Short Take Road Test
What is this thing? A Lincoln pickup? The Blackwood was the last Lincoln pickup, but don't feel bad if you don't remember it, since Lincoln only sold about three. The Mark LT is, presumably, supposed to be more of a gentleman's F-150, a useful pickup for the polished.
In some social circles, a Ford truck could imply that the driver might lack refinement, might have a Skoal ring on the back pocket of his best slacks, and might be found on any given Saturday night spinning donuts in a muddy field, Bud Ice in hand, hanging out the window and screaming, "Y ee-haw!" Does a Lincoln Mark LT say anything different, or does it just say, "This sucka just spent an extra four grand on his Ford"?
The interior of the Mark LT says "Ford" but with a Lincoln accent. That's not quite as sexy as an Italian accent, but at least it isn't quite the elderly rasp it used to be. The dash and the center stack only look Lincoln in color availability, as the layout and materials are the same in an F-150. Think of it as a Ford dressed for a black-tie dinner. But you get Lincoln's elongated crosshair emblem on the steering wheel, center console, and seatbacks to remind the color blind that this ain't no F-150. Well, it is, but you want passengers to know you spent more money on this here baby buggy.
Differs from the F-150 in That...
They won't know it from the performance. Mechanically, this truck is identical to the F-150. The Cadillac Escalade EXT at least gets more horsepower than the Chevrolet it's based on (403 compared with 366 from the Chevy Avalanche's top engine) and two more cogs in the slushbox. The Mark LT has the same 300-hp V-8 that tops the F-150 range attached to the same four-speed automatic, with the same lazy 8.8-second 0-to-60-mph time and the same 16.7-second quarter-mile run.
A headlining testimony to the 5.4's ineptitude is its inability to indulge us in that redeeming pickup shenanigan: gratuitous rear wheelspin. With 2540 of the Mark LT's 5900 pounds on the rear axle, all the V-8 could manage without punishing brake torque was a quick chirp, as though maybe we had run over a bird's nest.
Once the Mark LT is under way, it suffers from the same jittery, decidedly un-Lincoln ride as the F-150, mainly because that's what it is. Bigger bumps and potholes get the F-1LT bounding like an unladen pickup truck (hmm...), and there is none of that cushy, motion-sickness-inducing float that the Family Feud survey says is the number-one signature Lincoln attribute.
Although the Mark LT is not the only Lincoln with a solid rear axle—that bit of old-school Americana, the Town Car, still rocks the rigid rear—it is the only Lincoln with a solid rear axle supported by leaf springs and meant to support an additional 1430 pounds in the bed, and there is no place for floaty when you're hauling 1430 pounds of diamond-encrusted bingo balls. The Town Car might have a spacious trunk, but to get that much weight in it, you'd have to be hauling something pretty dense. Plutonium, perhaps? Since we're so close to Canada here at C/D HQ, we have to keep in mind that it might make for a sticky border crossing.
