Is the Lincoln Navigator still one of the top choices in the full-size luxury SUV market?
Other staff views
JG Pasterjak
Production/Art Director
Look I get that no one is coming to a sports car magazine centered around cost-effective ways to get on track for opinions on the Lincoln Navigator. I’m not, however, going to let that stop me from issuing one.
The truth is, I didn’t hate it. It’s less pretentious and more capable than it lets on (the primary option packages or “themes” are called “Chalét,” “Yacht Club,” “Invitation,” and “Central Park”) and while it’s still a bit more Judge Smails than Judge Dredd, it’s more than just bougie opulence.
First, the thing can tow more than 8000 pounds and does so in comfort and complete control. It is at heart a Ford Expedition, after all, and while it adds a lot of luxo touches, the basic capabilities of the platform remain.
I have a little bit of an issue with the ride, though, which seems to have a lot of uncontrolled motion for a supposedly luxury automobile, but these occasional heaves don’t seem to actually upset the chassis, just the occupants—until you get used to them.
It also features one of the best hands-free cruise control systems I’ve yet encountered. Not quite full autopilot, yet the Navigator allows you to remove your hands—or at least seriously relax your grip—from the wheel for protracted periods while it maintains lane discipline as well as following and leading distances quite impressively.
It’s a little weird to describe one of your favorite features of driving a car being the time you don’t have to drive it, but it’s an excellent system that keeps you engaged enough that you’re still attentive and conscious of what’s going on around you, but also takes some of the fatigue-inducing load of extended road trips and knocks it down several pegs. It’s a nice balance that doesn’t feel like handing your safety over to a computer. It’s there to help, not take over.
But this is also a vehicle that sits well-north of $100,000. If any Navigator on the road ever tows anything that isn’t a horse or a ridiculously overpriced boat I’d be surprised. The bones are good, however, and there’s some cool technology that helps without being intrusive. I just don’t need this much fanciness in a vehicle that I may need to get into while wearing a sweaty driver’s suit someday.
David S. Wallens
Editorial Director
Small issue with my time in the Navigator Black Label: I had just gotten out of the Genesis GV80.
The Genesis delivered everything I’d want in a luxury SUV. It was roomy but not colossal. It felt curated and not just stuffed with extras.
The Lincoln just felt like a bedazzled giant SUV.
The seats were too soft without enough support.
The switches, knobs and handles didn’t have that special something about them.
And the Lincoln is really, really big and costs more than $100,000.
I know that I have had a soft spot for these mammoth people movers in the past, but the Genesis has reset my luxury SUV compass.
Comments
It’s a little weird to describe one of your favorite features of driving a car being the time you don’t have to drive it, but it’s an excellent system that keeps you engaged enough that you’re still attentive and conscious of what’s going on around you, but also takes some of the fatigue-inducing load of extended road trips and knocks it down several pegs. It’s a nice balance that doesn’t feel like handing your safety over to a computer. It’s there to help, not take over.
This almost perfectly sums up why I love these systems. It just takes some of the suck out of driving sometimes.
It will never be an Escalade. Has there EVER been a time that Lincoln wasn't sucking hind tit behind Cadillac?
In reply to 1988RedT2 :
Not since Cadillac decided who they want to be and Lincoln still has not. That was one key thing that really made me mad for the last 20 years.
In reply to alfadriver :
I'd agree with that. A Cadillac does know exactly what it wants to be, and that's been true for decades.
What's a Lincoln and where does it fit in? And will that answer be the same in five or 10 years?
And then add Genesis to the mix. That's the one to watch.
STM317
PowerDork
5/27/22 8:02 p.m.
Does Cadillac know what they are? Because they went from being the Standard of the World, to parts bin GM, to competing with the Germans for Nurburgring times. They've gone from being HQ'd in Detroit, to NYC, and back to MI now. They spent a decade building the V performance brand, and then watered it down while renaming their top performance trims after a bespoke ICE that they made like 1000 copies of before scrapping the whole thing.
I think I could make the argument that Lincoln has been less scattered than Cadillac in the last 2 decades.
I'll agee with the sentiments that neither Cadillac nor Lincoln knows and Genisis is the one to watch.
In other news... The former movie featuring Mathew McConaughey and based a books has been rebooted as a series on Netflix
The Lincoln Lawyer. I watched some, it's good. Not great. But good, entertaining.
In reply to STM317 :
Agree. I don't think anyone of my generation knows what Cadillac is trying to accomplish. The V cars were aimed directly at BMW's M division, and some were genuinely good, but then the rest of the brand lineup is comprised of mundane crossovers with leather seats. The Escalade stands alone as far as being a Cadillac in the old sense: an acres-long luxury cruiser defined by hedonistic excess.
I don't know that Lincoln's trajectory through the 00s was defined much better, but at least in the last few years they've ditched the jumbled letter model names, and their exterior and interior styling has gotten a lot more elegant. They screwed up by not making the Continental longer, it would've had much more presence with another 6" of wheelbase. The Navigator interior looks like a genuinely nice place to be though, at least from pictures it looks as good as what you can get from Range Rover.
I'd like to see either of the two brands make a real flagship full size sedan, with no pretenses toward performance and a real focus on luxury and quality of materials used, but sedans don't sell like they used to I guess. Also while we're dreaming, a Coyote-powered Lincoln Mark IX coupe on an extended version of the Mustang platform would've been cool..
So, Cadillac dominates sales figures, but they're the brand wandering lost in the desert?
racerfink said:
So, Cadillac dominates sales figures, but they're the brand wandering lost in the desert?
And, to me, that's what's really defined that Lincoln has had no idea what they were selling over the last 20 years. I remember going to a large all hands meeting in a big conference room- where they had the MKC and Fusion at the front- but I got there late and was in the back. I could not tell the difference between the two cars.
Up until the Continental- the closest thing we got to real separation was the Flex vs. MKT- where the latter was so ugly that it quickly became the cheaper used version.
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