We have added our voices to a growing chorus of car enthusiasts and journalist-types who want one thing, and one thing only from Lincoln. That is a rear-wheel drive car with performance aspirations. As it stands, the only “performance” car in the Lincoln lineup is the MKS EcoBoost, and that is only available with all-wheel drive and is not much more than a slightly disguised Taurus, quite frankly it’s boring.

Recently we have found hope for a rear-drive Lincoln in the unlikeliest of places. The Detroit News reports that Ford is moving next-gen Lincoln MKS production to the Flat Rock Assembly Plant where the Ford Mustang is built. Without reading too much into a simple production move, this may indicate that the next Lincoln MKS could ride on a Mustang platform.

Why such speculation? Currently the Lincoln MKS is produced alongside the Ford Taurus and Ford Explorer, which it shares a common platform with. All the tooling for these cars is at the Chicago Assembly Plant. However, Ford plans to move MKS production to the Flat Rock Assembly Plant alongside the next-gen Mustang and the Ford Fusion sometime in 2014 or 2015. Ford has said the next-gen MKS will ride on an all-new platform.

That means the new, Flat Rock built Lincoln MKS won’t share the Ford Fusion platform, which is already well under production. Which leavest the 2015 S550 Mustang platform as a distinct possibility for the next-gen MKS. This would mean it would ride on the rear-drive platform that underpins the Mustang. Of course it could be a different platform entirely, but would Ford really be able to cram the tooling for three very different vehicles under the same factory roof?

All that said, the Lincoln MKS and Ford Mustang are two very different vehicles, appealing to very different segments of the market. Maybe we’re just getting our hopes up here. It worked with the Mark VII platform though, so why not with the MKS?

Either way, keep your fingers crossed folks, because we may just have a rear-drive Lincoln once again, and hopefully one with some real performance to compete with Cadillac, BMW, and others.