Automotive World

And this is something and that is clearly reflected in Lincoln's weak sales numbers. In the first 10 months of the year, Lincoln sold 70,935 cars in the States (+1.2% from the same period in 2010), whereas GM's Cadillac delivered 124,985 vehicles (+5.6%), Buick 151,779 cars (+19.9%) and Lexus 153,739 units (-16.2%).

Aside from the MKZ sedan (+31.7%) and the MKX crossover (+5.3%), Lincoln's other models saw their numbers plummet this year, including the MKS sedan with 9,824 deliveries from January through October (-18.9%) and the MKT crossover with 4,126 sales in the same period (-33.5% from last year).

Set to make its world premiere later today at the 2011 Los Angeles Auto Show is the refreshed 2013 Lincoln MKS sedan. The first thing that you'll notice on the 2013MY is the reworked split front grille, though as Lincoln points out, every exterior surface from the A-pillar forward is new including the bumper, hood, headlamps and front fenders.

Following the release of a single photo of the saloon's bonnet, we now get a picture of the MKS' redesigned tail lamps with LED fixtures and a cropped image of the new dashboard that adopts FoMoCo's reconfigurable instrument panel LCD screens integrated with a central speedometer.

The photo is supposed to tease the new design language that Lincoln will implement on the two models, which as we've already told you , are scheduled to receive their world premiere at next week's Los Angeles Auto Show.