2005 Lincoln Mark LT - Review

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Ford may struggle to move its highest-dollar sedans, but it’s always had success selling ultra-expensive versions of its trucks. Take the F-350 King Ranch we drove a while back: at $45,505, the Ranch stakes out some adventurous territory, from its hardware to its hard-to-swallow pricetag. It’s got the goods — like a 13,000-pound towing rating — and the sticker to match.But what’s a more sensitive, urbane cowboy to do when the brown-and-tan-and-more-brown King Ranch design theme is, like, so Santa Fe? Ford kindly directs you to look at a Lincoln, and the new Mark LT full-size truck.

Ford says the LT has the luxury and design elegance of Lincoln with the functionality of a pickup truck. And the appeal here, for the $42,700 in 4x4 trim, is the same as the King Ranch, but in a piano-black and platinum theme. The LT is a sophisticated truck that tows horse trailers from Lexington to Middleburg and still looks in place at the Inn at Little Washington.

Sharp-dressed truck

Lincoln expects mostly men in their 40s and 50s to be attracted to the LT, but is not so secretly hoping it will be a blinged-out favorite for the same guys who buys $5000 ostrich-skin boots and find the HUMMER H2 and Caddy Escalade way overdone. A narrow niche to be sure, but they’re not expecting the LT to account for anything close to the related F-150’s staggering 900,000-plus sales per year. At 10,000, the LT likely would be a profitable exercise.

For the better, the LT is basically an F-150 Crew Cab done over by folks who clearly have been watching Queer Eye even in its dotage. There’s no Blackwood-style sacrifice to appearance. The LT sports four full doors, front captain's chairs and a three-passenger rear bench, with good room and support for five adults. You wouldn’t want to be the middle passenger on the rear bench for an eight-hour trek up I-95, but an hour or two without complaint to the corners of, say, the Crawford ranch wouldn’t be out of the question.