The Lincoln LS Luxury Sedan Is Absolutely NOT What You Think It Is: Here's What I Mean!

hey guys this is a Lincoln LS and it is not the car that you think it is because underneath it is something totally different and uh it's well it's barely a Ford really I mean most Lincolns are Fords underneath right and this it barely qualifies as a Ford product it's mainly just got the uh the badges and some of the parts from Ford in it but underneath believe it or not this is actually a Jaguar S-Type which uh not a lot of people love the Jaguar S-Type and they are not known for a reliability so to make a American luxury sporty sedan based off of a Jaguar it's kind of a questionable decision that Ford made back in the early 2000s which kind of actually I think makes this an interesting vehicle let's take a look at it yeah and there's actually uh there's an artifact of this being a maybe not so reliable sort of Jaguar product really that will show you a little later on in this video but these are pretty funky cars I think it's a car that a lot of people have forgotten about the LS V8 specifically right here yeah exactly I mean this was Lincoln's attempt or their first attempt at making a sporty luxury sedan right they wanted something to compete with like the BMW 3 Series and the Mercedes C-Class and this was their attempt at it they figured what better way that to compete with the Europeans than to just have a European car with a Lincoln badge on it right can you imagine this being cross-shocked with a 3 Series it's kind of a hard thing to wrap your head around in today's world so Brenda tell me a little bit about some of the details on this car what's under the hood yeah so these had a few different options and let's pop the hood hey folks today's video is brought to you by salvagereseller.com this website allows you to bid live on online salvage auto auctions without a dealer's license you can register for free or use the 20 off coupon in the description below go find your Salvage card gem now if you got the base model it just had a three liter v6 which was you know a Ford Jaguar V6 that put out not a lot of horsepower we're talking like 210 horsepower or 220 in later versions this however is the V8 so this got Jaguars 3.9 liter V8 which pumped out like 250 horsepower so that's a hot car yeah so it still wasn't very fast uh and that's because this is a 2002 if you actually got a 2003 or later these were bumped up to 280 horsepower which makes it a little bit more compelling yeah I mean 280 is is actually not that bad but yeah 250 horsepower from a V8 nothing to write home about is it no it's not and I do like these uh notes that the previous owner left on here that it takes six quarts of 5W20 yeah and uh takes a lot of the investigating out yeah so that's actually not a bad thing yeah these cars were also rear-wheel drive and one I guess positive aspect of this being based on a European platform instead is that it does have pretty much 50 50 weight distribution doesn't it yeah these actually really did handle well especially for being a Lincoln excuse me especially for being a Lincoln these handled really well I mean if you think back in the early 2000s Lincoln was building the continental and the Town Car which are great comfortable Cruisers which I love quite frankly but this was a huge departure from what they had been doing at the time and so much so they really didn't sell all that well hence why about six years later it was discontinued yeah this is a pretty short run vehicle which is part of the reason that I think a lot of people have forgotten about them is that you really just don't see them around a lot because well like you said they didn't produce them for that many years six years but also not a lot of people bought them well not only that but if you look at these back seats and I'm going to hop around to the other side and hop in just so you can see now I've got the driver's seat positioned where [Music] where I would sit and it's I'm only five foot nine and my legs are pushing up against the back of the front seat so for a Lincoln it's really not very spacious back here I mean in their defense neither was a three series or anything like that but but it does kind of beg the question of who is really your target audience because I think a lot of the people that are looking for American cars expect more leg room than that they want one of those big American luxury boats and then people that are looking for European cars well they're not looking for that Lincoln badge so I think exactly I think it was doomed from the start yeah this was they thought like oh we're gonna bring the Best of Both Worlds we're going to bring the comfort of an American luxury car and the sportiness of a European luxury car right when in reality what it got was kind of the worst of both the worst exactly it got the unreliability of a European sports car and the not so much comfort and space of a European sports car but the ugly looks of an American like floaty boat car right I'll tell you what this car does have though it's got a sizable trunk it does actually yeah you could if you wanted to open this rear trunk put the key in to open it but this being a luxury car you got your own little popper or you could pop it open and and I will be I will say it is a surprisingly spacious rear trunk it you know it's not quite Lincoln Town Car spacious but it does have a huge amount of space to store things yeah I mean that at least is still very American car spec I could easily fit in that trunk so they did manage to give you that now there is also some interesting history behind this car and specifically the naming there's a little bit of a a fight over the name that they used on this because this is not the only luxury sedan that Brands the letters LS so when they were originally coming up with this car they kind of wanted to name it the LS6 and the ls8 to designate the different engine sizes but Toyota didn't like how close that was to their LS Sedan so Toyota threatened to take legal action over that and in response Ford threaten them right back about their t-150 pickup truck concept because of how close that name was to the F-150 so that concept became the tundra yeah I mean if you think back to this time when they were building their large trucks or when Toyota was building their large trucks it was called the t-100 so Natural Evolution of that name is the t-150 but you know with them throwing a little bit of shade at Lincoln for being like hey we already make a luxury sedan called the ls why are you infringing on our naming there well Ford goes well you're infringing on ours and so it was just kind of like shots fired and everybody just took a step back and we all said okay we'll go with ls you go with Tundra we'll just wipe our hands and that'll be it so yeah a little bit of drama behind this car but you know they've still ended up making it anyway and uh it's kind of funny looking at this interior this is very early 2000s American luxury car you can see the uh all the wood trim and leather kind of a rounded bubbly Dash it's um it hasn't necessarily aged all that well I think you you got to be a particular kind of buyer to appreciate this era of luxury cars yeah and if you are familiar with the Jaguar S-Type on the interior you will know that this Center stack is very very similar to what you would find in the Jaguar as well as like the instrument cluster and the steering wheel it's all very very derivative of that Jaguar because that is essentially what this is now the other interesting thing is is that this also shared the platform with the Ford Thunderbird so there's a more positive note you can spin on it because the Thunderbirds have actually gone up in value pretty recently and so if you say well you just got a four-door Thunderbird I think that makes it a little more interesting than saying you have a Lincoln badge Jaguar well and I will admit there are a few things on this interior they did do well I think the wood on the shifter as well as on the steering wheel I think that's pretty good plus look at these leather door Pockets yeah you got two you got a stretchy leather door pocket and then a regular door pocket so that's kind of interesting yeah and the seats are pretty decent yeah have you seen the center armrest and how how shallow it is I mean look at that I don't know if I could fit my phone in there oh in fact yeah I can't even fit my phone in there it's so small yeah there's some surprisingly small things on this car now I said earlier in the video that we would show you a little artifact of this car being based on a jaguar and being not necessarily the most reliable and to do that I will Crank It Up [Applause] and uh it might be hard to see on video I mean obviously as you can see the check engine light but this car is running [Music] you can probably see like my fingers are shaking a little bit yeah it's really hard to tell but okay so how about I grab the camera and you drive this let's take it onto the test track I'm gonna I'm gonna zoom out here so we can get a good view of you test driving the Lincoln LS man what a uh what a privilege to get to drive the ls on the track now yeah again this one is not it's not running that well you can definitely tell it's got a rough idle at least we can sitting in the car even from the passenger seat but what I can say that's positive about driving this car is that does ride really pretty well yeah it might just be blown out a little bit and that's why it feels so smooth but maybe this is an early attempt at massaging seats because it's kind of vibrating the seats a little bit as we drive it maybe maybe the rough idle was intentional yeah and they were trying to make it a a nicer car to drive now I haven't been to the auction in a while am I going the right way to get to the test tracker yeah just keep going down here and then uh just to the right of that trash can up there is our little test track where we can give it a little squirt and yeah you know at least see the zero to Thirty or zero to 40 on there speaking of trash can yeah let's let's see how it accelerates straighten out the wheel rear wheel drive let's see if it chirps the tires not really it's it's not an aggressive car now here's an interesting fact I want to see if we can try something a little different will you loop around and go back to that start again so they designed this from the get-go from the factory to because of EPA standards if you didn't give it at least 60 throttle from the start that it would start in second gear interesting just to get good MPGs and so that's why a lot of people complained about just how slow these cars are off the line so I think maybe if you break torque it a little bit oh it might it might maybe trick that because it says that if you uh if you give it over 60 throttle that it should start off in first gear yeah I don't expect we're at high risk of uh of roasting the tires so yeah let's let's uh let's left foot break it a little bit oh geez I'm not sure that was better actually yeah I think what happened is it took off a little fast I think you scared the car a little bit Nanny's kicked in and it's like no no but again to this car's credit it it does actually drive like you would want a luxury car too it drives smooth the steering is nice and light you know not precise it doesn't feel like old school BMW 3 Series steering which is very very good steering but for what I think this car was trying to be you know in some ways it did actually hit the marks and yeah it's it's a pretty smooth luxurious thing to drive doesn't screen performance to me but if you find one that's cheap and in decent shape and the reliability aspect doesn't scare you too much then it could be a decent running into the ground kind of car yeah I mean this is the kind of car that you buy assuming that the repair bills are going to be jaguar-esque because it is going to be jaguar-esque to fix and keep this thing maintained and running on the road yeah I think this is the kind of car that you buy and do the minimum to it until it stops going and then you move on now I may be dating myself a little bit but I was in high school when this car came out and I remember everybody was excited that finally an American luxury manufacturer making a fun fast sporty sedan but well time has kind of not been kind to this car I think as it's lived on they've kind of you know along with the Jaguar S-Type that was out at that time it's just gained a reputation for being fairly unreliable not very fast and not super engaging to drive compared to some of the competitors that were out at that same time but it is an interesting piece of History because this was Lincoln's first attempt at making a sporty luxury sedan and it could be something that's different to have out there on the road and did you know case that they actually offered the V6 version of this with a manual transmission and I think that might be the one to get yes it's only about 210 horsepower so it's not very fast but you could get a five-speed manual rear wheel drive American sedan you know if only they did it with the V8 I know they missed the boat on that one well anyways I'd love to know what you guys think in the comment section below do you love this Lincoln LS or is it just kind of a forgotten car for a reason did we break your heart oh do you agree with our conclusion here yeah either way let us know in the comment section below please hit subscribe if you want to see more videos like this this has been Brendan and case take care guys [Music] everybody

Channel: TFLclassics

Views: 76,719

Keywords: lincoln, lincoln ls, lincoln ls v8, lincoln ls v6, lincoln ls kbb, 2003 lincoln ls, 2000 lincoln ls, 2001 lincoln ls, 2002 lincoln ls, 2005 lincoln ls, lincoln car, lincoln lsc, lincoln town, lincoln test, 2004 lincoln ls, 2006 lincoln ls, lincoln ls 0-60, lincoln luxury, broken lincoln, lincoln ls crew, lincoln ls tv ad, lincoln ls issues, 2005 lincoln ls v8, 2003 lincoln ls v8, lincoln ls v6 0-60, lincoln ls cruise, 2004 lincoln ls v8, lincoln ls engines

Id: iZa1vcSMxpM

Length: 15min 15sec (915 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 21 2023