Now that Ford Motor Co. has escaped from the grip of recession and projects a doubling of vehicle sales by mid-decade, the second-largest U.S. auto maker is making a revival of its ailing Lincoln luxury brand its top priority.

Later this year, Ford will begin a sweeping make-over of the 96-year-old brand, to give staid Lincoln a new identity as a producer of high-tech, understated luxury cars, Ford executives said.

The first look at Lincoln’s future will come in November when Ford unveils redesigned versions of its MKS sedan and MKT sport-utility vehicle, the first of seven new or redesigned Lincolns. The MKS will feature a sleeker design, self-tuning suspension system and hands-free controls and entertainment system, reported The Wall Street Journal.

Whizzy technologies that the auto maker is counting on to turn heads: retractable, all-glass roofs and computerized sound-reduction technology, similar to noise-cancelling headphones, to block road noise and make Lincoln interiors ultra quiet.

“Lincoln will give [customers] opportunities to tell a story about what is unique in their vehicle,” said Derrick Kuzak, Ford’s head of global product development, in an interview. “You think of BMW as engaging to drive; you can think of Lexus as refined. Bring them together and it is a new experience no customer has ever had.”

Lincoln will be aimed at technology-loving, upscale consumers that Ford believes make up an increasing portion of the luxury-car market, Mr. Kuzak said. Affluent professionals who tend to value experiences, such as exotic vacations, over the bling of big-name luxury goods can be lured away from other luxury car brands to Lincoln, Mr. Kuzak said.

It won’t be easy. A little more than a decade ago, Lincoln was the top-selling luxury brand in the U.S. Lincoln limousines were preferred by U.S. presidents and Hollywood directors. Every president from Calvin Coolidge through George H.W. Bush rode in a Lincoln limousine.

But as German luxury brands BMW, Audi and Mercedes-Benz expanded their lines and introduced new technologies, Ford chose to stock the Lincoln brand mainly with upgraded versions of the same cars it sells as Fords. The MKS sedan shares many parts with the Ford Taurus, for example. The Lincoln MKX crossover is nearly identical to the Ford Edge.

Tim Sanders, a pharmaceutical sales representative in Cleveland, Ohio, purchased Lincolns in the past but the last car he bought was a BMW. Lincolns “just aren’t exciting to me anymore,” he said.

Last year Ford also killed off its Mercury brand, which used to be paired with Lincoln in dealerships. But without Mercury, many Lincoln stores have seen customer traffic plunge. The brand also struggles to attract young customers. The average age of a Lincoln buyer is 62 years old, compared to just 54 for Lexus and 49 for BMW.

“We are still living with that perception that my grandfather and my grandmother drive a Lincoln,” said Andy Czajkowski, owner of Statewide Ford-Lincoln in Van Wert, Ohio. “They have to bring out products faster.” With Lincoln’s current line, Mr. Czajkowski says he is fighting an uphill battle. In May he sold just three Lincolns.

In the first five months of the year, U.S. auto sales have increased 14 percent over a year ago, but Lincoln’s sales are down 7.5 percent. In May, Lincoln sold just 7,399 vehicles in the U.S., about the same number as Volvo, a brand that Ford sold in 2010. Volvo’s current owner Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co. is aiming to recast the brand to include luxury cars.

General Motors Co.’s two upscale brands, Cadillac and Buick, did much better, selling 11,623 and 15,579 vehicles, respectively. BMW, the luxury leader, sold more than twice as many cars in the U.S. as Lincoln, 20,651.

A strong luxury brand is a key to most successful car makers. Lexus and Acura help Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. improve economies of scale and earns thicker margins than their mainstream models. GM counts on Cadillac to cast a marketing halo over its other makes. Luxury brands also help attract and retain customers who tend to be more loyal and less price-conscious than mainstream car-buyers.

BMW is actually targeting the very same consumers as Lincoln aspires to in a current marketing campaign that focuses on the joy it believes customers get from driving its vehicles. One print ad uses the tagline “Joy is Maternal,” a departure from past promotions that emphasized handling and acceleration.

Mr. Kuzak concedes the seven new Lincolns in the pipeline will still share parts with Ford models, but he promised they will have unique exterior panels, headlamps and other touches to give them a distinct look.

The new Lincolns also will have some technology that won’t appear in Fords. Most of the seven new vehicles will have computer-controlled steering and suspensions systems that adjust on the fly to provide a sporty or comfy ride, depending on how the car is being driven.

For now, Lincoln enthusiasts will have to have the patience that comes with age. The refreshed MKS and MKT will arrive in the first half of 2012, followed by an all new MKZ in late 2012. The four remaining vehicles won’t be launched until 2013 or 2014.

Toyota Motor Corp.’s Lexus, buoyed by consumer discounts, beat out Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz and Bayerische Motoren Werke AG’s BMW brand in October to lead monthly U.S. luxury-auto sales for the first time since May, reported Bloomberg.

Lexus sales rose 8.1 percent to 21,091 vehicles, the Toyota City, Japan-based automaker said yesterday in a statement. On Nov. 2, BMW reported a 17 percent gain to 19,272 and Mercedes posted an increase of less than 1 percent to 18,351.

Lexus, the top-selling U.S. luxury brand since 2000, is being challenged this year as Toyota copes with record recalls and as Mercedes and BMW benefit from new models. Lexus more than doubled average incentive spending in October to $2,152 a vehicle from $923 a year earlier, according to TrueCar.com, an auto pricing website.

The Toyota unit has been “much more aggressive than they’ve ever been,” Jim O’Donnell, president of BMW’s North American unit, said in a telephone interview. “We’ve now got Lexus joining the fray where they’ve always stood on the sideline and sort of watched.”

U.S. sales for this year through October totaled 183,529 for Lexus, 178,080 for Mercedes and 176,736 for Munich-based BMW, the global leader in luxury-vehicle deliveries.

The totals don’t include non-luxury models such as BMW’s Mini cars or Stuttgart, Germany-based Daimler’s Smart cars and Sprinter vans.

Toyota’s incentive spending and increased advertising in October helped boost Lexus sales, Jesse Toprak, vice president of industry trends at Santa Monica, California-based TrueCar, said in a telephone interview yesterday.

“They clearly want that No. 1 spot for the year,” he said. “Don’t know if that necessarily is going to happen. Looking at the historical sales in December, Benz tends to do quite well. I think it’s going to be a photo finish.”

The Toyota unit used “moderate incentives” to help trim inventory, Mark Templin, U.S. group vice president for Lexus, said on a conference call yesterday.

The automaker enhanced incentives on 2010 models in particular in anticipation of higher volume than actually occurred, he said. As a result, “I think we’ll carry out our 2010 incentives for remainder of the year,” Templin said.

Mercedes has been helped this year by a 53 percent jump in sales of its redesigned E-Class, introduced in 2009. The Daimler unit boosted average incentive spending 9.4 percent in October to $4,389, according to TrueCar.

“They are coming out with a lot of attractive lease deals,” Toprak said.

Mercedes isn’t planning to increase incentive spending at the end of the year, Michael Slagter, vice president of sales for the brand’s U.S. unit, said in an interview.

“We’ll be competitive and do what we need to do to be competitive in the market,” he said.

BMW’s October gains were held back by lack of inventory of the new X3 sport-utility vehicle, which is reaching showrooms late this year, O’Donnell said in the Nov. 2 interview. Sales of the redesigned 5 Series rose 62 percent to 4,925, helped by the arrival of the sedan’s all-wheel-drive version that makes it more competitive with the Mercedes E-Class, he said.

The 5 Series still has room for sales growth, Jessica Caldwell, an analyst at auto-information website Edmunds.com in Santa Monica, said in a telephone interview. “It’s probably going to take a little bit more time to catch on.”

BMW’s average incentive spending fell 34 percent in October to $3,179, TrueCar said.

There’s a real dogfight shaping up among the top three luxury car makers in the final three months of 2010. Lexus, which has traditionally been the best-selling luxury brand in the United States, is trying hard to hold off a resurgent Mercedes-Benz and BMW.

The companies are currently neck-and-neck in sales through September, with Mercedes leading at 165,363 vehicles, compared to 163,184 for Lexus and 157,464 for BMW, Forbes reported.

“These next three months, including the luxury holiday sales campaign, are crucial for Lexus if they want to continue to lead the market as they have for over a decade,” said Jesse Toprak, vice president of industry trends and insight at TrueCar.com.

Lexus’ lost momentum can be traced to some of the same quality issues that have hurt its sister brand, Toyota, and to the fact that it hasn’t had much in the way of new models to lure shoppers to showrooms. The GX460, a relatively low-volume SUV, debuted in early 2010. The next new model is the CT200h, a dedicated hybrid, which is coming to market around the first of the year.

Smelling blood, Mercedes has been offering aggressive lease deals on its vehicles. It has also benefited from new products, like the GLK, a small SUV, and a new generation E-class sedan. After a slow year in 2009, BMW is also beginning to pick up steam with a redesigned 5-series sedan. Next year it hopes to build on that momentum with the introduction of the X1 small SUV and a redesigned X3 SUV.

Lexus will have to work hard to hold off its German rivals.

FRANKFURT — Luxury-car makers boosted their outlooks for 2010 as demand recovered faster than expected after a woeful 2009, fueled by a growing number of affluent Chinese customers and a rebound in the United States, reported The Wall Street Journal.

Audi AG will report a “very significant” annual rise in second-quarter earnings, fueled by stronger car sales, and plans to offer more concrete full-year sales guidance on Friday, the German luxury car maker’s chief executive, Rupert Stadler, said late Monday.

“We will exceed the 1 million (car sales) significantly this year,” Mr. Stadler told reporters at the presentation of the new A7 coupe in Munich, reiterating previous statements. He declined to be more specific, but noted that “we might have something more to say on this on Friday.”

Audi’s German rival Mercedes-Benz on Tuesday said it expects to contribute €4 billion ($5.2 billion) in earnings before interest and tax, or Ebit, to parent Daimler AG’s full-year profit, which is expected to total at €6 billion this year.

The company had previously expected Ebit at the core Mercedes-Benz Cars unit to come in at the upper end of a €2.5 billion to €3 billion range in 2010 and group Ebit to exceed €4 billion. The Mercedes-Benz Cars unit comprises the Mercedes-Benz, Smart and Maybach nameplates.

“We have a very dynamic development of unit sales and revenue in all divisions,” Daimler Chief Executive Dieter Zetsche said in a statement, adding that the Stuttgart-based firm expects “significant revenue growth” for the full year.

Zetsche confirmed previous statements saying the unit is expected to achieve a return on sales of 10% in the second half of 2012 and maintain this level in 2013.

In the second quarter, return on sales at the Mercedes-Benz Cars division was 9.8%, driven by strong demand for large models with healthy profit margins such as the updated Mercedes-Benz E-Class and the flagship S-Class sedan, particularly in China.

Daimler said the Mercedes-Benz brand reported its strongest second quarter ever, with car sales rising 24% on the year to 314,400 vehicles.

For the second half of the year, Mercedes-Benz expects “the positive trend of the first two quarters to continue, but no longer with the same dynamism.” Still, car sales at the Mercedes-Benz brand are expected to rise by a double-digit percentage rate in 2010.

Audi’s parent company Volkswagen AG is scheduled to release earnings on July 29, followed by more details on Audi’s performance on July 30. In the first half of the year, Audi’s car sales rose 19 percent from a year earlier to 554,950 vehicles.

Audi, the premium unit and key earnings contributor to Volkswagen, Europe’s largest auto maker by sales, is targeting a new sales record this year, driven by several updated or new models such as the small A1 and the A7 luxury coupe.

The A7 will go on sale in late September with prices starting at €51,700, and Germany, U.K., U.S. and China are expected to be the car’s main sales regions.

Stadler said Audi plans to sell about 200,000 A7 cars over the model’s entire life cycle of about seven years, adding that a hybrid version might be added at a later stage.

Audi’s sales volume reached a record high in 2008, when the Ingolstadt-based firm sold just over 1 million cars, but sales declined last year when demand for premium cars collapsed amid the economic downturn.

The luxury car sector, however, recovered faster than expected in the first six months of the year and automakers are upbeat that growth will continue in the second half of 2010.

BMW AG, the world’s largest luxury car maker by sales ahead of Mercedes-Benz and Audi, said earlier this month that pretax profit in 2010 is set to rise more sharply than previously anticipated because vehicle sales are expected to be better than hoped.

BMW now expects vehicle sales this year to rise by about 10 percent to more than 1.4 million cars, after previously forecasting a rise in the single-digit percentage range to more than 1.3 million cars. The company sold 1.29 million cars in 2009, down 10.4 percent on the year earlier.

BMW is scheduled to release second-quarter earnings on August 3.