Yahoo Autos 2022 Lincoln Navigator First Drive Review | It's greener now. Literally.
Lincoln’s latest renaissance began with the Navigator, specifically the full redesign introduced four years ago. Offering far more power than the competition established a new, common concept of effortless performance throughout the Lincoln lineup, but it was the Navigator’s striking new interior design that really moved the needle and made people, including car reviewers like us, take notice. Subsequent Lincoln interiors evolved from that design and enjoyed similar praise, so it should come as no surprise that the updated 2022 Lincoln Navigator builds upon its trademark element.
Frankly, it’s unusual for interior design to so strongly embody a brand’s identity, yet a senior Lincoln official confirmed that’s exactly what the company sought to do with the Navigator and others. The exterior would be tidy and handsome, but to really stand out in a crowded luxury field, the brand chose to instead focus on creating a bold, unique interior. Clearly inspired by Lincoln’s midcentury glory years, but not attempting to copy it in chintzy plastic as Lincolns of the 2000s did, the Navigator cabin continues to look nothing like those of its competitors. It’s classy, it’s special and when done up in Black Label “themes,” it can be uniquely colorful as well.
For 2022, the most colorful of themes — “Destination” and its stem-to-stern coating of oxblood red — is discontinued. Boo. Apparently, it was popular in Lincoln’s top market of China. Less so in the United States, so it gets ousted in favor of the new “Central Park” theme shown here. The primary element is the “Urban Green” hue with leather perforations that form the outlines of a New Yorkesque skyline. It’s exclusively paired with stunning open-pore wood embossed, in gold no less, with a map of Manhattan’s grid and the titular Central Park. It’s a fitting alternative to the carryover themes of “Yacht Club” (the blue one) and “Chalet” (shades of brown and beige), plus the new “Invitation” theme that features black accented in a different gold-embossed wood for those who are less adventurous.
The interior’s only noteworthy aesthetic change for 2022 is also a functional one: the 10-inch touchscreen has been replaced by a 13.2-inch widescreen unit. It also runs Ford’s latest Sync 4 electronics interface, but it’s specially reskinned for Lincoln with a design dubbed “Constellation” that’s both a visual step up from Ford’s Sync 4 appearance as well as the outgoing Navigator interface that was really just a gray-colored version of Sync 3. Basically, the new touchscreen fits better with the rest of the cabin, while its widescreen orientation only enhances Sync 4’s general user friendliness.
Another change you’ll notice is the unusual band of dark plastic atop the steering wheel in Reserve and Black Label trim levels. That’s the tell-tale sign of the new Lincoln ActiveGlide feature, which sounds like an enhancement to a Braun razor but is fact Ford’s BlueCruise handsfree driving system with a different name. The 2022 Navigator is the first Lincoln to get it. We go into greater detail about the system in our BlueCruise review, but in short, it allows for handsfree driving on limited access highways such as interstates. If there are intersections, as on Arizona Highway 87 where we drove the Navigator from Phoenix to Payson, it behaves like many advanced adaptive cruise control systems where the car handles the accelerator, brake and much of the steering, but you have to keep a hand on the wheel (let’s call this ACC mode). Unfortunately, the system is pretty lousy at actually detecting your hand – we repeatedly were told to put a hand on the wheel despite a hand totally being on the wheel. But it’s much better at detecting when your eyes aren’t on the road.
