文：Auto Press
Another car brand has entered a century of history.
After a hundred years of Mercedes-Benz, a hundred years of BMW, a hundred years of Ford, an uncle with a North American luxury dream, finally reached its milestone moment, what does this hundred years mean, we may as well start from the Lincoln textbook legend.
Lincoln's Century-Old History - Founders
In February 1843, in an unremarkable peasant family in Formont, the United States, a baby named Henry Leland was born, and no one would have imagined that this would be a figure who wrote a legend in Detroit, nor would it have thought that this would be the creator of two major American luxury brands: Cadillac and Lincoln.
In that difficult year, the Qing Dynasty on the other side of the ocean was in danger of failing to keep up with the pace of industrial change in the world, and Wei Yuan had just compiled the "Atlas of the Sea Country" and proposed that 'Shi Yi long skills to control Yi' intentions were the final struggle for the faltering fate of the mother country, and different countries in the world came to different turning points of fate. The only constant is that the rich are still drunk and intoxicated, and the days faced by civilians in any part of the world are the same hardships.
Because his parents' income could not support the family's eight children, the 11-year-old Henry Leland went to the arena of society early, and after several twists and turns, he finally got the opportunity to study at an ordnance factory.
After returning from school, Henry Leland's factory took advantage of the Second Industrial Revolution in the 1890s to build steam motors and gasoline engines, and was also "put together" by OzMobil, the first company in the United States to mass-produce and sell automobiles.
But it was precisely because the engine originally built for OzMobil was difficult to resell that Henry Leland had the idea of letting the company build cars. In August 1902, Henry Lealand conducted an asset appraisal of a factory that had been shut down due to debt due to the defection of the chief engineer, and thanks to his advice, the factory was revived.
Here, Henry Leland collides for the first time with the future and the man who will be entangled with him for half a lifetime, and Cadillac is born.
In 1909, Cadillac was incorporated into the General Motors Group, and later because GM founder William Durant opposed Henry Leland's idea of taking advantage of the World War I to adjust the production line, he ran away in a fit of anger and founded an aircraft engine production company, which was Lincoln.
The name Lincoln was entirely due to Henry Lealand's cult of the U.S. president, who had accumulated a lot of wealth during the war, and after the war, Henry Lealand returned to the automotive industry and developed a new car called the Model L.
In the early days of the Great Depression, although some wealthy classes in the United States made war wealth, but under the false prosperity of the American people's free and self-controlled money was very tight, the high-priced Model L did not get more orders under the meticulous work of Henry Lealand, but because of the long construction period, many people lost patience to wait, and the wealth gathered in World War I was quickly dissipated, and in November 1921, Lincoln Company went bankrupt and auctioned.
But Edsell, the founder of ford motor company and the only son of Henry Ford, had a crush on Lincoln. As it happened, the chief engineer who had left the discontinued plant that Henry Leland had previously evaluated was Henry Ford himself.
I don't know if it was because of that unpleasant entanglement that Henry Ford was upset, and he did not intend to buy Lincoln Cars, but under the repeated persuasion of Edsell, Lincoln was eventually included in the Ford camp.
However, the court originally valued the Lincoln plant as $16 million, but Henry Ford pushed it to $8 million. It was the final chapter of Henry Leland's dramatic life, and soon after being acquired, Henry Leland and his son were forced out of the game, leaving lincoln they had built, and entangled with Henry Ford in the final days of their lives until his death in 1932.
The two brands, built by their own hands, eventually 'left home' for their livelihood, which is very similar to henry Leland's life trajectory, perhaps such a story is not fair to Henry Leland, but Lincoln's life can be better continued.
As the inventor of the automotive assembly line, Ford knows how to build a popular brand. Under the leadership of Edsell, Lincoln ushered in a new life, launched a number of outstanding products such as Zephyr, Continental and other outstanding products, and began its wonderful life as a representative brand of American luxury.
Lincoln's Centennial History – The Presidential Ride
Although there is a half-century or so time and space misalignment between Lincoln Motors and Abraham Lincoln, the president who unified the North and South of the United States and liberated black people, it is probably because of this name that Lincoln Motors and the President of the United States are destined to have an inseparable story.
In 1923, as a good friend of Henry Ford, the 30th president of the United States, John Calvin Coolidge, adopted Lincoln L as the U.S. presidential car, which began as a dozen U.S. presidents over a period of decades.
By 1939, Lincoln had created the Lincoln K-Series Sunshine Special for another of Lincoln's greatest presidents in American history, Franklin D. Roosevelt, a specially built convertible that made Roosevelt more polio-disabled and had a better connection with the public, and also made the Lincoln brand completely inseparable from the White House.
In 1942, Lincoln again built a custom version of Customer for Roosevelt, but unfortunately, the only president in American history to achieve four consecutive terms died of illness in his fourth term.
By 1950, after the Sunshine Special rolled off the production line, Cosmopolitan took over as Harry Truman's car, and then served Dwight David Eisenhower until 1965.
The most impressive thing is the SS-100-X based on the Lincoln Continental 74A, because the youngest president in U.S. history, Kennedy, in order to get more votes in a pro-people image, rode this convertible through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, in the last days of his life.
Since Kennedy, the era of convertibles as the president's usual car ushered in the end, SS-100-X after many renovations and upgrades, until 1977 retired, during which also served Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, it is worth mentioning that Nixon is also the president who visited China after 'ping-pong diplomacy' and completely broke the ice in Sino-US relations.
Since 1975, six Lincoln continents have been the vehicles of Gerald Rudolph Ford and Ronald Wilson Reagan, and the last Lincoln to serve the President of the United States was the Lincoln Town Car during the tenure of George W. Bush.
Lincoln's Century-Old History - The Chinese Market
Napoleon Bonaparte, a famous tyrant in French history, once said: "China is a sleeping lion, once it wakes up, it will shock the world, and I hope he will sleep forever."
However, over the past few hundred years, the world pattern has a completely different look, shouldering the flame of five thousand years of civilization, the footprints of the sons and daughters of China have long been all over the world, and the devastated continent a hundred years ago has embarked on a great rejuvenation road that is better than ever with the joint efforts of people who have made unremitting efforts to improve themselves.
Especially since the reform and opening up, the awakened lion is welcoming guests from afar with an unprecedented open attitude, to some extent, the distance between countries in the world is infinitely narrowing, and you and I are becoming more and more inseparable.
At that time, Edsell has led Lincoln to create a lot of good results in the U.S. market, until now Lincoln is still the 'favorite' of many Americans, according to the U.S. "Consumer Report" 2020 owner satisfaction survey data, in all car brands, the American people's satisfaction with Lincoln is second only to Tesla, ranking second.
The adventurous spirit of Americans is well-known in the world, and such a luxury brand with pure American genes is naturally not willing to be confined to the local market and wants to go overseas.
In fact, as early as the 1980s, Lincoln, taking advantage of the spring breeze of reform and opening up, left traces in the Chinese mainland early and entered the Chinese market in the form of parallel imports.
At that time, if anyone's wedding head car is an extended version of Town Car, it is another row of things, Lincoln's arrival, for the first time, inspired Chinese to explore American luxury, you can see some film and television dramas of that era also have Lincoln cars, and even in some of the ancient novels of 'youth pain literature', in the minds of ignorant girls who look forward to love, Prince Charming will eventually drive a Lincoln to marry her.
But just as the so-called good things are grinding, since it first entered China in the 1980s, Lincoln and the Chinese market have experienced many "points and combinations".
In 2005, in order to open up overseas markets, Lincoln navigators came to China through Ford's channels as official imported cars to test the waters, but unfortunately, in 2008, a financial crisis that swept the world made many multinational companies mired in the mud, and the environment of the Chinese market at that time was far from today's grand situation, and it was not suitable for the navigators at that time to survive.
In 2014, China had a fairly good market environment, this year, the Lincoln brand officially entered China for the first time and brought two official imported cars, MKC and MKZ, and then sales climbed steadily. According to relevant data, Lincoln's sales in China reached the peak of its period as a pure import brand in 2018 - 55,315 vehicles.
At this point in time in 2018, China's auto market is suddenly facing a cold wave, and based on this background, nearly 80% of the sales of automobile brands have suddenly and seriously declined.
However, under the influence of the general trend of consumption upgrading, luxury brands have ushered in more room for growth. In fact, as early as March 2017, Lincoln was determined to make changes, establishing its localization and saying that a new SUV built specifically for the Chinese market would lead its localization in 2019.
During the period, in order to better serve the road of localization, under the leadership of Mao Jingbo, Lincoln also formulated the strategy of "China first, customer first", which is definitely a major adjustment in the development process of Lincoln, an American brand.
In March 2020, Lincoln's first domestic model, the medium-sized SUV Lincoln adventurer Corsair officially launched, officially opening Lincoln's first year of localization, with the advantage of entry and luxury, only 2 months after the listing, it refreshed lincoln's many records in China. In July, Lincoln Aviator was listed domestically, which became a powerful boost for the rapid growth of Lincoln's sales.
According to relevant data, in the whole year of 2020, Lincoln's annual sales reached 61,761 vehicles, an increase of 32% year-on-year. In March 2021, Lincoln Navigator officially listed, "three new cars in three years" promised to become a reality in advance, in the localization layout of the high-speed landing, 2021 Lincoln again achieved good results, official data in the annual sales of 91621 vehicles, an increase of 48%.
The rapid growth of sales has driven Lincoln's determination to continue to localize, and the Chinese special car Lincoln Z unveiled at the 2021 Guangzhou Auto Show has now opened pre-sale at a price of 255,000-342,000 yuan, and is expected to be officially listed in March 2022.
At the same time, keeping up with the pace of the times, under the influence of the 'new four modernizations' of the automobile, Lincoln will also quickly promote the electrification of the brand, and in the Chinese market, there are already adventurers PHEV. Recently, according to overseas media reports, Lincoln will launch 5 pure electric models before 2026, and the first pure electric SUV is expected to be officially put into production in 2024 or 2025 at its plant in Oakville, Ontario, Canada.
It can be said that Lincoln's road to China is also a 'long novel' with ups and downs, experiencing market changes in different periods of social and economic backgrounds, and now Lincoln has finally found a most suitable development path in China and entered a stable track.
By Auto Press (some of the pictures are from the Internet, invaded and deleted)
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