Ford Lincoln to be made in China

Ford maybe planning to follow in GM’s footsteps and put the Lincoln luxury brand into production in the Chinese market to take advantage of a booming luxury segment that has so far been untapped by the blue oval.

GM put the Cadillac SLS into production with JV partner SAIC in the Chinese market, and also imported other models to fill the Cadillac dealerships. Cadillac has performed well in China with 1624 cars being delivered to consumers in August alone, which is an increase of 178% over the same period a year earlier, and Cadillac has seen sales increase of 157% over the first 8 months of the year. End of year Cadillac sales are expected to reach 10,445 units in 2010 in China.

Lincoln is so far sold only in American sphere of influence and certain middle eastern markets, it has yet to enter the European or Asian markets (not including South Korea) but in 2008, Ford’s CEO announced that Lincoln would go world wide yet again. Even in the US market, Lincoln is struggling against Cadillac, in August Lincoln saw sales of 6428 vehicles whilst Cadillac sold 12689.

A source close to Ford expressed that Lincoln will be going after BMW and Mercedes in the Chinese market, and doesn’t consider Cadillac, Acura or Infiniti as being true competition to their vehicles.

It will not be easy for Ford to introduce the Lincoln brand into China, whilst the luxury segment is booming it only appears to be booming for the German Three (BMW, Mercedes, and Audi) but the Japanese Luxury Three (Infiniti, Acura and Lexus) seem to be getting the cold shoulder from Chinese consumers. In 2009 Lexus sold 33,000 vehicles, Infiniti sold 5000 and Acura sold just 3400.

It’s not entirely clear what Ford’s plans for Lincoln are, they could test the waters with imported models as they have so far done with the Navigator, or they could begin production of certain crossover models and sedans within their Changan-Ford JV over the next coming months. China Car Times believes that imports are more than likely, but the Chinese media are indicating that the Lincoln brand is going to be produced loc