Tested: 2022 Lincoln Navigator Enters the Tech Era

UPDATE 4/21/22: This review has been updated with test results.

The buzz around enormous body-on-frame luxury SUVs has reached a fever pitch. As lavish and accommodating as ever, these massive driving implements continue to advance in high-tech usefulness, with new and updated entries from Jeep and Lexus bolstering the segment's ranks. Someone at General Motors even had the idea to give the V treatment to the Cadillac Escalade, supercharged V-8 and all. To that lot we'll add the 2022 Lincoln Navigator, which has been polished with thoughtful touches and new hands-free driving capability as part of a mid-cycle refresh.

The ability to transport people and stuff with glitzy curb appeal makes full-size luxury utes outsize status symbols unto themselves. Jeep doesn't even badge its Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer as Jeeps, lest they be tainted by the mud-plugging reputation of its lesser models. Not so with the latest Navigator, which has LINCOLN plastered across its stern and the brand's crosshair emblem set as a nearly foot-tall protrusion within its gently redrawn grille. Flanking that grille are thinner LED headlights, while the rear dons a slimmer full-width LED taillight bar that now emits horizontal animation sequences when you approach and exit the vehicle. Michael Knight's K.I.T.T. would approve.

It takes a careful eye to spot the revised Gator on the road, but glance inside and its 13.2-inch center touchscreen is an easy giveaway. Compared to the 10.1-inch display that it replaces, the updated setup is a better fit in this seven- or eight-passenger Lincoln's cavernous interior, which remains one of the more fetching environments in automobiledom. As a gateway to the new Sync 4 infotainment system's bounty of features—including an optional 28-speaker Revel audio system that does its best to shake the windows out of the truck—the touchscreen also is crisply rendered and smartly laid out. Additional animations, such as swaths of faint twinkling stars that follow the needles around the digital speedometer and tachometer, grace a more data-focused 12.0-inch instrument cluster display.

The Navigator's plethora of pixels extends to its rear quarters, with second-row passengers gaining both an optional 5.8-inch infotainment touchscreen and a pair of 10.1-inch, Amazon Fire TV–equipped monitors affixed to the front seatbacks. While a three-across second-row bench remains available, stick with the standard captain's chairs and you'll unlock the newly added massage function for those heated and ventilated middle seats. Put a butt in every seat of the 131.6-inch-wheelbase L model, and there's still plenty of luggage space for all occupants—34 cubic feet behind the third row versus 19 cubes in the regular 122.5-inch-wheelbase version.

From the optional 30-way power-adjustable front seats to the lovely open-pore wood trim laser-etched with a map of the pathways in New York's Central Park—the latter included in one of two new design packages for Black Label models like our test car—the Navigator is a warm and inviting place to be. Classic luxury vibes aside, this Lincoln's greatest draw probably will be the new ActiveGlide driver assistant, which debuts as standard equipment on the upper Reserve and Black Label trims as the brand's version of Ford's BlueCruise. Much like GM's Super Cruise, ActiveGlide employs lane centering, adaptive cruise control, and driver monitoring to provide hands-free motoring on roughly 130,000 miles of divided highways. Virtual steering-wheel icons and overviews of the vehicle on the road combine in the gauge cluster to indicate when the system is active. An available head-up display (standard on the Black Label), plus a phalanx of standard active-safety gear, provides additional convenience and security.