentiate their models from the lesser Ford platforms that they are based on.

We’ll be sure to get more information when the MKZ makes it debut at the New York Auto Show, at which point we’ll hopefully find out if the retractable glass roof will be standard on the MKZ or available as an option.

GALLERY: Lincoln MKZ Concept

Part of “the biggest statement Lincoln has ever made at an auto show” is the MKZ sedan concept, which is set to debut at the 2012 Detroit Auto Show right around the corner.

Up until now, we haven’t even had a single idea on what the concept may look like, but Lincoln has released the first official teaser of the sedan ahead of the show. The photo reveals the return of the full-width taillight for Lincoln, but more importantly proves that a fully new redesigned vehicle for the brand is the right direction to help Ford reinvigorate sales of their luxury brand.

AutoGuide will have more on its official debut at the 2012 Detroit Auto Show. Until then, see the complete show preview here.

Amid grand plans to turn the brand into a true Audi/BMW competitor Ford stated, that in addition to Lincoln being given greater autonomy, it had put in place plans to introduce a raft of new models, including a “premium” compact car, the MKC, designed to compete with the likes of the A3 and 1-Series.

Well now it appears those plans have been axed, Lincoln deciding that a better use of resources would be to introduce a compact crossover, since according to inside sources at Dearborn it was believed said small car (shown above in concept C form) could cannibalize sales of Lincoln’s bread and butter sedan, the MKZ, slated for a major redo.

However, it also appears, that the updated 2013 MKZ has now been delayed; with a launch date set for late next year instead of early summer 2012.

Getting back to Lincoln’s new compact crossover, rumored to be called the MkD, it will likely be spun off the new Ford Escape, and possibly feature standard EcoBoost power, in order to make it a worth contender against the likes of Audi’s Q3.

As for Lincoln’s other plans, rumors continue to persist about a rear-wheel drive flagship, though what architecture it will be based on remains to be seen, especially as Ford currently doesn’t have any large rear-drive cars, certainly in North America.

Nevertheless, a high-zoot flagship; using either modified Mustang or Australian Ford Falcon underpinnings could really pave the way for a Lincoln renaissance, reviving the brand as a true alternative to the likes of the popular German marques. And if a bit of that polish rubs off on said flagship’s smaller stablemates, so much the better.

[Source: Ford Inside News]

With its Lincoln luxury brand currently facing tumultuous times, parent company Ford has created a new internal division to help bring Lincoln back up to speed, after a period where the brand lacked resources needed to compete.

Ford has set aside a staff of 85 to help work on various aspects of the Lincoln brand, including marketing, product development and dealer outreach. Half of the personnel have come from Ford while the other half have come from competitor brands like Cadillac and Audi.

Lincoln is expected to hold its dealer meeting around April 18th, and while the brand is expected to show future products like the 2013 MKZ sedan, other questions, like Ford’s plan to axe a number of dealers, and force others to invest heavily in showroom upgrades, will likely surface. Ford has committed to launching several new products and has given Lincoln a budget of $100 million for advertising this year.

[Source: Automotive News]

With the New York Times erecting a “pay wall” around their online section, many web enthusiasts are crying foul at the venerable paper’s decision to abandon the online modus operandi of making information free.

But 200,000 of the Times’ best customers will be eligible for free access (worth about $150) thanks to Lincoln, which is sponsoring the program as part of its corporate communications strategy.

“We’ve been spending a lot of time with our media partners looking for ideas,”  Connie Fontaine, manager of U.S. Lincoln marketing communications, told Advertising Age. “Our brand is one that has a lot of great news and a lot to say but isn’t always heard. The Times did bring us this idea and we thought it was really relevant to the brand for a lot of reasons. The type of reader we’ll be able to engage through this program is a thought leader.”

Lincoln feels that the people interested in the online section of the Times are the same kind of customers who would be interested in a new Lincoln – as opposed to the old guard print crowd who may err towards a Town Car, specifically a chauffeured black example. As for the Times, well, 200,000 digital subscribers is a drop in the bucket considering their readership numbers, and with any luck, the program will be mutually beneficial for both parties.

[Source: Advertising Age]

Lincoln received the top award for from J.D. Power and Associates in their annual durability study, narrowly beating out Lexus as well as all other brands sold in America.

Two models from Lincoln in particular received shout-outs: the MKZ was the highest-ranked in the category of Entry Premium, and the Navigator captured the Large Premium Crossover/SUV segment. The MKZ was the second-highest performing vehicle in the study overall.

The J.D. Power and Associates study covered long-term durability for vehicles up to three years old; it charts the number of problems per 100 vehicles, and graphs them as points. This is Lincoln’s first win in the company’s 94-year histor, and it only featured 101 problems, beating out Lexus by merely 8 points. The industry average, meanwhile, is 152 points.

Overall, Ford received four top segment awards, with the two Lincolns as well as the Fusion and Mustang. But even though Lexus placed second, parent company Toyota held the most segment victories overall, with seven vehicles—almost as if the recall didn’t happen. Right?

For the full statistics (and bar graphs galore) from J.D. Power, click here.

With 200 of Lincoln‘s 1200 dealers staring down a possible termination of their franchise, an upcoming dealer meeting will provide little comfort to retailers of Ford’s luxury brand, as the Blue Oval will not share upcoming product details with Lincoln’s sales force.

Even though Ford is aggressively targeting Lincoln dealers with a demand for a $2 million showroom renovation program, the company hasn’t given much information on the 7 products expected to debut over the next few years that are supposed to reinvigorate the Lincoln brand.

As part of a revitalization program for Lincoln vehicles, Ford announced a series of measures aimed to take Lincoln even further upmarket.

Speaking at the Detroit Auto Show, Ford’s Vice President for Global Product Development Derrick Kuzak said that the Blue Oval was aiming for a “full differentiation” of Lincoln. Future Lincolns would not share any powertrains or sheetmetal with their Ford cousins. Ford is also requiring Lincoln dealers to upgrade their showrooms, with the hope that many will leave their franchise rather than invest the substantial sums required to carry out the improvements.

While upgraded interiors, V6 engines and all-wheel drive are slated for Lincoln’s future products, rear-drive is apparently not in the cards, nor is an international launch. “Our focus right now is in the United States because we have a lot of brand equity,” Ford CEO Alan Mulally told Automotive News. “And we didn’t tarnish the brand, we just didn’t invest in it.”

[Source: Automotive News]

Green Car Journal has announced its candidates for its Green Car Of The Year award, with the five car field being composed of some pretty serious competition,

Naturally, the Chevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf are the leading contenders, with the Lincoln MKZ Hybrid, Hyundai Sonata Hybrid rounding out the field, and the Ford Fiesta being the sole nominee that runs solely on a gasoline engine and no electric components. Regardless, the Fiesta can still get 40 mpg on the highway, making it a worthy candidate.

The winner will be announced at the Los Angeles Auto Show in November

Hit the jump to see the official press release

[Source: Green Car Journal]

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Lincoln‘s MKZ Hybrid will be priced identical to the least expensive V6, giving consumers a strong incentive to opt for the 2.5L four-cylinder hybrid. The hybrid retails for #35,180, the same sticker as the front-drive V6 model, and a few hundred dollars less than a Lexus HS250h.

The MKZ, based on Ford’s much acclaimed Fusion Hybrid, gets 41 mpg in the city, 6 mpg better than the Lexus, while coming in a more conventional looking wrapper. The fuel economy bump is a definite advantage, but the lack of a distinct look for the hybrid may be a detriment – after all, many people choose the Toyota Prius just so they can let the world know that they are driving a hybrid.

Hit the jump to read the official press release

[Source: Ford]

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Posting identical numbers to its sister car, the Ford Fusion Hybrid, the Lincoln MKZ has garnered an identical EPA rating of 41 mpg in the city and 36 mpg on the highway.

This might be a snooze to some, but the MKZ Hybrid bests its nearest rival, the Lexus HS250h, by 6 mpg in the city and 2 mpg on the highway. The MKZ Hybrid is also a much more discrete looking vehicle, which may or may not work in Lincoln’s favor. We’ll find out when the car goes on sale this fall.

[Source: Autoblog]