As a proud Lincoln owner, I know that they've been making great cars for years. The LS was a great vehicle, and the new MKZ is a great sedan as well. The MKS, the new flagship vehicle, is a beast that would satisfy most Lexus buyers with its styling and performance. Now they've added the new MKT crossover (pictured above) to the mix.

The marketing message is also starting to sharpen as well, as Lincoln targets buyers in their 30's and 40's - the Gen X market.

Generation X, often referred to as the “slacker generation,” has shed that stereotype and now is a coveted consumer group at the top of its earning potential, Ford Motor Co. officials say.

With pockets flush with cash, consumers born between 1965 and 1976 are the target of Ford’s Lincoln brand, which is trying to reinvent itself after years of giving ground in the profitable luxury segment.

“We have an aging owner body, and we have the ability to move it in the right direction and get younger,” Matt VanDyke-marketing communications director, tells Ward’s at a recent media event here.

“To think we could flip over and get young 20-somethings into a luxury product at this point and consider Lincoln is something that I think is too much of a stretch,” he says.

Lincoln brass spent considerable time determining the unique makeup of Gen Xers, which VanDyke defines as being in their mid-30s to mid-40s. Unlike traditional luxury buyers, these consumers don’t want to appear “ostentatious.” Rather, they are “folks that are time-starved and look at luxury as something that makes their life simple and easier.”

How are they approaching this? One is an emphasis on technology. The design of the cars evokes a high-tech feeling that bears little resemblance to older Lincolns, yet it's not as edgy as the recent Cadillac designs so boomer buyers should feel comfortable as well. The other part of the strategy involves music. The campaign’s TV spots feature music that the Gen X group finds nostalgic. The ad for the Lincoln MKS features a remake of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” while the ad for the Lincoln MKT uses a version of the 1980s classic “Under the Milky Way," by Australian alternative rock band The Church. Check out a clip of the video below.

The strategy makes sense. I remember the Cadillac ad several years ago featuring the Led Zeppelin song. Music can help to reposition a brand, so Lincoln seems to be on the right track.

Great stuff. The General Motors ad that aired on NBC was terrible, but at least the cars were cool!

As you can see from this photo, the 2010 Jaguar XJ is a gorgeous car. The company seems committed to bold, new designs, and even the official Jaguar web site is beautifully designed.

Reactions are coming in from the auto press. Car and Driver proclaims, "At last, a Jaguar XJ that doesn’t resemble the one that came before. And before. And before."

Back in April, Jalopnik had this to say:

The current XJ, on sale since 42 AD, is a bloated attempt to pack modern luxury into an outdated design. If this shot is anything to go by, the 2010 Jaguar XJ isn't. Hallelujah.

Jaguar released this image to coincide with the Shanghai Auto Show, but the car itself will actually be unveiled on the Queen's soil on July 9th. Available with the pictured panoramic glass roof, a long or short wheelbase, A Europe-only V6 diesel or Jag's usual selection of 5.0-liter V8s; the supercharged 2010 Jaguar XJR will produce 510 HP. Sales should start at the end of 2009.

The New York Times reported today on the unveiling of the new Jaguar today.

Jaguar has two emblems, and each is a version of its totemic animal. Their informal names, the Leaper and the Growler, suggest two aspects of the British company’s tradition. The Leaper is a long, lithe cat, usually seen as a hood ornament; it signifies feline grace. The Growler is a full-frontal cat face, its teeth bared aggressively; it represents raw power.

The Growler may be supplanting the Leaper at Jaguar, to judge from the company’s redesigned and radically different flagship sedan, the XJ, which was unveiled in London on Thursday.

The new XJ replaces a sedan — or saloon, as the British charmingly call it — whose basic shape had not changed since 1968. The old car’s proportions were like nothing else still on the road; it appeared as long and stately as its bloodline.

“The XJ completes the family,” Ian Callum, Jaguar’s design director, said in a telephone interview before the unveiling. The big sedan carries out design themes that Mr. Callum introduced on the 2007 XK sports car and on the 2009 XF midrange sedan.

Jaguar also has a new owner, Tata Motors of India, which bought the marque, along with Land Rover, from Ford last year. Jaguar’s ill-fated venture into cheaper cars, with the X-Type line based on the Ford Mondeo, is history. And in recent years Jaguar has vastly improved its ratings in consumer quality and satisfaction surveys by J. D. Power & Associates and others.

The new sedan has a Growler, not a Leaper, on the front. “Aggressive” is the word Mr. Callum kept using to describe the design. “We want Jaguars to be noticed again,” he said.

Kudos to Tata Motors and Mr. Callum on an elegant but powerful design worthy of this great brand.

The GM restructuring raises the stakes for Cadillac, one of the four brands that will survive the GM bankruptcy. The Detroit News explains that while the brand still has some challenges, quality has improved and the brand has other factors going for it as well.

Under bankruptcy, Cadillac will be able to cut its dealers from 1,500 to 500, enabling the survivors to reduce discounts and become more profitable.

Cadillac is revamping its lineup, too. It is developing a large sedan, the XTS, to replace the STS and aging DTS cars. It will build a small car to compete in the segment dominated by BMW's 3 Series.

It is now launching the SRX crossover with taillights that evoke glamorous fins of the past.

Next month, Cadillac will roll out a CTS wagon and a coupe next year. "You'll see us playing in all those segments," Hill said.

By many measures, Cadillac holds its own against the top-tier luxury brands. "They're there in quality," Csere said. "Some models are absolutely there in styling." The CTS-V, the performance version, "is perfectly capable of running with a BMW M5 or a Mercedes E63 AMG."

Alexander Edwards, a partner at the San Diego consulting firm Strategic Vision, said Cadillac scores well in surveys measuring "things gone right" -- features that appeal to customers, as opposed to the absence of flaws. In the latest survey, it beat out Lexus and BMW, he said.

In this year's J.D. Power and Associates' Initial Quality Study surveying new car owners, Cadillac came in third place, behind only Porsche and Lexus.

With its new vehicles, Cadillac is picking off import buyers like Oscar Cabrera, a salesman at Credit Suisse's fixed-income trading desk in Boston. He and his wife went for Japanese models until three months ago, when they bought an SRX for $36,000. "It came down to the features and price. I like the car," Cabrera said. "The interior is very nice. It feels very high end."

Still, while Cadillac has improved its vehicles, analysts say the brand is not clearly defined.

Compared with the German carmakers, it has a lineup of models that bear little relation to one another, from the cushy DTS sedan favored by an older crowd, to the Escalade SUV that attracts superstar athletes and the crisp-handling, rear-wheel-drive CTS.

"You know what BMW stands for, and what Mercedes stands for. Cadillac is all over the lot," said Art Spinella, president of CNW Research in Bandon, Ore. "They have to decide how to make that lineup cohesive."

It's easier to market vehicles when the brand is well defined, he said, and it costs less.

Cadillac also lags in showcasing advanced technology. It rolled out a plug-in hybrid concept at this year's Detroit auto show, the Converj, with a drivetrain similar to that of the Chevrolet Volt. But, says Howell, "that's not a project you'll see in the next couple of years."

Similar considerations led GM to drop the $80,000-plus XLR sportscar. "Part of that's driven by the economic situation GM's in," Howell said.

The article goes on to explain how Cadillac will not be a major player in Europe, where competition is very tough, and will instead focus on emerging markets like China and Russia. That makes sense for the long term.

BusinessWeek is reporting from the Detroit Auto Show that Cadillac is introducing a new concept car - an upscale plug-in hybrid called the Cadillac Converj. As you can see from the photo, this vehicle looks sweet. BusinessWeek is calling it "the Volt's seductive sibling."