Automotive Trends

The Best F-150 Ever Isn’t Even A Ford

    That’s right. The best F-150 you can buy wears a Lincoln badge, and, for some reason, is called the Mark LT. Actually, the Lincoln folks won’t like that statement, but we call ‘em as we see ‘em here. If it looks like an F-150, sounds like an F-150 and drives like an F-150, then logic would dictate it must be Ford’s bread-and-butter pickup. But logic doesn’t always find a home in the automobile business, and that’s why Lincoln can add a little chrome—ok, a lot of chrome—to an F-150, and charge a premium for it. Neglecting the fact that you and I both know this is little more than a trim level on the work-a-day F-150, how did Lincoln’s second attempt to crack the luxury truck code turnout? Read on for that answer.
     You may not even remember that Lincoln has already played a round in the luxury truck game. In fact, they invented the game when sales of the Navigator took off like a Saturn V in the late ‘90s. Logic led Lincoln execs to apply the same formula to a pickup version of the Navigator. Surely it would sell like lemonade in the Sahara. Lincoln called it the Blackwood and it was elegant, luxurious, expensive and, it turned out, useless. The bed was little more than a trunk and you could only seat four people. Consumers knew the same thing we did: There are better ways to spend $50k, and they voted with their checkbooks by buying next to none. Lincoln withdrew the vehicle from the market and tried to forget the wasted investment. Or, more likely, set to work on a pickup that is, you know, actually a pickup.
     For 2006, Lincoln has delivered just that. The Mark LT is a hardworking truck with heavy-duty hardware for its 4×4 system and enough towing capacity to realign a mobile home park. Where does it get those muscular mechanicals? One look and you’ll know. This is an F-150 with a different grille.
     OK, it also has Navigator taillights, unique 7-spoke 18” wheels (chromed for $695) and enough chrome trim to make a trucker envious. Beyond that, paint any old SuperCrew F-150 black and you’re 85% of the way to a Mark LT. Now, we may be calling the LT out as a gussied-up F-150, but there’s no denying it’s a good looking truck. Fuel stops produced a chorus of compliments directed at how well the deep black paint and plentiful chrome compliment each other. It’s a seriously slick truck and Lincoln used the few subtle changes to great effect. Aside from the style enhancements, the truck remains highly functional, with large exterior mirrors for good visibility and a tailgate assist mechanism to make shutting the otherwise heavy tailgate an easy task. One functional problem that all F-150s suffer is the high walls of the 5.5-foot bed; even six-footers will need their tiptoes to get items out of the box.
     The hardware under the hood will look familiar to any F-150 owner. The 5.4-liter 3-valve V8 makes the same 300 hp and 365 lb-ft of torque as it does in the F-150. It’s a great truck engine, relatively smooth and responsive with peak torque at an accessible 3,750 rpm. Choices are limited with the 4-speed automatic but if you lockout overdrive you stay nearer the powerband, at the expense of fuel economy—already rated at a not spectacular 14/18 city/highway. We’re expecting the six-speed automatic already available in the Navigator to migrate to the Mark LT sooner rather than later. That will provide smoother power delivery and improved fuel economy, among other things. The LT is available in either 4×2 or 4×4 versions, ours being the 4×4 complete with an electronic shift-on-the-fly transfer case.
     Regardless of two-wheel drive or four-wheel drive, the suspension features a double wishbone coil-over-shock independent setup in front and a live axle out back suspended by leaf springs and outboard mounted shock absorbers. Ford says the outboard shocks are to thank for the Mark LT’s controlled ride. They also reign in the excessive body roll found on other trucks, even though a healthy amount remains. A lot of smaller road imperfections are filtered out, but the truck rides heavy and frost heaves, as well as broken pavement, upset the chassis, producing a noticeable racket. Lincoln would like you to believe otherwise, but the LT rides and handles like a truck plain and simple.
     It also goes and stops like a truck. Which is to say, it doesn’t do either particularly well. Even with an optional 3.73 limited-slip rear axle, put the spurs to her and the Mark LT takes 10 seconds to get to 60 mph. And despite 13” discs up front and 13.7” discs out back, the LT’s weight puts up a fight when it comes to stopping. Distances aren’t terribly long, but the pedal is soft and speed isn’t scrubbed off in a manner that is particularly reassuring. Dynamically, the Mark LT is a truck through and through, and far from the plush performer that Lincoln literature leads you to believe.
     We were most disappointed when we swung open the driver’s door and found an interior straight out of your neighbor’s F-150. We’ll give credit to Lincoln for wrapping the seats in some very nice Nudo leather and finishing them with contrasting piping, but the rest of the effort deserves some harsh criticism. This simply isn’t a luxury interior. The dash and everything on it are straight out of the F-150. The radio head unit and HVAC controls are the same units found in every Ford vehicle right down to the Five Hundred sedan. Save for some real ebony wood trim on the center stack and door panels (even that isn’t very convincing) everything here is available for thousands less on any F-150. Can you order such luxuries as a navigation system or cooled seats for your Lincoln pickup? Not a chance! Why Lincoln didn’t adapt the Navigator’s beautiful interior to fit the Mark LT is beyond us. The seats are also flat and unsupportive and the front passenger seat in our nearly new tester squeaked like grandma’s rocker. The effort (or lack thereof) shown here really is quite laughable.
     Which brings us to our conclusion. Certainly, the Mark LT has some strong points. Lincoln obviously learned from its past failure with the Blackwood and made this truck 100% pickup. It’ll tow 8,900 pounds and hardly break a sweat doing it. But ironically, whereas last time Lincoln forgot the truck side of the luxury truck equation, this time they dropped the ball on the luxury side. There is just nothing special about this $47,605 truck. It may be the nicest F-150 ever, but it makes a lousy Lincoln. Save yourself thousands and buy a loaded
F-150.

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