When the all-new Lincoln Navigator concept car was previewed two years ago with its butterfly doors and futuristic looking seats, Lincoln brought the Navigator back into the spotlight. The Navigator was a pretty popular car for Lincoln when it had originally been released, but over time, it started looking dull and outdated (along with the rest of the Lincoln line up). The concept car was a way for Lincoln to show the market they were still relevant and it worked. A year later they released the all-new Lincoln Navigator and although it didn’t have the butterfly doors or the cool looking 3 piece fold out steps of the concept car, it pretty much retained everything else including the cool looking seats.
I’m generally not into large sized family SUV’s, but when I was asked if I was interested in reviewing the new Navigator I had two questions, did the test drive car have the cool seats and, did it have the cool car unlock light show? When I was told it did, I decided to borrow the car for the weekend.
First impressions, I was extremely impressed with the interior. The dashboard was pretty sleek with a large digital display that had super minimal but premium looking graphics. The buttons were all nicely laid out in the center console along with another large information screen. Even the gear change buttons were beautifully laid out in the center console. The interior oozed luxury and I wasn’t even in their top of the line “Presidential” model that used a more premium quality leather.
One of the things I was looking forward to were the seats because of how customizable and comfortable they supposedly were and I wasn’t disappointed. The seats had 11 different parts I could individually adjust as well as a built in massage feature and cold air ventilation. It had 30-way seat positioning so finding the most comfortable setup was super easy to achieve. Shorter people are also going to love the fact that the foot pedals are electronically adjustable and so can be brought in closer to the driver. The car I drove had a large panoramic roof which brought in daylight that lit up the incredibly large interior. Large is an understatement actually, the car is huge! The second row passengers have more legroom than most people do in the front seats of their cars, and then you have the third row seats to hold more people and you still had room behind those seats for your luggage. There is loads of storage space all over the car for your stuff as well as a huge storage compartment under the armrest and below the center console. The car also had multiple USB ports everywhere and even a wireless charging area.
The model I drove had a bunch of driver assist technologies including a lane keeping system, parking assist, brake assist, 360-degree cameras and adaptive cruise control. The combination of all these technologies made driving the humongous Navigator a lot easier and made driving, in general, a lot more comfortable. The adaptive cruise control works like cruise control on regular cars where you set a speed and the car would stick to it, with the Lincoln it also applied the brakes and slowed down for you when the car ahead would slow down or stop. Combined with a lane keeping system that can control the cars steering to keep you in your lane, you basically end up with a fairly autonomous vehicle when on the highway. The parking assist also made parking super easy. The car can perpendicular or parallel park for you and based on my short experience with the car, it worked pretty well all although it still scares the crap out of me everytime I let a car park for me. As you can see in the video above which I shot, the car takes full control of the steering and acceleration and all you need to do is apply the brakes to stop.
After spending a long weekend with the car I had to give it back and I was fine with that. The car was just too big for me and is clearly meant for large families. For a single guy like me the car felt overwhelming although I do miss the comfort and the serene interior. I had the car on the first day of Ramadan and even with all the traffic, I wasn’t bothered with the chaos that was taking place outside the car. It felt like I was sitting in my living room which is anice feeling to have while stuck in traffic. I do have some issues with the new Navigator though, none major but still worth mentioning. I really dislike the rear of the car, although I think the front of the car looked good, the back just looked super boxy and not in a cool way boxy, but more like the 90s outdated way. Then the stereo, even though the sound system in the car was pretty good, my issue with it was how the dashboard and doors rattled with the bass, and I’m not talking about rattles when I’m blasting the music really loud, I was hearing rattles at low volume as well. Not something I would expect from a premium car. Finally, I thought the suspension was too soft, it made the ride comfier obviously, but the car also tended to bounce a lot after going over a speed bump or hitting a pothole.
The price of the all-new Navigator starts at KD27,000 but the model I drove was the “Reserve” edition and that retails for KD29,000. For more information you can check out the Lincoln Alghanim webiste [Here] or their instagram account @lincolnalghanim
