Lincoln “Hello Again” MKZ Drive Tour – 2013

A car guy buddy registered for this event and invited me as a guest. I’m a car guy too, so you think I’m gonna to pass up a chance to do this driving event and drive new cars? Does a bear crap in the woods?
I arrive at the recently remodeled Santa Monica Place (mall) and follow the signs

They set up «shop» in an unoccupied store space and transformed it into a nice display area.
With some high-​end products to check out. Like Lemon Bird Homemade Preserves ($ 13 for a 6 oz jar!):
And high end LSTN headphones I’ve never heard of:
As our scheduled time arrives, they gather us up, take us outside and give some quick instruction before turning us loose on the cars.
There were a total of 5 MKZ’s to choose from covering all the drivetrain configs: V6, 4 cyl-​hybrid, FWD, AWD and this turbocharged 4cyl version I drove.


We climb in, buckle up and we’re off on a follow-​the-​leader drive through the streets of Santa Monica.
The view from the back seat through the LARGE panoramic sunroof:
We reach the ½ way point, do a driver swap and now it’s my turn behind the wheel:
It was really nice having the chance to drive the new MKZ sedan (about 16 miles total), however driving in Santa Monica traffic… let me put it this way, 95% of the time we were between 10 and 25 MPH. Can you say «BOOORRRINNGG»?
OVERALL: A nice little event to introduce people to the Lincoln MKZ, but traffic pretty much sucked. On the up side, they did give us each a $ 20 Visa debit card, which paid for lunch!