So what the hell is this thing.  I saw one parked out in front of my
house the other day.

Looked like a beefed up Mazda, or a shrunk down dodge magnum.

Thing is, I don't like it.  I kinda look at it as a replacement to the
long gone LS, which i finally recently had a chance to drive.  What a
beautiful car.  I can't imagine why the production of the LS ever
stopped and this Zephyr began.  I guess they really aren't comparable,
MSRP is about 10k less on the zephyr.

What was the target of these Lincoln Zephyr's, and why would they steal
a model from Mercury and throw it at Lincoln.  What is this, a stolen
luxury compact car from 1980?

I dunno, with so many other options in a FWD 3.0L small-mid size car, I
can't see very many people turning to Lincoln's 30k priced model.

My vote would have been with the LS.

GOOD JOB LINCOLN -- YOU FRIGGED UP.  Maybe merging with Chevrolet would
do them both some good, then they would probably make 16 crappy mid size
cars rather than 8......