The Secret Ingredient Is Ford Fusion Ford Motor MORE CHOICE Although the MKZ is based on the midsize Ford Fusion sedan, the two cars share no body panels. Unlike the Ford, the Lincoln offers an optional V-6 in addition to its EcoBoost turbo 4-cylinder. I'd like to make a confession: I'm a Lincoln owner. I have a 2010 MKT EcoBoost and I love it. It has all-wheel drive, 355 twin-turbocharged horsepower and three-row seating like a minivan. Its weird Art Deco-flavored styling is even growing on me. When every crossover resembles a polished oblong river rock, the MKT stands out for at least trying to look like something else. Perhaps that "something else" is a mutant baleen whale from outer space, but at least it's not another river rock. More important, it's not a Ford Flex. The MKT is, to my mind, the most successful Lincoln because it's the one that's least similar to its Ford counterpart. The Flex is square, but the Lincoln is rakish, and nobody will ever confuse the two. The recently renamed Lincoln Motor Company would do well to create such a distinction across its lineup, and the 2013 MKZ is a hopeful indication that Lincolns of the future will be stylistically removed from their Ford relatives. The MKZ is based on the Ford Fusion, but the cars share no body panels. Informal man-on-the-street consensus is that the MKZ looks great. But so does the Fusion and that, to me, points to the MKZ's biggest problem: despite the distinctive bodywork, there remains a built-in sibling rivalry with Ford. Lincoln certainly isn't the only company to spin multiple cars off the same platform. The MKZ's closest competitor is probably the Lexus ES 350, which is a spiffed-up Toyota Avalon. But Lexus is in an enviable position regarding brand cachet, in that it has some. Plenty of people would buy an ES 350 over an Avalon just to get that sleek "L" on the grille. On the other hand, I can attest that nobody spies a Lincoln badge and declares, "Gee, somebody's doing awfully well!" So Lincoln has to try harder to offer something you can't get from Ford. And it seems as if every time I note something positive about the MKZ, I realize that a similar plaudit applies to the Fusion. The MKZ's standard 240-horsepower EcoBoost 4-cylinder is a punchy little motor, just as it is in the Fusion. The 19-inch wheels fill the fenders with serious-looking low-profile rubber, just as the Fusion's 19-inch wheels do. The Lane Keeper driver-assistance package is groundbreaking in that it will actively steer to keep you in your lane, a feat that is equally impressive when the Fusion does it. Adaptive cruise control, blind-spot monitoring, torque vectoring - all great features. And all features of the Fusion, as well as the MKZ. A few years ago I met with some Ford executives, who told me that the company's sell-off of its premium brands (notably Volvo and Jaguar) meant that the regular Fords would no longer be denied luxury content. Gee, they weren't kidding. The front-wheel-drive MKZ that I tested had a retail price of $43,145. A similarly equipped Fusion would go for about $35,000. So let's talk about how Lincoln justifies that extra $8,000. (I mean, besides hiring Emmitt Smith as a "brand ambassador" and commissioning Jimmy Fallon to create a Twitter-sourced Super Bowl commercial. What, you don't remember Lincoln's Super Bowl ad? Exactly.) Other than its exterior styling, the MKZ offers several less significant divergences from its Ford cousin. The Lincoln's leather, for instance, is definitely finer than the Ford's. The MKZ's Bridge of Weir hides make the Fusion interior look as if it's upholstered in sun-bleached scraps of desiccated Naugabeast. The Lincoln's giant sunroof, a $2,995 option, is quite cool, too, sliding down over the rear window like a jaunty hat. It's the only sunroof I can think of where the size is measured in square feet (15.2). This thing's so big, it should have a baseball field under it. Or a giant telescope. Lest you fear frying in your rolling greenhouse, Lincoln says that with the roof closed, the SPF factor is more than 100. The car I drove had an even better SPF than that, because like 85 percent of MKZs it didn't have the big sunroof. Perhaps the oddest option is a $1,565 handling package that includes supercar-worthy Michelin Pilot Super Sport tires. So equipped, an all-wheel-drive MKZ tested by Edmunds.com ran the slalom faster than the BMW M5. Edmunds questioned who would buy a Lincoln so equipped, but I love the idea of a rarely ordered performance package that transforms your Lincoln into an M5-beater in the corners. You know, not many people ordered ZL-1 Corvettes in 1969, either. An earlier version of this article carried an erroneous byline. The review was by Ezra Dyer, not Lawrence Ulrich.