Payne: Aboard the luxurious Lincoln Navigator cruise ship

Posted by Talbot Payne on March 10, 2022

Phoenix — Preparing for a trip in the 2022 Lincoln Navigator is more like taking a cruise ship than an SUV.

This thing lives large.

My port of disembarkation: Phoenix, where I approached the Navigator with awe. Like a cruise-liner, my land yacht tester dominated the landscape with a huge, chromed bow, 22-inch turbine wheels and a running board that greeted me like a gangway. What, no anchor?

Customers own the 2022 Lincoln Navigator for long family trips to, for example, the American west.

The ’22 refresh builds on the 2017 Navigator, which redefined Lincoln luxury and gave cruise patrons — er, mega-SUV fans — a serious competitor to the iconic Cadillac Escalade. Like Carnival Cruise lines vs. Royal Caribbean. Yeah, I know, Navigator invented the mega-ute segment nearly 25 years ago, and the current barge is the fourth-gen build.

But Cadillac Escalade had owned the segment since the early 2000s with its blingtastic Escalade. Navigator finally broke a champagne bottle in ’18 over a true Escalade fighter, rolling out the red carpet (literally) with its signature Lincoln Embrace welcome sequence, bold grille and a high-tech interior right out of a Wall Street board suite.

Necks snapped as it sailed by, buyers lined up with six-figure checks. Escalade responded with a dazzling remake of its own, and Jeep resurrected the lush Grand Wagoneer to get into the game. It’s a game the Detroit Three dominate.

Foreign automakers have translated their sedan success into unibody SUVs, but Detroit dominates the mega-ute segment. With a corner on the full-sized pickup market, Motown makers took their profitable filet-of-truck recipe and added lobster tail. Voila! — a land yacht that can tow your yacht.

Determined to stay on top, Lincoln took the ’22 Navigator back to dry dock for the latest state-of-the-art goodies.

The 2022 Lincoln Navigator is based on the truck platform of the Ford F-150, and utilizes rear-wheel and four-wheel drive depending on conditions.

The exterior has been upgraded with a bigger maw (it’s a law of nature, grilles must get bigger) and expressive rear taillights. Lincoln has led the pack in horizontal light signatures, and this one’s a beaut. Also fashionable these days are blacked-out packages, so naturally you can get your Navigator with black grille, wheels and roof.

But for my $115,410 luxury cruiser, I’m going all out with Chrome Caviar Dark Gray, Black Label trim with signature turbine wheels. I gave the bellman my bags and stepped into the luxe suite.

You can get a tan sitting in any of the three rows thanks to the standard Black Label panoramic roof. At 6’5” I sat comfortably in the third row (the seat collapsing forward with a pull of the seat tab). If there’s no one in the second row, the seat can be used as an ottoman.

The 2022 Lincoln Navigator offers a panoramic roof for better views of the U.S. countryside.

Second-row passengers get heated/ventilated thrones with Amazon Fire-equipped video screens and seat massage — a segment first. I set my seat on “Lower Rolling” massage, then pushed the remote control to watch DreamWorks’ “Rio 2.” I’m just a big kid. Real kids will love it back here.

How’s the front row, you ask? Oh, you want to drive?

In a peek at the autonomous future, the Navigator Black Label features “Active Glide,” a semi-autonomous system available on select divided highways. Think Cadillac Super Cruise or Ford BlueCruise, which use similar hardware and highway mapping. Alas, Lincoln discourages using it from the back seat.

With a laser focused on your face in the driver’s seat to make sure you’re paying attention, you can drive hands-free. But once up front, I was hands-on. Unlike Escalade, which will soon unveil an asphalt-inhaling, supercharged V8-powered beast, Navigator has no ambitions to be an elephant in tennis shoes.

Adaptive shocks cushion shivers from the truck frame and the ocean liner cuts through the air with a 10-speed tranny mated to a 440-horse twin turbo V-6 in the engine room.

Cruise ships use tugboats to get them out of port, but Navigator is self-sufficient with Active Park Assist (pioneered by Ford years ago) that will self-drive you into — and out of — parking spots. Brilliant.

Still, Navigator was ungainly in Phoenix shopping plazas, where I generally parked on the perimeter to spare myself the headache of negotiating tight aisles.

Lincoln promises a battery-powered future by 2030, but that’s hard to square with its halo land yacht. Navigator is coveted as an Up North tow vehicle, or — if you’re in Arizona — an Out West tow vehicle to San Diego’s sandy beaches 350 miles away. It’ll tow up to 8,700 pounds for 470 miles, with gas stations everywhere should the tank run dry.

Enjoy the landscape outside — and the interior craftmanship inside.

The gorgeous interior of the 2022 Lincoln Navigator ups the game with Black Label options that offer different dash wood designs.

If grilles must get bigger, so must interior screens. Navigator’s console touchscreen grows to 13.2 inches and features the latest SYNC 4 technology. That brings Amazon Alexa capability, but I preferred Google tech via a wireless Android Auto connection.

“Hey, Google” I barked, then instructed Google Maps as to my next port of call. Unlike other systems, Navigator also recognizes Google Maps in the digital instrument head-up and instrument displays so you can keep an eye on your route while using Lincoln’s native system to scroll through, for example, your favorite Sirius XM channels.

For new users, all this technology can be overwhelming — many buyers are not yet familiar with basic tech like adaptive cruise control. Let me recommend the Lincoln Showcase. True to a brand that aims to be a car concierge as much as a car builder (see Lincoln’s Hospitality service, which makes you a VIP at hotels and eateries), you can contact a rep to virtually walk you around the Navigator so you are as familiar with the land yacht as a cruise captain is with his vessel.

Many automakers have mistaken the opportunity to introduce smartphone-like features as a moment to eliminate hard-button controls. Not Lincoln. Navigator is intuitive to use with VOLUME, TUNE, MASSAGE and DRIVE MODE buttons nearby.

All of this is wrapped in lovely etched Khaya wood that stretches from A-pillar to A-pillar and up the center aisle. Cruising Arizona Route 202, I relaxed in the 30-way leather chairs. With adaptive cruise control set on 78 mph, I took my feet off the pedals and stretched my legs. Switching lanes, I eyed the blind-spot indicator in the side mirror without craning my neck. “Hey, Google,” I said. “Play ‘Where the Streets Have No Name’ by U2.”

The sun warmed my skin. I took a sip of my iced tea. Ah, I do love an ocean cruise.

2022 Lincoln Navigator

Vehicle type: Front-engine rear- or all-wheel-drive, seven-or-eight-passenger mega-SUV

Price: $78,405 base including $1,695 destination fee ($115,410 AWD, short-wheelbase Black Label as tested)

Powerplant: 3.5-liter twin-turbocharged V-6

Power: 440 horsepower, 510 pound-feet torque

Transmission: 10-speed automatic

Weight: 5,855 pounds (as tested)

Performance: 0-60 mph, 5.2 sec. (Car and Driver est.); 8,00-pound towing capacity (8,300 AWD as tested)

Fuel economy: EPA mpg est. 16 city/23 hwy/19 mpg combined (4×2);

EPA mpg est. 16 city/22 hwy/18 mpg combined (AWD as tested)

Report card

Highs: Upgraded exterior gives more presence; second-row amenities

Lows: Piano key shifter a bit clumsy; gets pricey

Overall: 4 stars

Henry Payne is auto critic for The Detroit News. Find him at hpayne@detroitnews.com or Twitter @HenryEPayne.

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