Lincoln - Ford’s luxury brand, didn’t take too long to learn from its mistakes, and is now implementing specific new design strategies to compete against the changes in the automotive industry. To keep up with these changes, Lincoln has decided to redesign its future lineup with fresh and more innovative designs. The all new 2013 Lincoln MKZ flagship, which was introduced at the New York International Auto Show this year, is a proof of this decision taken by the American luxury vehicle brand. J Mays, Ford Motor Company’s top designer said that the new grille included in the MKZ will not be the same for its future vehicles. The new grille has been designed after its previous vertical “waterfall grille”, which looked like teeth and was severely criticized for the same reason. “We haven’t made an announcement that every single car within the lineup is going to have the same grille bars. We needed with the MKZ to signal a new generation of Lincolns. That’s the first of the new cars to come with what I would call a more innovative face on it,” said Mays.

Mays gives the credit for these design changes to Max Wolff — the former design chief for Cadillac, and he said that Max was the one who asked him to change the grille when he was bought in from GM. Max wanted to keep the split grille and also wanted to experiment with changing the grille bars from vertical to horizontal. Lincoln hopes that Wolff will revitalize and reinvent the brand with a more youthful image. Despite the fact that the 2013 Lincoln MKZ is a brand new model, Lincoln still wants to stay traditional as the new face of MKZ reminisces on the design of the original 1938 Lincoln Zephyr. Mays also said that he doesn’t want to get Lincoln’s grille design to be applied on its future cars, just in different styles, much like what BMW and Mercedes-Benz have been doing.

“There’s nothing wrong with that strategy. I just don’t think it’s the right strategy for us. The MKZ is the first car of what will be a pretty long year journey of Lincolns. It takes years to build a brand up. The MKZ is the first step on that road,” Mays concluded.

via Egmcartech