- Search Cartoons
- Comic Archive
-
Payne
Store
Henry Payne RSS
Payne: Road trippin’ in the screen-tastic Lincoln Nautilus robot
Posted by Talbot Payne on October 3, 2024
Watkins Glen, New York — A modern luxury SUV and a race car are automotive bookends. So I drove the Lincoln Nautilus to Watkins Glen Raceway this fall where I would be racing my Lola sportscar.
At 2.5 G-load in the lightweight, 1,335-pound Lola around Watkins Glen’s 180-degree high-speed Turn 5, my arms strained to maintain the car’s trajectory while my helmeted head threatened to pop off my neck.
I’m not sure the handsome 4,554-pound Nautilus land yacht has ever experienced a G-load.
Rolling quietly down I-86 in eastern New York on my way home from The Glen, I relaxed for miles — hands on my knees while Lincoln’s Blue Cruise driver assistance system drove — in Redwood Venetian leather seats, as if lounging in my TV room. Indeed, the 48-inch screen that sprawled from A-pillar to A-pillar beneath the windshield is just seven inches smaller than my home’s 55-inch jumbotron. Blue Cruise asked only that I not look away from the road for very long.
The Lola also has a digital screen, a tiny unit that requires my undivided attention lest I miss a shift and blow the 2.0-liter engine sky-high while traveling at 140 mph between The Glen’s blue tunnel of guardrails. My race seat? Like sitting in Cedar Point’s upside-down Raptor coaster ride’s five-point body harness (the race car has a six-point harness for good measure, plus twin forearm restraints).
Ahhhh, the escape of Lincoln luxury.
The brand for years tried to play catch-up to German and Japanese luxe-makers with trendy alphanumeric badges like MKZ, MKS, MKC and WXYZ (kidding about the last one). Argh. Lincoln finally came to its senses and realized proper names are as American as, well, Lincoln.
They rebooted with the Lincoln Navigator mega-ute, kicked sedans to the curb and rebooted as the posh boulevard-cruisers that made Ford’s premium brand a post-WW2 icon. Navigator is the unmistakable outsize-personality, Shaq O’Neal-like captain of the team — but it’s the 2024 Nautilus that sets the tone for what’s to come.
My Nautilus is on the bleeding edge of high-tech comfort.
Mercedes has long been the standard, but Lincoln is easier to drive than the German while carrying a 10 grand-cheaper sticker price. Regular readers of this column know I’m leery of haptic-touch controls, but Lincoln has beautifully integrated digital and analog features.
Cruising hands-free on I-90 through Pennsylvania, the Nautilus automatically adjusted its velocity to the speed limit. In construction zones, I would take control of the wheel, then — without looking away from the road — use my thumb on the rubber, steering-wheel touchpad to adjust cruise speed up and down. Resting my thumb over Braille-like raised dots on the pad, the screen in front of me mirrored my finger movements.
It’s magical — and more intuitive than Mercedes’ haptic-sliding controls that force your eyes away from the road. The Merc wows with big screens choked with state-of-the-art graphics, but the Lincoln’s jumbotron is superior with comparable graphics and head-up positioning so that everything is in your line of sight.
Culling from its storied past, the wraparound interior echoes Lincoln’s classic 1993 Mark VIII “fighter cockpit.” Fast forward four decades and — where the sleek Mark VIII’s radio used to be — there is an 11-inch touchpad controller so you can adjust what information you desire in the 48-inch screen.
“Whoa! That is cool,” gasped my friend Peter each time he changed the view with a simple drag-and-drop of an icon.
“This is the coolest SUV you’ve had yet,” said my discerning 34-year old son — historically a tough consumer to please. My millennial son is exactly who Lincoln is targeting with all this tech, which, to be honest, was overwhelming to some of my 60-something peers.
Screen tech is second nature to the Gen-Y iPhone generation, and my son thrilled at the freshness of the gadgetry — including voice commands enabled by the Google-based operating system.
“Change driver temperature to 70 degrees,” barked my son on a chilly Watkins Glen morning.
“Play Spotify,” he said as we switched between car and wireless-connected Android Auto systems.
This is a Tesla-generation Lincoln, yet the brand still provides a thoughtful mix of touch and analog controls to navigate the cabin. Exiting my Glen motel each AM, I went through my settings routine via a series of console toggle switches: Turn off the (annoying) STOP-START button; punch the 360-degree camera button to make sure my land yacht exited its tight slip without incident; toggle the DRIVE MODE button to … ah, fuhgeddaboudit.
Just keep it in NORMAL or CONSERVE mode.
Before Watkins Glen built its majestic, world-famous, epic 3.4-mile racing facility overlooking Seneca Lake in 1956, the surrounding, twisting, public roads were used for competition. The old 6.6-mile public road course is still a hoot to drive — in a stick-shift sports car.
The Lincoln ain’t interested. How do you know? The shift buttons are piano keys. This ute is a dining car, not a vehicle you row hard with paddle shifters or stick shift. Nautilus offers a choice of 250-horse/280-torque, 2.0-liter turbocharged inline 4-cylinder, or a sippier 295-horse/310-torque hybrid-electric drivetrain. My standard, 250-horse engine was fine in getting the 2½-ton ute up to a speed where I could put it into adaptive cruise control/Blue Cruise.
Around The Glen’s remote rural roads, Blue Cruise was not available. I ferried my family in the Nautilus’s palatial interior — complete with the roomiest rear seats in the mid-size class, lotsa storage nooks and digital scents. Digital what?
Yes, Lincoln even offers different scents so the cabin could pleasantly smell of MYSTIC FOREST, OZONIC AZURE or (family preferred) VIOLET CASHMERE. Sure beats body odor at the end of a long race day.
After the race weekend, Nautilus made for an easy 7 1/2-hour trip home around Lake Erie. With all-wheel drive and spare tire, the Lincoln was a reassuring ride across the remote (sometimes dirt) roads of western New York state. Blue Cruise was a welcome chauffeur on much of the trip, but — with plenty of audible warnings — it went off duty through a heavy rainstorm and Cleveland’s strange highways.
Who puts a 35-mph hairpin in the middle of I-90? Native Clevelanders know the famous left hook well, but Blue Cruise checked out. The 21st century Lincoln Nautilus robot is here — but it still requires a human hand. Just like a race car.
Next week: 2025 Nissan Kicks
2024 Lincoln Nautilus
Vehicle type: Gas-powered, all-wheel-drive, five-passenger luxury SUV
Price: $52,210, including $1,595 destination charge ($77,520 AWD Black Label as tested)
Powerplant: 2.0-liter, turbocharged inline 4-cylinder; hybrid-electric drivetrain with 2.0-liter, turbocharged inline 4-cylinder
Transmission: Eight-speed transmission (2.0L); CVT (hybrid)
Weight: 4,554 pounds (as tested)
Power: 250 horsepower, 280 pound-feet torque (2.0L); 295 horsepower, 310 pound-feet torque (hybrid)
Performance: 0-60 mph, 7.3 sec. (Car and Driver, 2.0L); towing, 1,750 pounds
Fuel economy: EPA est. 21 city/29 highway/24 combined (2.0L); 30 city/31 highway/30 combined (2.0L); 25 mpg as tested (2.0L)
Report card
Highs: Well-executed, big screen interior; pleasant exterior
Lows: Uninspired 4-banger; Blue Cruise requires constant attention
Overall: 4 stars
Henry Payne is auto critic for The Detroit News. Find him at hpayne@detroitnews.com or @HenryEPayne.