In traditional naval terms, the flagship of a fleet is the ship that carries the commanding admiral. More often than not, it is one of the larger craft like a battleship or aircraft carrier. The term flagship is also used to denote the best product in a company’s lineup, the one that really shows off what the brand is capable of. In many respects, the new 2018 Lincoln Navigator feels like it could meet both of these definitions. It feels large enough to be an aircraft carrier and it also epitomizes the Lincoln brand in 2018.
Last year, the Navigator and its Ford branded sibling, the Expedition became the last of Ford’s big body-on-frame trucks to get a complete redesign, completing the cycle that began in 2014 with the F-150 and then went to the Super Duty pickups. Like the pickups, Ford has ditched steel bodies in favor of lighter weight aluminum structures that still sit on a high-strength steel frame, shaving several hundred pounds off the mass. At three tons, the Navigator is hardly a lightweight, but you get a lot for your pounds so to speak.
The new design language that debuted on the Continental actually works surprisingly well on the big SUV. While I thought the grille looked somewhat derivative of Jaguar when I first saw it in a design studio some years back, it has grown on me and gives the Navigator a certain gravitas that fits with its proportions. The clean lines on the body sides and the black pillars with the tinted glass look contemporary and upscale, a impression that is further enhanced by the 22-inch alloy wheels .
As you walk up to the Navigator with the key fob in a pocket or purse, the vehicle detects your presence, rolling the rocker panels down to provide an easier step up into the cabin. Given the 76.3-in height of the Navigator, these automatic running boards are very helpful. As soon as you close the door, they retract back up to hug the body sides, providing plenty of clearance when traversing deep winter snow.
Inside, the cabin provides an interesting blend of traditional and modern that works better than you might expect. While I’ve been critical in the past of Lincoln not having any dedicated platforms to work with as many other premium brands do, Ford seems to have actually found a recipe that works for them. Lincoln management realized that the investment required to compete head on with the likes of Mercedes-Benz and BMW on their own turf would be too high, take too long and as Cadillac has shown, there is no guarantee of success even if you have excellent products.
Lincoln has instead chosen to focus on the user/customer experience. Lincolns have for a decade had unique sheet metal from their Ford platform partners. However, even with interiors that looked different, there remained enough parts that still seats, switchgear and steering wheels that looked like they came from a Ford, that customers were not fooled. However, sit in a modern Lincoln like the Continental or Navigator and that impression is gone. There is not a visible part in this cabin that looks like it came straight from the Expedition.
The Black Label version I drove features 30-way power adjustable seats in the front row may take a couple of minutes to fine-tune to your exact body contours, but once set, can be saved to one of three memory positions for later use. On longer trips, the front seats also offer a massaging feature to knead your back side. Unlike the seats in recent Mercedes-Benz models I’ve driven which offer multiple patterns, these only have a single sequence, but it still felt good.
On each model line, Lincoln offers three different Black Label themes to choose from with differing combinations of color and materials; The Yacht Club theme in my tester features blues and whites meant to evoke the ocean and sun-bleached driftwood.
While the color combination looked wonderful, I did have a quibble with that came from something my wife pointed out. The wood veneers are a white-washed teak. Teak is a beautiful wood in its natural color but the whitewashing lost some of that distinctiveness and other woods could have achieved a similar visual impact. The problem is that teak is currently listed as endangered as a result of over-logging. If Lincoln is using reclaimed wood, it’s less of an issue, but virgin teak is now a problem and the brand may want to consider an alternative going forward.
The long-time market leaders in the full-size SUV segment are the GM family of Chevrolet Tahoe/Suburban, GMC Yukon and Cadillac Escalade. While new versions are expected to arrive in 2019, the current editions continue to rely on live rear axles which require extra room underneath the floor for the differential to move up and down. This several limits the space in the third row of seats due to the high floor. Thus you end up sitting with knees up in the air in the back row.
The Navigator comes in two wheelbase lengths of 122.5-inches and 131.6-inches. Despite my tester being the standard shorter length model, I had absolutely no problem sitting in the third row in a normal position with plenty of room to spare. All of the outboard seating positions get a USB port for charging devices which should help to keep younger passengers occupied playing with devices on longer trips.
Unlike most premium vehicles which have some sort of central controller to manage the infotainment system, Lincoln relies on a touchscreen only with a large, bright standup central display for SYNC 3. Ancillary controls like volume, tuning and climate controls are all physical knobs and switches which is always a good thing. SYNC 3 works well with a responsive interface and full support for both Android Auto and Apple Carplay as well as Ford’s own AppLink system.
The Navigator is the first Ford/Lincoln vehicle I’ve driven since the launch of Alexa voice services support. While companies such as Hyundai and BMW have support for Alexa skills that let you control various aspects of the car like remote start or checking fuel/charge level from a home Amazon Echo device, Ford is the first to turn the vehicle into an Echo on wheels.
To use Alexa on the go, you need to load the Lincoln+Alexa app on your phone and connect to the vehicle. Once SYNC AppLink recognizes the app on your device, you can say Alexa (or whichever wake-word you have selected for your account) and then give the same commands you use with an Echo at home. You can play music or a podcast through TuneIn, get weather forecasts, save items to a shopping list or even play a game with Alexa.
If you have automated devices at home like a connected thermostat or lights, you can also manage those as you are on the way home. If you are a regular Alexa user, this is a handy capability although using it or other AppLink functions requires disabling Android Auto and CarPlay in settings. Ideally at some point, someone will find a way to make all kinds of assistants play nice together so you can trigger the one that provides the function you want by triggering the appropriate wake word. In the meantime, you’ll have to choose one.
Moving three tons of metal, glass, rubber and leather takes some effort. Fortunately the twin-turbo 3.5-liter V6 which is no longer referred to as EcoBoost when installed in Lincoln vehicles, is up to the task. For Lincoln duty, the engine gets the same setup as the F-150 Raptor with 450-hp and 510 lb-ft of torque running through a 10-speed automatic. While the transmission felt rather lazy to shift in the Raptor, it’s either been recalibrated for the Navigator or the nature of this vehicle makes it feel more natural here. Either way, I had no complaints about the powertrain.
Like a number of other Lincolns, the Navigator has an adaptive damping system that features a pothole detection algorithm. This is particularly useful around southeast Michigan right now where a pretty hard winter has opened some of the biggest craters we’ve seen in years. The system does a surprisingly good job of keeping those big 22s from crashing into the crevices.
The Navigator is smooth, quiet, refined and easily a match for any of the big luxury SUVs. It has tons of features and Lincoln provides a wide array of special concierge services for customers. While a price tag just shy of $100,000 is by no means cheap or affordable for the average consumer, it’s actually a surprisingly good value against competitors like the Escalade or Mercedes-Benz GLS. It’s no wonder that North American Truck of Year jury picked the Navigator to win the 2018 prize.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/samabuelsamid/2018/03/04/navigating-in-lincolns-new-flagship-the-2018-navigator-black-label/
2018-03-04T13:15:00+00:00