The Lincoln Blackwood Was an Ultra-Quirky Luxury Truck Failure
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Date: 2021-03-18
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Comments and reviews: 9
Charlie
2002 was my first year at Ford HQ. Here s the unconfirmed internal story I was told re how the Blackwood was born. In those days, Ford had a multi-day program for its hundreds of annual new hires from every department (e. g, engineering, finance, IT, legal, etc) called New Employee Orientation (NEO. A fun part of NEO (most of it was B-O-R-I-N-G) was breaking into small teams and designing a new vehicle (my teamed designed a Lincoln LS station wagon) and then giving a brief presentation about your creation to all of the other teams, NEO leaders, and at least one member of the Ford vehicle design team. According to our NEO leaders that year, the most famous moment in NEO history was when a random team stunned everyone but especially the Ford vehicle design team with the presentation of their brilliant idea for a special edition of Ford s best-selling F-150 truck, which they called the F-150 Harley-Davidson. As the story was told to us, that random team of new employees from multiple departments were immediately rushed from the room and tasked with pitching their shocking why-had-no-one-thought of-this-before idea to a quickly-assembled group of Ford designers and executives. The Blackwood, we were told, was just the latest attempt by Ford (Lincoln) to further expand the market for its best-selling vehicle, the F-150, as inspired by that greatest moment in NEO history.
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2002 was my first year at Ford HQ. Here s the unconfirmed internal story I was told re how the Blackwood was born. In those days, Ford had a multi-day program for its hundreds of annual new hires from every department (e. g, engineering, finance, IT, legal, etc) called New Employee Orientation (NEO. A fun part of NEO (most of it was B-O-R-I-N-G) was breaking into small teams and designing a new vehicle (my teamed designed a Lincoln LS station wagon) and then giving a brief presentation about your creation to all of the other teams, NEO leaders, and at least one member of the Ford vehicle design team. According to our NEO leaders that year, the most famous moment in NEO history was when a random team stunned everyone but especially the Ford vehicle design team with the presentation of their brilliant idea for a special edition of Ford s best-selling F-150 truck, which they called the F-150 Harley-Davidson. As the story was told to us, that random team of new employees from multiple departments were immediately rushed from the room and tasked with pitching their shocking why-had-no-one-thought of-this-before idea to a quickly-assembled group of Ford designers and executives. The Blackwood, we were told, was just the latest attempt by Ford (Lincoln) to further expand the market for its best-selling vehicle, the F-150, as inspired by that greatest moment in NEO history.
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Willard
Quick history lesson: I have been into the auto sales for over 30 years. The Lincoln Pickup is now the Ford F-150 Platinum. Ford learned that it's customers did not want to go to two dealerships Ford & Lincoln to shop basically the same truck. Ford launched a luxury trim for it's trucks and SUV's in the 1980's called the Eddie Bauer trim. Some of us remember the rich kids having Eddie Bauer backpacks in school. Anyway, all of us laughed including me at the idea of a luxury trim truck. It turned out to be successful and most of us remember O. J. Simpsons white Eddie Bauer Bronco. GM took notice and started the Denali trim for it's SUV's. Ford then took it a step further with the King Ranch and Harley Davidson trims. Ford also went further with the Lincoln Blackwood but it was replaced with the Lincoln Mark LT. Ford realized that they were missing out on a lot of sales and learned that it would be more profitable to offer the Lincoln truck in a F-150 trim, so it became the Platinum. GM truck customers would come into the dealerships looking for luxury trim pickup truck so GM finally built a Denali pickup. Now, everyone including the Tundra and Titan offers a luxury trim pickup truck and the rest is history.
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Quick history lesson: I have been into the auto sales for over 30 years. The Lincoln Pickup is now the Ford F-150 Platinum. Ford learned that it's customers did not want to go to two dealerships Ford & Lincoln to shop basically the same truck. Ford launched a luxury trim for it's trucks and SUV's in the 1980's called the Eddie Bauer trim. Some of us remember the rich kids having Eddie Bauer backpacks in school. Anyway, all of us laughed including me at the idea of a luxury trim truck. It turned out to be successful and most of us remember O. J. Simpsons white Eddie Bauer Bronco. GM took notice and started the Denali trim for it's SUV's. Ford then took it a step further with the King Ranch and Harley Davidson trims. Ford also went further with the Lincoln Blackwood but it was replaced with the Lincoln Mark LT. Ford realized that they were missing out on a lot of sales and learned that it would be more profitable to offer the Lincoln truck in a F-150 trim, so it became the Platinum. GM truck customers would come into the dealerships looking for luxury trim pickup truck so GM finally built a Denali pickup. Now, everyone including the Tundra and Titan offers a luxury trim pickup truck and the rest is history.
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Justin
Well the front end is off the 2000 Navigator and so is the rear lights. The rest of the Interior is a combination of different Ford models Lincoln and F Ford F-150 switchgear like the window switches and things like that well the reason why the the Blackwood didn't sell right was the price and the fact that Ford introduced the truck too early and what they should have done is redesign the whole thing and wait for the next year or two Navigator to come out and bring it out then I mean the interior looks like an interior from an early 2000s Ford I don't think the interior looks that bad especially for something that's almost 20 years old I mean modern standards it would be bad but I mean 80s 90s and early 2000s were the hard plastic genre as far as cars I think every Honda Civic and Ford and Chevy had hard plastics from that era so it would be unfair to compare it to Modern standards
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Well the front end is off the 2000 Navigator and so is the rear lights. The rest of the Interior is a combination of different Ford models Lincoln and F Ford F-150 switchgear like the window switches and things like that well the reason why the the Blackwood didn't sell right was the price and the fact that Ford introduced the truck too early and what they should have done is redesign the whole thing and wait for the next year or two Navigator to come out and bring it out then I mean the interior looks like an interior from an early 2000s Ford I don't think the interior looks that bad especially for something that's almost 20 years old I mean modern standards it would be bad but I mean 80s 90s and early 2000s were the hard plastic genre as far as cars I think every Honda Civic and Ford and Chevy had hard plastics from that era so it would be unfair to compare it to Modern standards
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Aqvamare
Believe it or not, as opperator, you are happy on a telefon line, when you get GPS numbers and not street names.
Nothing is worth than the different accent of people on a telefon line.
There is a reason why the army use nato alphabeth even for letters and the question, can you spell it, nato please
Numbers are far more easy to understand and to use on your operatore system, every operatore system can recode the gps numbers to street name at this point.
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Believe it or not, as opperator, you are happy on a telefon line, when you get GPS numbers and not street names.
Nothing is worth than the different accent of people on a telefon line.
There is a reason why the army use nato alphabeth even for letters and the question, can you spell it, nato please
Numbers are far more easy to understand and to use on your operatore system, every operatore system can recode the gps numbers to street name at this point.
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Daniel
Saw one of these roll into the local car wash 10+ years ago. Elderly man had clearly flogged it through some mud roads or a field. Plenty of mud and grass/stalks hanging off of the bottom. The trim and body appeared to have some damage too Was quite a sight. I found it amusing that Lincoln managed to make opening a tailgate a 3-step process with reliability issues.
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Saw one of these roll into the local car wash 10+ years ago. Elderly man had clearly flogged it through some mud roads or a field. Plenty of mud and grass/stalks hanging off of the bottom. The trim and body appeared to have some damage too Was quite a sight. I found it amusing that Lincoln managed to make opening a tailgate a 3-step process with reliability issues.
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Lucas
The engine in this truck was relatively powerful for the time but certainly not reliable. 5. 4 Triton had serious issues with lubrication/sludging, broken spark plugs and the timing chain tensioner (to list a few. When you look at the used vehicle market, 5. 4L equipped trucks litter various auto sale sites.
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The engine in this truck was relatively powerful for the time but certainly not reliable. 5. 4 Triton had serious issues with lubrication/sludging, broken spark plugs and the timing chain tensioner (to list a few. When you look at the used vehicle market, 5. 4L equipped trucks litter various auto sale sites.
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christdragon
I've seen a few of these in person. I used to live in northern Michigan and people there get to see all the interesting stuff from Detroit. I would prefer this to a regular pickup truck or SUV but not a luxury car.
Doug the type of guy to get really excited about a Ford/Lincoln Blackwood. Thanks
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I've seen a few of these in person. I used to live in northern Michigan and people there get to see all the interesting stuff from Detroit. I would prefer this to a regular pickup truck or SUV but not a luxury car.
Doug the type of guy to get really excited about a Ford/Lincoln Blackwood. Thanks
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Luk ovy
This would make a perfect car for the mafia. The bed is perfect for transporting tied up passengers, cocaine, weapons and all the other good stuff while keeping the cargo hidden.
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This would make a perfect car for the mafia. The bed is perfect for transporting tied up passengers, cocaine, weapons and all the other good stuff while keeping the cargo hidden.
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Cptn.
Honestly, I would have loved if the Blackwood just had a but more rear seat room, sort of embracing it's SuperSized Sedan attitude, sort of like the Brazilian Superduty Sedan.
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Honestly, I would have loved if the Blackwood just had a but more rear seat room, sort of embracing it's SuperSized Sedan attitude, sort of like the Brazilian Superduty Sedan.
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