2015 Lincoln Navigator Debuts Ahead of 2014 Chicago Auto Show

[King T]

(Press Release)

Lincoln Navigator

The Lincoln Motor Company introduced the new 2015 Navigator, offering a fresh interpretation of a classic vehicle that has long defined the full-size luxury sport utility segment.

At the 2014 Chicago Auto Show, the public will get its first look at a new Lincoln Navigator that takes on a changed presence for the 2015 model year. Exterior design changes are accentuated by the reintroduction of Lincoln's iconic split-wing grille. Interior enhancements include luxurious leather and additional customer-focused technologies. The more refined appearance complements enhanced power and hauling capabilities that Navigator customers demand.

The sleeker front end includes a newly designed hood, and the reimagined back end features a power up/down tailgate. On both ends, the vehicle wears jewel-like light-emitting diode (LED) lights, as well as high-intensity discharge (HID) adaptive headlamps with LED accents.

"We knew what our customers wanted," said Elaine Bannon, chief engineer of the 2015 Navigator. "Navigator has always had great features, and we were able to keep those things. I'm proud that we were able to give our customers so much more."

Lincoln Navigator comes standard with 20-inch, machined aluminum wheels, while Reserve Package vehicles are equipped with 22-inch, polished aluminum wheels. Reserve Package Navigators also offer optional chrome-accented running boards.

As with current-generation models, the 2015 Lincoln Navigator will be available in standard-length (207.4 inches) and extended-length (222.3 inches) versions.

Luxuriously appointed interior

Navigator has long been synonymous with large-scale luxury. On the 2015 Navigator, the Reserve Package introduces a new level of luxury to the vehicle's interior, providing customers with:

-An updated cabin that extends ultra-luxurious leather to all three rows of seats, as well as to the armrests, center console and transmission shifter
-A hand-wrapped, leather instrument panel with contrast stitching and leather glove box door
-Premium Ziricote wood trim, a luxurious natural-grain wood new to the automotive industry, most commonly used as an accent in yachts

Lincoln Navigator comes standard with the new Lincoln steering wheel, introduced on the recently revealed MKC premium small utility. The Wollsdorf leather-wrapped, wood-trimmed wheel features a thicker grip and softer touch for a more dynamic driving experience.

Designed to seat up to eight people, Navigator offers buyers second-row options that include two captain's chairs, with or without a center console, or a fold-flat bench. Due in part to Lincoln Navigator's patented independent rear suspension, which allows for true fold-flat, PowerFold® third-row seats, extended-length and standard wheelbase models are projected to deliver segment-leading cargo volume.

Extended-length models provide 128.2 cubic feet of cargo space behind the first row, 86.3 cubic feet of cargo space behind the second row, and 42.6 cubic feet of cargo space behind the third row; standard wheelbase models deliver 103.3 cubic feet of cargo space behind the first row, 54.4 cubic feet behind the second row, and 18.1 cubic feet behind the third row.

"We have this iconic vehicle with untapped potential," Bannon said. "Now it's got more of what our customers want. It's got the new Lincoln design DNA on the exterior, a redesigned instrument panel, a leather Reserve Package, 22-inch wheels. Once we were able to include all of those elements, I knew we had a winner."

A smoother, more powerful ride

Replacing the 5.4-liter V8 that has powered Navigator for years is a more powerful and fuel-efficient 3.5-liter EcoBoost engine.

The twin turbocharged, direct injection engine is projected to deliver at least 370 horsepower and 430 lb.-ft. of torque, according to preliminary test data. Final numbers will be available closer to production. The 3.5-liter EcoBoost is also projected to deliver best-in-class towing.

Lincoln Navigator features a six-speed automatic transmission with Lincoln's SelectShift, which allows the driver to manually control gears if desired. The vehicle is available in both four-wheel-drive and rear-wheel-drive configurations. The available Control Trac Four-Wheel-Drive system enhances traction on slippery surfaces, helps improve handling on dry roads and enables off-road capability.

Helping make this the best-handling Lincoln Navigator ever is the addition of standard electric power-assisted steering. This allows for more consistent and precise control of the vehicle through a range of speeds while simultaneously making it easier to maneuver at low speeds, and in particular making it easier to park.

The Lincoln Drive Control option adds Lincoln's Continuously Controlled Damping (CCD), a suspension system that monitors multiple vehicle sensors and road conditions every two milliseconds and adjusts the suspension needs accordingly. CCD also provides a smoother and improved ride - best-ever for Navigator - and allows the driver to customize the ride of the vehicle by selecting one of three different control modes: Normal, Sport and Comfort.

Lincoln Navigator also offers driver-friendly Hill Start/Descent Assist. When parked on a hill with a grade of five degrees or more, the vehicle remains stationary for up to two seconds after the driver releases the brake pedal.

Standard-equipped Navigators will continue to offer Nivomat®, a load-leveling system that automatically raises a loaded rear end to optimum ride height for improved handling. The mechanical leveling system helps reduce uneven wear on front and rear tires and helps maintain better vehicle aerodynamics.

Technology-based luxury

Illuminated "welcome mats" beneath both front doors greet Lincoln Navigator owners when they press the "unlock" button on the key fob.

A passive entry system allows owners to enter without using a key. The system senses when the key fob is in range of the door and allows for keyless access via a door-mounted button. Inside, a push-button start allows for keyless engine ignition.

The latest SYNC® with MyLincoln Touch™ driver connectivity system is standard. The system allows drivers to use voice-activated or touch screen controls to make phone calls, play music, use the navigation system or set cabin temperature controls. The system includes 4.2-inch LCD displays in the instrument cluster, an 8-inch touch screen in the center stack and traditional knob controls for easy operation.

The available Blind Spot Information System (BLIS®) signals when another vehicle is detected in an adjacent lane behind either rear wheel. Standard for 2015, Navigator also introduces a new rearview camera, which displays a color image on the 8-inch touch screen for help when driving in reverse.

Rebirth of an icon

Lincoln Navigator was wildly popular the moment it hit the streets in the late 1990s, and spent more than a decade as one of the top-selling vehicles in the segment. Featuring seating for up to eight passengers, luxury cues typically reserved for sedans and cargo space and towing capacity to haul virtually anything, Navigator set the full-size luxury SUV standard.

It was an immediate success, accounting for 41 percent of in-segment sales by the 2000 model year. Aiming to recapture that glory, the 2015 Navigator offers nearly two dozen upgrades from the current generation.

"Navigator has retained some of the most loyal following in the segment for more than a decade," said Jim Farley, executive vice president, Ford global marketing, sales and service and Lincoln. "Among Lincoln owners, more than 70 percent have been return customers - purchasing the vehicle for its power, for its beauty and for its capability, and this new Navigator gives them more on all three fronts."

Production of the 2015 Lincoln Navigator is scheduled to begin in late summer 2014 at the Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville, Ky., and vehicles are due in Lincoln showrooms in early fall 2014.

[King T]

[mikeyg36]

Well Aztek, you had a good run.

[King T]

(Motor Trend)







First Look: 2015 Lincoln Navigator
Keeping the Faithful

In 1997, Lincoln put a tuxedo on the Ford Expedition, called it the Navigator, and repopularized the luxury full-size SUV market abandoned by the Jeep Wagoneer in 1991. The brand dominated the market while Cadillac played catch-up, putting less-than-convincing lipstick on the GMT400 Chevy Tahoe. Others rushed to join this high profit-margin party, but volume-wise, nobody ever threatened the Detroiters. Caddy's 2002 redesign of the GMT800 turned the tables, outselling Lincoln by 62 percent, and subsequent Lincoln redesigns never regained the upper hand. Might the tables turn in 2015, when both are redesigned?

Smart money says no. For one thing, when you're GM, holding a firm lock on 75 percent of the full-size SUV market, your tooling for expensive things like doors is amortized and worn out after seven-plus years and 1.6 million units. You can afford new ones. FoMoCo's tools are still in good shape after building just 411,000 copies, so the new Navigator doesn't look or feel as new as the new Escalade does. The doors, rear quarter panels, roof, and windshield all look pretty familiar.

Similarly, the interior -- while updated nicely with soft, sewn materials over the familiar dual-cowl dash design, Eagle Ottawa leather upholstery and a Wollsdorf leather-wrapped steering wheel with Euro stitching, a TFT instrument-panel display, ambient lighting, and the latest MyLincoln Touch infotainment -- looks like a pretty mild refresh compared with the futuristic new Cadillac interior. There is a new Platinum-rivaling Reserve Package that buys Trevino leather on all three rows of seats, the door panels, and glove box, and Ziricote wood trim. (It's typically used to accent yachts!) If you're keeping track, that's three different leather name brands! Another cool feature: A lamp under each side-view mirror projects a Lincoln emblem "welcome mat" in front of each front door. Unfortunately, the new Navigator's electrical architecture apparently can't support some conveniences that are starting to be taken for granted, such as adaptive cruise control and lane-keeping assist.

The look is completely fresh from dead ahead or astern, however, with all sheetmetal forward of the A-pillar redesigned to incorporate the new "wing grille" face of Lincoln, plus new LED accent lighting and foglamps, but sadly no new state-of-the-art LED forward lighting like the Escalade offers. From the rear, there's a mildly Durango-esque full-width LED tail-lamp treatment. New 20-inch wheels are standard, but ticking the Reserve Package option brings polished 22s, along with a moonroof and motorized running boards of chrome. Two-tone paint will also be offered.

There is bigger news under the hood, where the tried-and-true 5.4-liter Triton engine is pastured in favor of the increasingly ubiquitous 3.5-liter twin-turbo EcoBoost V-6 producing "at least 370 hp and 430 lb-ft of torque." That's down from the Caddy 6.2's certified 420 hp and 460 lb-ft. No other engines are currently scheduled for production, but Lincoln claims its mighty V-6 can trump the Escalade's 8000-pound max trailer rating with a claimed best-in-class 9000 pounds of towing (properly equipped with 4.10:1 axle and rear-drive). Both big utes' engines are harnessed to six-speed automatics. Fuel economy is also expected to be much improved -- official EPA numbers for the Lincoln haven't been announced, but the Cadillac is rated at 14-15/20-21 mpg city/highway. For comparison, the outgoing 2014 Navigator gets 13-14/18-20 mpg.

In the suspension department, Lincoln still wins with an independent rear setup (and the benefits that pays to third-row seat legroom and cargo area), but the live-axle Cadillac gets magnetic ride control, which in the past has impressed us more than Lincoln's Continuously Controlled Damping (CCD) system. Nevertheless, we are promised this latest ute will navigate turns like no previous Lincoln truck.

Naturally, the Navigator continues to offer two wheelbases and class-leading cargo volumes of 103.3/54.4/18.1 cubic feet behind the front/middle/third-row seats in the standard wheelbase truck, and 128.2/86.3/42.6 for the Navigator L. Cadillac only manages 94.2/51.6/15.3 and 120.5/76.5/38.7 for Escalade and ESV. Buyers will get their first look at the new Navigator at the Chicago show on February 6, with production starting in Kentucky this summer for a fall on-sale launch, at which point Lincoln fully expects to continue enjoying the 75 percent owner loyalty it's had for the past several years. It seems buyers of these barges are nearly as loyal as the pickup-truck segment, so if you already own a Navigator, never mind all those Caddy comparisons, and enjoy this lovely new truck.

[King T]

Originally Posted by mikeyg36

Well Aztek, you had a good run.

[King T]

(Car And Driver)












2015 Lincoln Navigator: Full Speed Behind
Staying the course.

We can only hope that Lincoln isn’t relying on the Navigator to guide the wayward luxury brand out of its current predicament. Trying to bushwhack its way back from a lost era of uncompetitive vehicles and misguided strategy, Lincoln is in the midst of what its marketing team calls a “product- and service-led transformation.” But the 2015 Lincoln Navigator is a continuation of the same course rather than the about-face the brand desperately needs. It adheres to the tired “follow Ford” approach and is in many ways the same Navigator that has been on dealer lots for years. (While no one’s talking about a refreshed Expedition just yet, we have full faith that Ford Motor Company will deliver an update to it soon.)

Despite sales being a fraction of what they were 10 years ago, large luxury SUVs like the Navigator still find homes with roughly 80,000 buyers every year—buyers with large families, larger toys, and even larger wallets. With seating for up to eight, a towing capacity as high as 9000 pounds, and a starting price of just under $60,000, there are few vehicles like the Navigator. Yet in a segment that includes the Cadillac Escalade, the Infiniti QX80, and the Mercedes-Benz GL-class, Lincoln’s 2013 sales topped only those of the Lexus LX570. This face lift, a half-hearted attempt to counter the 2015 Cadillac Escalade’s comprehensive overhaul, is unlikely to change the Navigator’s standing among its peers.

The 2015 Navigator is based on seven-year-old bones with unchanged exterior dimensions and carryover sheetmetal everywhere except the hood and the tailgate. Up front, the family-look split-wing grille has been skillfully applied to accommodate a truck that otherwise looks like no other Lincoln. The butt lift isn’t nearly as successful. The full-width taillight comes off as a poor mimicry of the Dodge Durango’s rear end and the single-outlet exhaust dangles awkwardly inches below the bumper.

EcoBoosted

More-substantial changes lurk behind the grille where the 5.4-liter V-8 has been replaced by the EcoBoost 3.5-liter twin-turbo V-6 as the sole powertrain. Engineers promise at least 370 horsepower and 430 lb-ft of torque, gains of 5 horses and 10 lb-ft over what the engine currently makes in the Ford F-150. Power reaches the ground through a carry-over six-speed automatic and either rear- or all-wheel drive. Since the Navigator’s competition is powered exclusively by eight-cylinder engines, Lincoln is confident it will earn the highest EPA fuel-economy ratings in the class.

The body-on-frame architecture is a derivative of current Ford F-150 underpinnings, with an independent suspension at the rear. The new engine has afforded a switch to electrically assisted steering and optional adaptive dampers can be set to Normal, Comfort, or, um, Sport modes.

Leather, Knobs, and Booze

Inside, the Navigator’s familiar towering dash panel has been dressed up with spiffier materials. It’s all convincingly upscale save for the cheap, unadorned plastic vents on top of the center stack. The controls and instruments have been updated, including a new steering wheel and a central analog speedometer flanked by two digital screens. The MyLincoln Touch infotainment system is standard and the latest iteration includes volume and tuning knobs for the radio, plus rockers for station-seek and fan-speed functions. Fussy touch-sensitive sliders thankfully are nowhere to be found.

We worried that Lincoln product planners were hitting the Johnnie Walker a little hard last August when the brand announced its new Black Label trims. While there’s been no mention of a Navigator Black Label, it looks like someone might have replaced the scotch with bourbon during the Navigator’s development. The Reserve package replaces the standard 20-inch wheels with 22s and adds power-retracting chrome running boards and premium leather for the peons in the third row.

Don’t Follow the Navigator

To be fair to the Navigator, Lincoln execs and engineers have invested far more energy and money into the 2014 Lincoln MKZ and the upcoming 2015 MKC small crossover. Then again, excuses and front-clip redesigns are exactly what fueled the past generation of mediocre vehicles. That’s why we aren’t counting on the Navigator to inspire buyers to flock to Lincoln showrooms when it goes on sale in the fall of 2014.

[FenwickHockey65]

Trying to stay relevant, I see.

This brand frustrates the living hell out of me. There's so much potential but Ford is completely incompetent at managing it.

[King T]

Lincoln Navigator gets new look, turbocharged engine for 2015

The Lincoln Navigator is charting a slightly different course for 2015.

The full-size luxury SUV has been given a fresh face with its own take on the brand’s signature split-wing grille, along with a new engine to breathe through it.

Replacing the 5.4-liter V8 in the current Navigator is a version of the 3.5-liter twin-turbocharged V6 used in the Lincoln MKS and MKT, here with at least 370 hp and 430 lb-ft of torque.

Fuel economy ratings have not been revealed, but long and short wheelbase versions will still be available and Lincoln is promising best-in-class towing capability.

The new 2015 Cadillac Escalade that goes on sale this spring has a projected tow rating of 8,200-pounds.

The Navigator will also offer for the first time the brand’s Continuously Controlled Damping active suspension, electric power steering and MyLincoln Touch infotainment system.

The redesigned interior features optional leather seating all around and upgraded trim materials, including Ziricote wood.

Unlike the Ford F-150 it’s related to, which is getting a radical overhaul with aluminum bodywork for 2015, the changes to the Navigator represent more of a late mid-cycle update for a model that’s been largely unchanged since the third-generation truck was revealed at the Chicago Auto Show in 2006.

The 2015 Navigator will be in showrooms this Fall. As with the Escalade it competes against, it remains the only vehicle in the Lincoln lineup with an actual name, rather than a three-letter designation.

Prices will be announced at a later date.

[ssrs2lt]

not horrible Lincoln is putting it out there..

[mikeyg36]

Seriously, the Escalade is such a better SUV than this.

[FenwickHockey65]

Oh and...

The Lincoln Motor Company introduced the new 2015 Navigator, offering a fresh interpretation of a classic vehicle that has long defined the full-size luxury sport utility segment.

...that's a joke. Apparently Lincoln has never heard of something called "Escalade." Or Range Rover for that matter.

[ssrs2lt]

yeah I hear ya, the Lincoln brand could be great.

[Bat Maro]

FUGLY. just like its predecessor(which was even worse).

the only Navi's i thought looked sharp were these. and even then the escalade of that year was nicer. the escalade has always been better looking then the navigator in general.

with that being said i drove a 2010 fully loaded Navigator and i have to say they drive AWESOME and the interior and technology is top notch but the outside is so god damn ugly i could never picture myself owning one.

[crysalis_01]

One needs to understand that this is nothing more than a LONG overdue MCE, to hold over the 'gator until the aluminium intensive all new '18 comes out in a couple years, and that the designers are limited to what they can do; what with having to have everything mount up to all the old hard points. Meaning this had even less Wolff input than the MKZ (which had very little itself).

The next gen should be by all means much more "fluid" ala the MKC. This is just LMC getting all the old design languages (grills) out the door and creating a more synergetic design line up. With this more than likely getting the EB 3.5 and 2.7 powerplants sales should pick up enough to keep the nameplate alive til the '18.