By Christopher A. Sawyer
The Virtual Driver

(November 9, 2014) Rumors swirling around Dearborn claim Lincoln is the recipient of a five-year, $5 billion infusion. The Reuters news service quotes four insiders who say a significant portion of the money will be used to create a modular architecture known as D6 that will spawn a number of new Lincolns and a few Fords. Undoubtedly the next generation Mustang will use the rear-drive architecture, and share a mix of materials that will lean heavily on aluminum. However, the story also claims D6 will be used for front- and all-wheel drive Lincolns and Fords as well.

Ford has been down this path before. In the 1990s it was pursuing a $2 billion program called DFC55 that would build front-, rear-, and all-wheel drive models off a common architecture. These cars would be shared between Ford, Mercury and Lincoln, as well as a number of European models, including the Sierra and Scorpio. With all of those vehicles using a common family of parts, the potential cost savings were very seductive.

It didn’t take long for the program to be split into two programs; the front drive DN101 and rear-drive DEW98, each with their own all-wheel drive variants. The front-drive platform was used for the 1992 Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable, as well as the Lincoln Continental and Ford Windstar/Mercury Monterey minivans. DEW98, on the other hand, formed the base for the Lincoln LS, Jaguar S-Type, XJ and XK8. Later it was translated into aluminum, and is still used underneath the XF sedan.

The reason for the split was simple, it was impossible to build a light, strong, efficient platform with multiple drive configurations using conventional methods. A clean sheet approach was necessary, one that would be built in a radically different manner, and require assembly plants with radically different layouts.

This was the idea behind the 1991 Contour and Mystique concepts that would eventually give their names to a pair of small, utterly conventional Ford and Mercury sedans.

The Contour Concept was Chuck Haddad's blueprint for a modular future, and was a radical departure in the way cars are built.

These radical vehicles were the brainchild if not the obsession of chief engineer Charles “Chuck” Haddad, who threw convention out the door and combined Ford’s budding interest in aluminum construction with a shared platform that would support front-, rear-, and all-wheel drive without compromise. It used a chemically bonded, extruded aluminum spaceframe co-developed by Ford and Reynolds Aluminum that was common in all things but wheelbase and width.

The front and rear bench-style seats were stationary and mounted to a cross-car beam that stiffened the structure and provided side crash protection. Composite body panels were bonded to aluminum frames using 500-1,000 lb./in.2 Velcro, a GE “light engine” used fiber optics to transmit light to the interior and exterior lights from a single source, and engine ancillaries like the water pump were driven by a large, crankshaft-driven alternator. However, this wasn’t the most radical aspect of the Contour and Mystique concepts.

Understanding that it was impossible to create a single structure that could accommodate the longitudinal engine placement of a rear-drive car and lateral layout of a front-drive vehicle, the Contour and Mystique used a concept called T-Drive that placed an inline engine laterally in the nose with its crankshaft just ahead of the front wheels. Like Vittoria Jano’s Alfa Romeo 8C, T-Drive sent power to the transmission via a large gear in the center of the crankshaft, and could be used to drive the front, rear or all four wheels. There were two proposed engines, a 4.0-liter eight-cylinder (basically two 2.0-liter inline fours on a common crank), and a 3.0-liter inline six.

Proof positive that you can't just dress Fords in new clothes, and expect people not to notice.

To keep the nose short and overhang minimal, ducted cooling was used. This drew air in the grille, through the radiator and air conditioning condenser, and exhausted it sideways into the front wheel wells. Not only did this create a compact cooling module that could be built up offline at a supplier facility and installed as a complete system at the assembly plant, it forced air out and around the front wheels like an air curtain, drew heat away from the front brakes, and reduced aerodynamic drag.

Despite the obvious amount of thought that had been put into this design, it never progressed beyond the concept phase no matter how hard Chuck Haddad fought for it. He was convinced it was the answer to Ford’s long-term needs, but the industry’s short-term thinking meant there were some major strikes against it:

     * It would obsolete the current plant and equipment, requiring significant investment in new processes and materials.

     • Even though it would use less material, aluminum is more expensive than steel, and the auto industry traditionally looks at component cost, not systems cost.

The auto industry has decades of experience with stamped and welded body structures, but almost none with those made from extrusions. It would require lots of testing for it to become comfortable with such a design.

The composite panels and Velcro attachments would need the same level of testing as the extruded aluminum structure in order to establish its suitability and ease of assembly.

T-Drive’s 90-degree power takeoff increased complexity and had the potential to increase the amount of noise entering the cockpit. The ducted cooling concept had never been tried in production, and would take significant development.

An inline engine is tough to package, and has the potential to compromise suspension design and the ability of the front wheels to apply enough lock for a reasonable turning circle. (The Contour had transverse leaf springs front and rear, with the ends of the leaf springs doubling as the upper control arm.)

If the D6 platform is indeed a single architecture with two drive concepts, it undoubtedly will use a concept similar to Lotus’s Variable Vehicle Architecture. VVA uses cast aluminum corner nodes that carry the suspension, wheels and tires, and act as the hard points for the chassis.

The most important car in the Lincoln saga is the next generation Mustang.

They are common for each vehicle and drive type. Front and rear length, overhang, width, wheelbase and bulkhead heights all can be changed, and the basic pieces rearranged to build front-, rear- and all-wheel drive combinations. It’s even possible, using this idea, to build a mid-engined sports car that shares 30% of the parts and 50% of the investment of its sister vehicles. Cold-cure bonding and self-piercing fasteners would figure prominently as welding reduces the yield strength of aluminum by half, localizes stresses, and requires double the material to handle the heat and stresses.

Following this model, it would be possible to replace every current Lincoln with a VVA-style vehicle, and add a few more. The Mustang would remain rear-drive, shift to aluminum, and have a large percentage of common parts although remaining unique, while Ford expanded its lineup with a few low-volume vehicles of its own.

If, as TrueCar CEO John Krafcik says, current U.S. auto sale numbers suggest that a “balanced” automaker needs to sell 30% of its volume in cars, 30% in sport utilities and vans, 20% in pickups and 20% in premium vehicles, the D6 platform can come none too soon to Lincoln. Ford is overrepresented in pickups, and wildly underrepresented in the premium segment.

It needs a healthy Lincoln in order to have the cash flow in order to invest in future products elsewhere. Falling gas prices are fanning F-Series sales, but too large of a reliance on pickups for its revenue would place the automaker in the same precarious position it found itself in the last major market correction. It must quickly balance its portfolio. The only question is: Is D6 the answer?

The Virtual Driver