1999 Lincoln Town Car Cartier Sedan 4-door 4.6l on 2040-cars

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Lincoln says MKZ supply crisis over

After an excessive number of recalls on the 2013 Escape and Fusion, we can't really fault Ford for being a little extra cautious with the launch of the 2013 Lincoln MKZ. Last month, we reported that dealer supply of the car was extremely limited due to more attention being paid to quality checks of cars rolling off the assembly line, which led to a 73-percent drop in MKZ sales from last year on top of a 32-year low in monthly sales for Lincoln in January.
The reason for the delay was that the sedans were being shipped from the Hermosillo, Mexico assembly plant to be inspected even closer at Ford's Flat Rock, Michigan plant before they were able to head to dealers. Things seem to be straightening out for Lincoln and the MKZ's production now, as Automotive News is reporting that supply should be up to a "normal level" by the end of this month.

McConaughey's bizarre new Continental ad is perfect parody material

So let's say you're running a car company and have a luxurious new flagship sedan and need to advertise it. What do you do? Did you answer with "film a commercial with a barely coherent Hollywood actor standing in a pond?" If so, perhaps you work for Lincoln, which brought back Matthew McConaughey to do another bizarre car ad. It starts with McConaughey and a Continental standing on a body of water. He starts talking about staring (or not staring) at the Conti, and then about sitting in the back seat (or not). The ad then cuts to McConaughey in the back who replies to the McConaughey in the front seat. Presumably, there are two McConaugheys at this point, and the front seat one just laughs in a slightly unsettling manner. He then makes a clicking noise, closes the center console and drives away. You can't make this stuff up. It's thoroughly strange, but we can't say we're entirely surprised. When Lincoln first launched some bizarre ads with McConaughey muttering sweet nothings about the MKC, the company got loads of attention. Admittedly a lot of that attention was to make fun of it, but you know the old saying that there's no such thing as bad press. Lincoln even brought him back for an encore in ads for the MKX and MKZ. In truth, we're also glad to see another bizarre Lincoln ad, mostly because we're hoping for another round of great parodies like the classic Jim Carrey spoof that aired on Saturday Night Live. Check out the ad above to see the strangeness. Related Video:

The 1965 Ford Mustang could have looked a lot different

The 1965 Ford Mustang is unquestionably an automotive design icon, and nearly every generation of Mustang has some connection to that original car. Because it's such a universally-known vehicle, we were amazed to see all the different designs that were being considered. Head of Ford's archives Ted Ryan recently shared photos of design proposals for the original Mustang on Twitter that he and Jamie Myler found, and we reached out to them to find out more. As Ryan initially noted, the photos were taken on August 19, 1962, and they are proposals for the Ford Mustang. Apparently Ford had committed to doing a Falcon-based youth-oriented car at this point, and it did have plans to launch the car in 1964 for the 1965 model year. But after having little success with early design proposals, the company asked all of its design studios — the Advanced Studio, Lincoln-Mercury Studio and Ford Studio — to submit proposals. With only about two years before the planned launch, Ford was understandably short on time, and it's believed that the studios only had a month to create and present these designs. Lincoln-Mercury design proposal View 8 Photos The majority of the designs, a total of five, came from the Advanced Studio, and part of this was because they already had a couple of concept designs in reserve it could present. Two other models representing three design possibilities came from Lincoln-Mercury, and just one model with two options came from Ford. The Advanced Studio proposals are shown in the gallery at the very top of this article, and the Lincoln-Mercury and Ford proposals are in the gallery directly above this paragraph. The Advanced Studio's most radical design is the one that was clearly related to the Mustang I concept that would be shown later that year with huge wraparound rear glass, turbine-inspired bumpers and enormous side scoops. The other proposals from the studio were more conservative, featuring simple lines, grilles reminiscent of the Falcon, and one even borrowing the jet-thruster-style taillights made famous on the Thunderbird. Lincoln-Mercury had some impressively bold designs, particularly its fastback that had buttresses to extend the shape all the way to the tail. This car had two different side trim possibilities. The other Lincoln-Mercury design was toned down a bit, but had two interesting possibilities for side detailing, as well as some crisp, low-profile tail fins.