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  • William Maley
    William Maley

    By William Maley •

    New York 2012: Lincoln MKZ's Panaormaic Sunroof

    William Maley

    Editor/Reporter - CheersandGears.com

    March 30, 2012

    Next week at the New York Auto Show, Lincoln will show the new MKZ and its 15.2 square foot, retractable glass roof. Yes, you read this correctly.

    According to Lincoln, the roof takes takes ten seconds to either open or close the roof thanks to two motors and parallel rails located on the outer edges of the roof. Once opened, the opening is two-feet deep and two and a half feet wide.

    When closed, the glass roof is rated at SPF 100 to avoid passengers being sunburned. As for safety, the roof is reinforced with a aluminum and boron steel frame.

    Source: Autoblog

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    avant1963

    And it's made by the same $h!ty company that created the monstrosity called the panoramic sunroof used by GM in the G6 and Aura. It was the noisiest and most horrific $2000 option in my 2006 G6 that the engineers had in the shop for over 1 month (and 3 tries) to fix it. Thankfully it was a lease.

    No need for this gimick for such a small opening. Wonder what the wind noise is like at 70mph.

    Edited by avant1963
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    hyperv6

    indeed had the feeling i would overlap the entire back glass. i have a feeling this is going to be an option for about two model years.

    I agree! When will these companies ever learn that these big tops are just a flash in the pan. Just look at all of those that came went before them.

    I hope GM has learned their lessons from the problems, cost and weight of the G6 roof and the old SRX roof.

    The only one I ever saw that amounted to much was the one on the 911.

    The Lincoln one is not worth the space it opens and I don;t think the people in the back are all that worried about seeing sky over them. The cost of this option and lack of sales will kill it in 1-2 years.

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    vonVeezelsnider

    This is going to be a noisy, rattly, heavy maintenance hog methinks. Walt is right about drawing parallels between it and the G6/Aura multi-panel roof, and I do remember all the trouble he had with that damn roof on his G6 back in the day.

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    SAmadei

    wow. thats a lot of glass. hows that gonna go in a rollover? answer: everywhere

    For such a large opening, I would hope they laminate the glass in some way, like a windshield. If they wanted to, they could make the glass tougher than the sheetmetal, but it would obviously weigh too much to be practical.

    I had a friend flip a vehicle with a standard sunroof, which didn't have a laminate glass and the pavement flying by at 50 mph ended up taking a nasty bite out of his rear end... literally.

    I hate sunroofs, so this has zero appeal to me.

    Edited by SAmadei
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    Robert Hall

    Ford has done odd things w/ roof glass lately..like the all glass roof option on the Mustang..that makes no sense unless you want a terrarium. I don't get why they haven't offered a normal sunroof option on the Mustangs since the Fox era..even then it was just a weak popup.

    I prefer a powered metal sunroof, though even M-B and BMW seem to have gone to the ordinary glass ones in recent years...

    Edited by Cubical-aka-Moltar
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    hyperv6

    The Sun Roof in my HHR and Terrain are the same one in the CTS. They open quiet, work well and slide into the roof vs pop up. They all open to a large size and give a good open air feeling. I see not real advantage to this large sliding thing.

    I did hate the one on the GTP. It was small and was of the flip up style. It made a lot of wind noise and took a lot of head room even thought it did not slide in the roof.

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    ocnblu

    Funny, on Cadillac's FB page there's a photo showing the interior of the XTS with a big ol' double panel sunroof. Coincidence, with Lincoln's "PANAORMAIC" (?) roof video making the rounds on the net? I think not.

    This will likely be a low take-rate option, and for good reason. If it were multiple panels that went down entirely into the trunk, it would be a semi-cool nod to the 60's Continental 4-door convertibles, but as it is, the opening is laughably paltry in exchange for the prospect of trouble this thing is capable of causing.

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    Robert Hall

    'panaormaic' may translate to 'panoramic' or 'panoramatic' (which sounds like a '50s trademarked product name).

    Other trivia..

    Ford and Mercury had giant fixed plexiglass sunroof options in the mid 50s, don't think Lincoln had one then...

    Lincoln also had a large fixed glass moonroof option on the Continental coupes around '77-79.

    linc1979fixedglassmoonrooftowncar.jpg

    Edited by Cubical-aka-Moltar
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    Robert Hall

    Boy just think, you havethis big roof open and a rain squal comes in and the electrical fails on the motors and you end up wth a tub o water. :P

    Same risk w/ a convertible top. One has to assume the electricals are reliable enough that it's unlikely to happen.

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