Gengras LINCOLN

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Driving Impressions

The MKT offers many pleasant surprises, but none can match its driving experience. First of all, consider the top-of-the-line EcoBoost model's 355 horsepower and 350 foot-pounds of engine torque. The MKT is a family SUV, but power figures like that sound like they belong in a sports car!

Given the burden of the MKT's nearly 5000-pound weight, however, these power figures are well suited to delivering a full-size luxury SUV that has enough performance to match the luxury sedans around it. The MKT may not be a muscle car, but it's no truck, either.

In fact, driven vigorously, it blends smoothly with other competent luxury vehicles, and does so in the most surprising of ways. The MKT design staff is outright boastful about the handling of the MKT, and just for once, we buy every word of it. On back roads, this crossover exhibits extremely accomplished cornering and over-the-road controllability. Its excellent wheel control means the wheels follow the terrain of the road surface with a minimum of bounce, maintaining smooth, constant contact. Its steering is remarkably alive, feeding to the driver constant information about the road being traversed and how much traction is available. And entering a corner, the MKT has almost no roll or lean as it turns in. This encourages an undisturbed, calmly analytic state of mind in the driver.

Pushed harder through a corner, the MKT's front wheels grip tenaciously, closely following the steering wheel's turn commands, a characteristic lacking in most big SUVs. The value of this heightened cornering ability is, if you have to swerve out of someone's way very suddenly in an emergency, the MKT will do a better job of following your commands than some of its most prestigious competitors, including Acura and Audi. This crossover SUV's agility and predictability make driving it both very safe and honestly exhilarating. In fact, against all expectation, we found this Lincoln to be the best-handling large SUV we've driven. Period.

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