Ford's endeavors to breathe some life into the Lincoln Motor Company (as it's now known) has so far amounted chiefly to some marketing exercises, but what Lincoln really needs to succeed is a more compelling product portfolio. The American automaker knows this all too well, and is said to be planning a series of new vehicles to launch in the coming couple of years. Among them, according to the latest intel, could be a rear-drive coupe based on the next-generation Mustang.

Ford Inside News is reporting that the rear-drive luxury coupe would likely pack an EcoBoost V6 (rather than a V8), but with a turbocharger or two, that could still motivate a whole lot of leather and chrome. Don't get too excited just yet, though, because the Lincoln coupe is anything but a sure thing, and is still a few years off at best. In order to reach that point, the new brass at Lincoln will need to prove itself to Ford's higher-ups by making a success of more mainstream products. In the next couple of years, Lincoln will be launching a new MKS, MKX, Navigator and more, along with the new MKZ and a compact crossover based on the Ford Escape.

Tipped to be called MKC or MKD, the crossover is expected to debut in a couple of weeks at the Detroit Auto Show. The coupe, meanwhile, may not be the only thing Lincoln has planned for the Mustang's new rear-drive platform. A large flagship sedan could also be in the pipeline, but again, everything hinges on Lincoln making the most of the mainstream products it already has in the cooker. (Pictured are the 2001 Lincoln MK9 concept in black and the 2004 Mark X concept in silver.)