While it’s commonly thought that Lincoln sedans have been in a slump since the 2000s, that certainly wasn’t the case for the first half of that decade. Roughly twenty-five years ago, Lincoln did try, and while the result was a car that drove great for the money, it didn’t reinvent the brand for the 21st century. For seven model years in the early 2000s, the brand mustered up a car that challenged BMW, and then everyone seemed to forget that it ever existed. That car was the Lincoln LS, and it was way better than you remember.
Would a full-fledged sports sedan help Lincoln now? Given the strength of crossovers, it’s unlikely, although perhaps a sedan could succeed in the EV segment. While our crystal balls are cloudy, hindsight is 20:20, and the Lincoln LS had all the right organs, garnered all the right praise, and yet didn’t quite land with the American public.
Welcome back to Beige Cars You’re Sleeping On, a weekly series in which we raise the profile of some quiet greats. We’re talking vehicles that are secretly awesome, but go unsung because of either a boring image or the lack of an image altogether.
Forming the bones of the Lincoln LS was the same DEW98 platform you’d find underneath the Jaguar S-Type, which meant that Lincoln got double-wishbone front suspension and a quad-cam V8 architecture to play it. However, instead of creating a smaller Town Car, Lincoln decided to draw a bullseye on the BMW 5 Series. [Ed Note: Autopian contributor Huibert Mees led the suspension design on the LS, so you know it’s good. -DT].
[Mercedes’ Note: This car was also the subject of a Holy Grails! -MS]
As a result, the LS landed with your choice of a 210-horsepower three-liter V6 or a 252-horsepower 3.9 liter V8, although only the former was available with a manual gearbox. Power was sent exclusively to the rear wheels, and even the base models got V-rated tires. The result was impressive on the road, with Car And Driver lauding how good of a car the LS was for the money.
The Lincoln LS is not as engaging to drive as a BMW, but it is much more so than the Cadillac Catera or any other Yank-badged Euro-pretender. It is a superb choice of mount for reeling in miles of macadam, and with its current base price of $36,305 we’re as convinced now as we were at the end of our many thousand-mile runs that this is the best-driving V-8 sedan for the enthusiast dollar.
That’s strong praise, but why is this midsize sports sedan forgotten today? While a me-too name likely didn’t help, it’s possible that part of the problem stems from how Lincoln seemingly forgot to style the LS.
On first glance, there isn’t much to suggest the capability and competency that lies beneath this sedan’s sheetmetal. Teetering on a line between anonymous and frumpy, the LS slides completely beneath the radar, with the early chrome-slathered models being some of the more homely. There isn’t a huge air of premium or sport to the styling, and while that’s good if you want to keep a low profile and enjoy the purr of a V8 to yourself, it’s not exactly a recipe for sales success.
On the inside, things improved. Sure, you had a fair quantity of typical Ford switchgear in the cabin, but by the standards of the day, this was a nice place to be with a padded vinyl-covered dashboard, comfortable seats, and oh-so-aughts shiny wood trim. Amenities were also quite good, with dual-zone automatic climate control, an Alpine premium audio system, rain-sensing wipers, a hands-free car phone, and a six-disc CD changer all appearing on the list of standard or available equipment.
While 2001 was largely a carryover year, 2002 brought in a few meaningful upgrades. The V6 got an extra ten horsepower to total 220, while the LSE trim added a body kit with the hopes of amping up the visual sportiness. If you’re looking for a manual Lincoln LS, a 2002 V6 LSE is your holy grail, because the row-your-own option was discontinued in 2003.
However, 2003 didn’t bring all bad news. In addition to new headlights, a new trunklid, and revised bumpers, the LS gained some substantial powertrain upgrades. The V6 gained variable camshaft timing on the intake cams, a new intake manifold with variable runner length, and another 12 horsepower for a total of 232, but the big story was that the 3.9-liter V6 saw a substantial boost in output. With the addition of variable camshaft timing on the exhaust cams, output jumped to 280 horsepower and 286 lb.-ft. of torque, while zero-to-60 mph times fell substantially. In addition, all LS models got an electronic parking brake, while a THX-certified sound system joined the options list.
While 2004 and 2005 models were largely carryover, the 2006 model simplified the lineup to mark the end of the LS sedan’s run. The V6 was gone, all models got an LSE-style appearance package, and that’s all she wrote. On April 3, 2006, Lincoln’s dream of a rear-wheel-drive sports sedan was dead, with the Ford Fusion-based Zephyr (later called the MKZ) called on to carry the entry-level luxury torch.
These days, you can pick up a Lincoln LS for a song. For instance, here’s a 2006 Sport Package V8 car with just under 106,000 miles on the clock up for sale in Dallas for $5,495. Sure, the headlights could use a polish, but it looks like a reasonably nice car for the money and a definite left-field choice in the world of used luxury sports sedans.
If you go a bit older and search a bit harder, you might find an even nicer example for less money. Here’s a rather nice 77,000-mile example from the inaugural 2000 model year up for sale in Virginia for $4,900. The leather’s immaculate, the ivory paint is oddly charming, and the whole car just looks right for the asking price.
Now, there is a catch to these cars, and it’s one that befalls many competitors of this era — the timing chain components on the V8 cars don’t last forever. While the parts themselves aren’t terribly expensive, it’s a labor-intensive job, and one that’s sure to have sent a few examples to the scrapheap. However, if you’re feeling ambitious, DIY replacement is well-documented, so feel free to get stuck in.
Overall, the Lincoln LS is a better car than you might expect. It was an intriguing experiment with promising early results, only made possible thanks to the mergers and acquisitions mess that was Ford’s Premier Automotive Group. Without Jaguar bones, it’s possible we could’ve ended up with a Lincoln-badged Contour, or yet another Lincoln-badged Taurus. More importantly, the Lincoln LS showed gumption, for an attempt at an America 5 Series while the legendary E39 was still in production wasn’t for the faint of heart.
(Photo credits: Lincoln, TrueCar sellers)
Support our mission of championing car culture by becoming an Official Autopian Member.
-
The Insane Kia K900 Flagship Luxury Sedan Might Just Be The Best Bargain In Cars Right Now
-
The Acura RL SH-AWD Is An All-Weather Flagship Luxury Sedan That Won’t Leave You High And Dry
-
The 2nd-Gen Mercedes-Benz CLK Is A Pillarless V8 Coupe You Can Genuinely Afford
-
The Stylish, Ahead Of Its Time, Original Toyota Venza Now Offers Near-Lexus Refinement For Used Honda CR-V Money
-
The Lincoln MKZ 3.0T AWD Might Just Be The Cheapest Way To Get A Sedan With 400 Horsepower And Apple CarPlay
Got a hot tip? Send it to us here. Or check out the stories on our homepage.
> the timing chain components on the V8 cars don’t last forever
David edited this story and that slipped through?!?
I rolled into the Lincoln dealer in my Lincoln Mark VIII and test drove a new V8 LS. I liked it, but found it to be pretty small inside and my Mark VIII just killed it on acceleration and pretty much everything else.
I ended up buying a slightly used 1998 Taurus SHO with the V8. Very cool engine, and it drove nicely and was roomy inside.
It looked like a Mitsubishi Diamante, had an unreliable Jaguar powertrain, and fell to pieces as it aged. How do I know? I was a Lincoln dealership tech years ago.
that’s exactly what it looked like, good call, couldn’t put my finger on it.
I remember reading a comparo from one one of the big car magazines comparing the Lincoln to other euro sports sedans. I never would have thought of the car again without the memory jog from this article. My recollection is they liked it, but it didn’t measure up to the competition.
Still, pretty amazing the Lincoln built a sporty sedan and put a manual in it back then. Everybody wanted a piece of the market BMW created, and Lincoln probably felt it was a cure for the aging out demographic that was their core customers.
A buddy of mine had a black on black V6 5 sp. We put it on staggered 20″ wheels. It looked pretty tight and drove pretty nice. It was definitely something a little different. It was used but not very old when he got it. He didn’t have it long enough to really get a feel for the long term reliability though.
I think if Ford used some kinda catchy name for the engine ala Chrysler with Hemi, it will catch a lot more attention. At least now they have Coyote, Godzilla? Lincoln is always a bit of a basket case, not different enough to differentiate from mainline Ford models, yet having seperatish dealerships. At least now there is less overlap with Lincoln primarily sell overwrought SUVs.
We didn’t “forget” about it. We just don’t care because it’s a shitty car. All the problems and high repair costs of the S-Type but none of the prestige, plus it doesn’t even have the cat hood ornament! 😛
Exactly this. Knew several owners and they all said the same two things: the driving experience is better than you’d think, and it doesn’t matter because it’s rarely on the road. I had a catera, which was also a pile of crap. My mechanic broke some bad news to me, and softened the blow by waving his arm at a backlot with three LS cars in various stages of death, and said “at least you didn’t buy one of those.”
I disagree. The one in my family ran 10 years 0 issues. Was sold for 50% original MSRP..
It was a very well built vehicle.
Every so often Ford will surprise with a sedan . . . this and the Merkur . . . both with Euro DNA.
My dad has one of these. A 2001 V8, bought new in 2000. Black, aluminum rims, minimal wood trim. It’s mint, about 55k miles. He never drives it, for reasons known only to paranoid boomers trying to maintain resale value on their ho-hum cars. In the years since he bought the car I grew up and have owned a B5 Audi S4, a C4 and C5 Corvette, and now a Golf Sportwagen (ALL six speeds).
The LS V8, given my experience with my own cars, doesn’t impress me much. The front seat doesn’t go all that far back, the interior and infotainment is kinda meh, you can’t hear the exhaust, the transmission is a bit lazy, and so is the engine. He bought it because he had just gotten his MBA at the time and didn’t want to buy a 540i and it was Fords entry in the sports-sedan category with some euro-suspension goodness.
Unfortunately in my opinion it just fails to measure up as anything other than a slightly fast commuter car. If it had a six speed I think that would’ve helped a ton, but I still think the engine is a bit lazy and slow-revving.
I test drove a couple about 15 years ago and I was particularly impressed with how Ford made a completely modern DOHC engine and transmission with actual direct European heritage act like a wheezy early 90s 2 Valve Modular engine attached to an A0D Town Car. Even the second one, which was a 2003 so it had the more powerful V8.
In comparison, I ended up buying a 2003 Seville STS instead and that engine screamed for you to push it past 4500 RPM and the transmission would happily kick down at will and hold gears for you all day when you were hustling it even though it was a FWD 4 speed from the early 90s.
I loved the LS upon introduction, and I’ve carried a torch for them, lo these many years.
I’ll probably never own one, though. I like my cars as drivers, and these seem a bit fragile/problematic for that.
My sentiments exactly
Me too. Always loved the LS. Wanted one bad.
But glad I got a c5 six speed corvette 15 years ago instead.
I didn’t really love that car either but the LS needed to be more reliable then a corvette to be owning it. You look like a tool with an American sport sedan that can’t beat the Germans AND is too expensive to fix if it surprises you.
I think I woulda loved the ls if they put a mustang motor in it! That’s where lincoln screwed up.
One of my neighbors had one of these. I knew even then it had to be good as he had very good taste in cars (his other two vehicles were an E-Type and a WRX wagon). Yes the styling was bland, but I liked the “under the radar” look about it.
I couldn’t even tell you the last time I saw one of these on the road. They’ve grown on me over the years, but the styling always reminded me of something you might see in Grand Theft Auto: designed to look a bit like something you’d see in real life, but not enough so to require any kind of licensing. They must have really suffered at the hands of second and third owners though, because they’re pretty much non existent these days. Having said all that, I’ll probably see one tomorrow.
I remember playing GTA III and trying to figure out if the Sentinel was supposed to be an LS or a Diamante or something else entirely
I had my eyes on one in 2017, low miles and fairly cheap gas at the time. But I got scared by the reliability scores and cost of repairs.
It sounds good on paper and I think they look pretty good too but you couldn’t pay me to own one. I’ve seen quite a few where its Jaguar roots shine through and causes absolute nightmare-tier electrical issues. Maybe if it was new and in warranty but I have no interest in dealing with one today. There’s a reason they’re so cheap and it’s not just because they’re a forgotten about 20 year old Lincoln
The few people I knew who had them complained about constant problems.
Blanket statement with no evidence! Names and numbers please, I want to call and verify your public statements.
People from a probably defunct car site 20 years ago using internet handles . . . yeah, let me get those. I only remember they both said they had a continual stream of problems because I liked these and assumed they’d be decently reliable and simple, but was told otherwise and moved on.
Exactly how I felt. Kinda like the partner you woulda liked to have dated but risks didn’t outweigh the reward
Yeah, I don’t remember the specific problems, just that it was a fairly long list that crossed it out as an option in my mind. I don’t recall them being super critical stuff, but a lot of annoying things that add up and if I was going to deal with annoyance and wondering what was going to go next, I’d go Italian, which I also follow with dating.
The LS looked nice but still too unexciting in the styling department to overcome the Lincoln image. Looking at other $30k premium sedans from the early 2000s, Cadillac was figuring it out with the Art & Science CTS, Infiniti was figuring it out with the G35, Volvo was figuring it out with the S60.
The extra powertrain variety helped against the Catera, its natural domestic rival, but it could have stood for more power at the start. Not that all its rivals had much more, but it was a heavy car for what it was up against and the horsepower wars were really starting to heat up. The V8’s output output was about the same as the 5-year-old 4.0L V8 in the Olds Aurora, and the Chrysler 300M that came out the same year beat it by 1 hp from a 3.5L V6.
I always did think the CHMSL looked narrow/too square, like they were trying to ape the Lincoln badge.
I remember thinking it was crazy for Lincoln to ditch their only RWD-based sports sedan. The lauded 2005 retro Mustang was based on the LS platform (although they cheaped-out on the rear suspension, going with a live axle instead of some adaptation of the LS’ design).
One wonders what Ford would have done about the Mustang if the LS had not existed at that time. (Spend money on a new dedicated RWD platform?! The horror!)
My mom owned a 2003 V8 LS for a few years and I got a lot of driving time in it and one thing you forgot to mention is just how utterly and completely dogshit the automatic transmission was. It was an electronically controlled transmission that learned as you drove. So if you drove like an asshat, it expected hard full throttle shifting all the time. Conversely if you drove like mother, Teresa, it would shift up early and often, so if you say wanted to go hard on some back roads and then wanted to just cruise to the grocery store it got all confused. It also had a “manual” mode that would be responsibly fast on the up shifts and hold redlines, the downshifts were done after writing a letter to parliament to request permission (thanks jaguar!), and then lurch those shifts down. The rest of the car’s electrics were a rough amalgamation of Ford and Jaguar, and the 3.9 Lima engine was great for sound and size, performance upgrades were nonexistent.
Is this why Ford hasn’t done a four door version of the Mustang for North America? Was it shot down every time in the past fifteen years by the accountants pointing toward the Lincoln LS?
If they would have made this a Ford or Mercury and positioned it as the four door Mustang, they would have been a hit. It wouldn’t even have to had been called a Mustang, just styled like a four door sibling to the coupe.
Gonna be honest I definitely remember this car (mostly because a friend bought one used from a grandma and one week later totalled it by spinning out on the very expired tires in the rain) but I had absolutely no idea it was intended to be a sports sedan. Marketing failure for sure.
That’s how I totaled my c5! 9 year old run flats, rain and weddings receptions are just bad news
The Mustang is clearly and will only ever be a two-door sports coupe! Anything else is blasphemy, Ford would never do something like that with such a storied marque!
*shuffles mach-e dealer invoices to the bottom of the newscaster paper stack*
I feel like a four door Mustang would be a great way to resurrect the Cougar name. Yeah, it’s not a Mercury but I’d rather have a Ford Cougar than no Cougar
It has precedent, back in the mid 1960s, Lee Iacocca had wanted the Mustang to become a full range of cars, there were styling studies done for a sedan as the next step, but it ended up not happening, probably because the 2-doors were already selling well enough to strain Ford’s production capacity as it was
In the early 2010’s I was looking to ditch my subies for a V8 and these were the top of my list. Then a friend of mine directed me to a screaming deal on a super low miles CTS-V. I still have the V.
That’s a good friend.
I was strangely into these in the early 00s. I thought they were a proper sleeper with the V8. Looking for used ones most were being sold by old guys which meant they were in really great shape. But, sadly I could never afford them.
As someone who witnessed the development of this program, the target that Lincoln was trying to achieve was to be a competitor to the BMW 3 series ( not the 5 series) and as the old saying goes : “You can sell a young man’s car to an old man, but you cannot sell an old man’s car to a young man.” and that, IMHO, was the problem, it was a Lincoln, and due to the brand association was perceived as an old man’s car!
So why didn’t Cadillac have the same problems trying to sell giant Escalate SUVs to young hip hop wannabes with the same old man/old car stigma?
I think the Escalade had enough presence in it’s design to overcome Cadillac’s “old man” image.
It had enough metal anyway.
The Cadillac Escalade was a far departure from the traditional Cadillac, to say the least.
As anyone who paid a premium for a giant light up grill badge will tell you:
The badge matters!
As someone who’s Pinto badge key fob* back in the 1980s impressed exactly no-one I can tell you:
The badge matters!
*Looked like this:
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/xHsAAMXQEbdRm3PZ/s-l1600.jpg
And it was even a Shooting Brake Pinto**, and I bet even YOU aren’t impressed!
**Looked like this but brown!: https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/64sAAOSwngBep-bV/s-l1200.webp
Or Lincoln, with the Navigator
Had to create an account after lurking for 2 years just because of this. The LS was my first two cars, I did my research and found that this was the cheapest option to get a V-8 and RWD (great choice in WI). My parents had no idea, just let me buy what I wanted. After punting the first one, a 2002 V-8, well into a field of snow whilst attempting to drift a roundabout, it developed a shimmy at highway speeds that no amount of suspension parts replacement could fix. I then decided to sell it and upgrade. Very selective, I wanted a 2003+ LS with the V8 and the THX sound system with nav and the HID headlights. This led me and my father to a very precarious situation in Chicago but we ended up buying it. A 2004 LS that was loaded aside from the LSE package.To this day, it is one of my favorite cars I ever owned (out of about 20). However, from the electronic throttle body dying to blowing radiator hoses and random CEL’s and… the forbidden shimmy showing back up (I did not jump a curb at 30 in this one) I finally decided I had had it. I sold it and purchased a robins egg blue G35x, old man color incognito so that I could drive it as stupidly as an 18 year old does.
TL:DR Great car, and fantastic handling and balance for an “American car”, but holy hell, it was not reliable in the slightest.
I absolutely loved the Lincoln LS when it debuted, though I could never dream of affording one at the time. Sadly, they depreciated quickly and most got beat on by their second and third owners, to the point now where I didn’t think I’ve seen one in good condition in well over a decade. Too bad, as it was a good looking car.
It wasn’t ten minutes after I read this comment that I pulled into a gas station behind a red LS that looked to be in pretty good shape. (Driven by a dude in a flat-brimmed cap vaping with an energy drink in his hand, so it may not stay that way much longer). But I wouldn’t have even noticed it if I hadn’t just read this.
Haha! Well played! Thanks for giving me hope that perhaps nice ones are out there.
I think the CTS is what killed the LS, Lincoln sold 51,000 in its first full year on the market, and 40,000 in the second year, but the first full year of the two competing head to head, the LS sold 33,500 against Cadillac’s 49,400. Cadillac went on to outsell the LS every year, and CTS sales kept climbing as the LS dropped.
The last full year of the LS saw its sales crash to 19,000, but the CTS hit its all-time best year with 61,500
The Lincoln was better built and had a nicer interior, but something about the CTS was just more appealing to customers, and I really think they sold to exactly the same sorts of buyers at the time
“…but something about the CTS was just more appealing to customers”
Because the CTS had “styling”
I think it came down to the design – the CTS’ stealth fighter look was wild and attention-grabbing at the time, whereas the LS looked like…a competent sedan.
Historically, this has always seemed to be Ford’s thing, underplaying design, sometimes a little too much.
How many Caddilac dealers were there in 1999? How many Lincoln dealers? That might have been the difference. Remember, this was before mainstream internet.
The early 2000s was not before mainstream Internet. But the furthest back I can easily find dealer counts for is the 2009/2010 timeframe when GM and Ford were going through their recession era brand and dealer culls, at that time there were 1,400 Cadillac dealers and 1,187 Lincoln-Mercury
(as of 2024, Cadillac has about 590 and Lincoln is sitting at 500, so there’s been a massive drop in the past 14-15 years, but the numbers were already gradually falling before that)
My point about 1999 being before internet is that the relative lack of Lincoln dealers compared to Cadillac dealers made it hard to compare the sales numbers. IIRC, Ford was in the middle of their own attempt to go “Euro”, and the hope that the popularity of the LS would lead to an increase in the number of Lincoln dealers.
Nah, there were Lincoln-Mercury dealers everywhere, and they were absolutely killing Cadillac in full-size sales, Town Car and Grand Marquis were wiping the floor with the Deville. Ford and GM both had too many dealers, not too few, Cadillac and Lincoln’s dealer networks were both still sized for pre-Lexus/pre-Mercedes/pre-BMW days when they owned the luxury market. But, still, Lincoln-Mercury was moving over 600,000 cars a year around 1999-2000, Cadillac sales were around 180,000 at the time. Lincoln-Mercury did have two brands to Cadillac’s one, but Lincoln alone was still in the 190,000 units a year range at the turn of the millennium
As far as Internet was concerned, 52% of all households had access as if the end of 2000, among households that could afford new luxury car, the percentage was much higher. Lincoln and Cadillac had both had their websites up and running since at least 1996.
To add to that, comparing pre-CTS, the LS sold better every year except for the final year you mentioned, than the Catera did any year Cadillac made it. The LS was a better entry to the segment than the Catera, but if we’re saying it was simply number of dealers, that wouldn’t necessarily work out that way. I’ve always perceived Cadillac and Lincoln to be pretty neck and neck in dealer counts but even if there was a dramatic difference, Lincoln still managed to outsell Cadillac often in the 90s and early 2000s like you mention, with about the same number of model lines in each showroom.
By the time the CTS went on sale the LS was about 3 years old so it’s not really surprising either, but LS sales still dwindled after the facelift and there were plenty of other options in the space especially if you weren’t committed to RWD. Ford just wasn’t committed to the model at that point when they had too much else they were struggling with, like PAG as a whole.