http://www.lincoln.com/zephyr/home.asp

Seems to be lots of interest lately in the new Ford Fusion / Mercury Milan / Lincoln Zephyr triplets, so, as I had already stated that I would look at them, I popped by the Lincoln-Mercury store today to check them out. I had already seen, not test-driven, the Fusion and Milan elsewhere but not the Zephyr. So most of my time today, (and the test-drive) was spent with the Zephyr. Of the three cars, I felt that the Zephyr would be of most interest to the typical CL member reading this....more so then the cheaper Fusion and Milan.....and, not surprisingly, the Zephyr was clearly, IMO, the best-looking of the three, inside and out.
So....here's my report:

Model Driven:

2006 Lincoln Zephyr
MSRP (including freight) $30,995.
3.0L V6, 6-speed automatic.
Exterior: Black
Interior: light cream leather

PLUSSES:

Competitive price ( base $26,990 )

CLASSY interior

Reasonably tight body structure

Well-refined and fairly isolated interior...not as well-isolated as Town Car.

Somewhat conservative but still attractive color choices

Console-mounted parking brake...the only one in the Lincoln-Mercury line except for brother Milan.

4 year / 50,000 mile warranty instead of 3 / 36 like Ford and Mercury products.

AWD model on the horizon.

Plenty of head and leg room inside on the base model.

Large, superb, well-shaped, no-nonsense taillights...some of the best I have seen.

Choice of keyless-entry or door push-pad numbers....both combined.


MINUSES:

Dummy wheel and spare tire instead of real ones.

Poorly and cheaply-chromed, rigid, nonfolding outside mirrors.

Too much road noise....and a less-than-smooth ride over bumps.

Flat, non-supportive, leather power bucket front seats.

3.0L V6 engine almost impossible to work on from above.

Second-rate paint job ( in the domestic-car tradition )....too much orange peel.

Front-drive fine for normal driving and winter traction but not for hard, sport-sedan driving.

Interior hardware classy in looks but mixed in quality...some well-done, others cheap and flimsy.


OK...the first impresion one gets of this car is that it is a modern, up-to-date, more economical and agile Lincoln with the classic 60's interior......something that the last smaller Lincoln...the LS....didn't have. Ordinarily.....me being Mr. Practical......I don't usually recommend higher-priced cars over less-expensive corporate brothers but in the case of the Zephyr, I'm going to make an exception......IMO the interior alone on this car, with its classy, squared-off sections and well-finished look, is worth the $5000-$8000 premuim over its less expensive Fusion and Milan cousins. In many ways the interior combines the '60's Lincoln look I grew up with modern ( but rather flat and unsupportive, especially for a guy my size ) bucket seats. The circular air vents were well-designed, with the Pontiac-style circular twirl motion but with hinged, adjustable slats, and had a nice, firm, well-crafted feel....unusual in a Ford product. The 4-spoke steering wheel ( with wheel-mounted buttons, of course) was rather unusual...the leather was on the top and bottom, with the real ( highly polished ) wood at the three and nine-o'clock position on the sides. Lincoln says its research shows customers prefer the wood on the sides rather than the top and don't like gripping the wood for actually steering.
Ordinarily I am not a fan of highly polished wood ( I like flat-matte wood surfaces) but it looks really nice in the Zephyr...ditto for the wood strips on the doors and lower dash. Light-color birchwood ( like in some Volvos ) is also available if desired. Almost everything about the interior looks classy and well-done (unlike the Lincoln LS )....I was very impressed with it, except for some of the dash-mount switches for the headlights and the power-window switches, which felt cheesy in the Ford tradition....and the left-hand stalk for the turn-signals, which was mounted at an odd up-angle which made one think it was stuck in the right-turn position....this took some getting used to, but had a nice, Japanese-precision feel to it.

There is plenty of room inside even for my 6' 2" and 275-lb. frame. Base models without the sunroof and NAV systems ( there are no separate Zephyr model lines as such) have PLENTY of headroom and well-designed, rotary-knob , simple-to-use radio and clear, simple dual-climate controls. More expensive models with sunroof and NAV systems suffer a little loss of headroom but still are not bad at all in that regard.....and my big frame is a good judge of that. NAV models, however, like many similiar cars, have more-complex radio controls.....you will have to get the Owners' Manual out.

On the road...the 3.0L 4-valve Duratec V6's power level, with its 205 ft.-lbs. of torque, was fine if you don't plan to go drag-racing on Friday nights....but this engine is NOT for do-it-yourselfers. With its plastic upper shield and general design, you can reach almost nothing from above, which means a trip to the shop or car ramps for just about everything. The front-drive, 6-speed automatic shifted smoothly and quietly and kicked down readily....( again, as always, not over 4000 RPM with a new car ). The engine was quiet except for moderate-to hard acceleration, when a distinctive sport-sedan-growl could be heard. The ride was a little on the firm side for my tastes....primarily due to the 50-series 17" tires ( all else equal, I generally don't like anything under a 55-60 series ), and tire and road noise distinctly made its presence known on many surfaces.....IMO the car could use a little more insulation underneath. No problems with the 4-wheel disc brakes.....smooth, liner feel, light-to-moderate effort.....none of that Mercedes brake-by-wire no-feel crap. Handling, likewise, for a front-drive car, was exemplary ( perhaps due to the same low-profile tires that gave a less-than-perfect ride ) but the steering, like many other Ford products, felt too light and overboosted for my tastes, without much on-centering feel.

I definitely want to go back and drive the AWD model when it becomes available. IMO it will be a good domestic competitor to the new Lexus IS250 AWD....though the IS no doubt has somewhat better materials and build quality, and probably an even stiffer ride with its 45-series tires.

So.......here's my overall take in a nutshell:

This is a well-executed, competitively-priced small-to-medium-sized luxury sedan with a touch of sport in its suspension and tires, a true luxury-sedan inside in looks and ( in some things ) feel. It will not compete with rear-drive sport sedans in hard-edged performance....don't look for any BMW M-type track numbers here.....but the up side to that, of course, is better traction with the front-drive....and the promise of even better traction on the horizon with the upcoming AWD version.