2025 Cadillac Escalade vs Lincoln Navigator vs Jeep Grand Wagoneer Pure Michigan Comparison Test

Detroit land yachts ruled the roads in the 50s and 60s, and if you want a modern luxo-barge, one that can haul the whole family, tow a boat, and cruise to the cabin hands-free, it's still Detroit's game. To find the best full-size luxury SUV, we gathered a Lincoln Navigator, a Cadillac Escalade, and a Jeep Grand Wagoneer for a Pure Michigan comparison test. I'm Eric Tingwall, Testing Director with Motor Trend, and I'm joined by Frank Marcus, Technical Director. And Eric, you are so right. This doesn't get more Pure Michigan than this one. These cars and their predecessors were all designed and developed in Michigan, and the folks who did that work had mansions in Oakland County, making that like the number two most affluent county in Michigan. But they all have places up north, which they drive these to, and the most affluent county in Michigan is Leelanau. So we have come here in these cars. Let's meet the competitors. The Cadillac Escalade looks as menacing as ever thanks to a mid-cycle refresh that updates the front end with tall, vertical lighting elements. The real draw, though, is the interior, where designers lavished attention on the materials of this top, sport-platinum model, with striking wood trim, rich quilted leather, and a lower dash wrapped in textured upholstery. The main infotainment display stretches 55 inches, and there's a new 11-inch screen sprouting from the center console to handle climate and seat settings. GM's excellent hands-free SuperCruise system is standard across the lineup, and sport platinums include a 36-speaker AKG sound system and power opening and closing doors that elevate the experience. Mechanically, the 2025 Escalade is identical to last year's model. GM's venerable small-block V8 makes the least power of the trio with 420 horsepower, and it needs 6.2 seconds to hit 60 miles per hour. But it compensates by making the most noise. The engine is paired with a 10-speed automatic and optional four-wheel drive in our test car, which rides on air springs, magnetic ride control dampers, and the optional $1,800 24-inch wheels. At $125,020, as tested, the Escalade is the most expensive SUV in the test. People tend to think Cadillac invented the full-size luxury SUV, but the Lincoln Navigator blazed the trail in 1998, a year ahead of the Escalade. The OG now enters its fifth generation for 2025 with a new exterior design that recycles only the door panels from the last gen, and introduces a clamshell tailgate. As with the Cadillac, the interior gets the more dramatic makeover. The Navigator's pillar-to-pillar screen measures 48 inches, making it smaller than the Cadillac's, but the differences go far beyond size. Where the Escalade's screen stacks right in front of the driver, Lincoln designers opened up the Navigator's cabin by pushing their screen away from occupants and placing it at the base of the windshield. The Lincoln Digital Experience, as it's called, is controlled through an 11.1-inch screen that's placed low enough that it's almost entirely out of your peripheral vision. Our black-label test car also includes a 30-way driver's seat, 28-way passenger seat, a 28-speaker Revell audio system, Blue Cruise hands-free driving, and the ability to perfume the cabin with scents called Mystic Forest, Violet Cashmere, and Ozonic Azure. While this is a new generation of Navigator, there's nothing in the way of news on the powertrain and chassis front. The twin-turbo V6 carries over from last year's Navigator with an unchanged 440 horsepower. Working through a 10-speed automatic and 4-wheel drive, it's good for a 5.1-second 0-to-60 dash. Adaptive dampers come standard, but air springs aren't even an option, making this the only entrant with steel coil springs. And while 24-inch wheels are available for almost $3,000, this one rides on the standard 22-inch wheels. As it sits here, it costs $120,490. Jeep introduced the Grand Wagoneer for 2022 and hasn't yet given it a mid-cycle refresh, making this the oldest design in the test. But don't count it out. It enters the comparison as Motor Trend's top pick in the segment, and with plenty to recommend it. The Grand Wagoneer is the longest, widest, and, with its air springs hiked to their highest setting, tallest in the test, which pays off in second- and third-row space. It can also tow up to 9,810 pounds, half a ton more than the Lincoln and a full ton more than the Cadillac. While it lacks the dash-spanning screens of the competition, the Jeep has no shortage of digital real estate, with four individual displays up front. And screen-averse buyers will appreciate that the Jeep has a huge array of traditional off-screen buttons. Feature highlights include 20-way front seats, hands-free Active Driving Assist, a cooler in the front console, and a cabin camera system for checking in on the kids. Even without a comprehensive refresh, the Wagoneer does get better for 2025 with a 30-horsepower bump for its twin-turbo inline-six engine. The smooth and strong powerhouse now makes a whopping 540 horsepower, giving the Jeep a commanding advantage in straight-line performance. The heaviest vehicle in this comparison test, at 6,282 pounds, the Jeep sprints to 60 in 4.6 seconds. Torque is dispatched to all four wheels through an eight-speed automatic, and the body rides on air springs, electronically adjustable dampers, and 22-inch wheels, which is as large as they come from the factory. Our Grand Wagoneer Series 3 Obsidian checks in as the most affordable vehicle in this test, at $119,290. I'm joined in the Escalade with Alex Stocklosa, Deputy Editor at Motor Trend. This Escalade, to me, is the sportiest of the trio, by quite a large margin. It's got that loud V8 rumble. The steering's the best of the bunch. It's a little bit harsher than the Jeep, but it feels more buttoned down. I attribute a lot of that to the Magneretological dampers. Those things are magic. They use them in Corvettes for good reason, right? Yeah. What do you think about the handling of this thing? Yeah, it's definitely more connected than either the Jeep or the Navigator, and while the Navigator seems kind of on the firmer side like this does, it doesn't have the same payoff. It's kind of jittering, and there's a lot of head toss, and this still seems capable of comfortably smoothing over bumps in the middle of the corner. It just hangs in there, you know, a lot better than either of the other two SUVs. Yeah, it's by no means what I say is it harsh or does it ride badly, right? It's just a little bit more firm, and it feels very intentional. So, I'm a big fan of the small block V8. Frank, I think, is a little more skeptical of it. It's obviously down on power. Where do you fall on the small block V8? Is it appropriate in a $120,000 luxury vehicle? Is it underpowered today? Does it need to go, or should it stay? I was doing a little bit of this jigsaw puzzle in my head earlier, which is that the Jeep feels like it most deserves a V8 because it matches the vibe of, you know, it's a little more relaxed and comfortable and lofty, and this sort of deserves a powertrain that's as sharp as the Jeeps, just for that. Given that the rest of the feel is buttoned down, it's reactive and, you know, sportier. So, having that little edge in your throttle response would be better, but the V8 sounds pretty good. When you say that the Cadillac should have the Jeep's engine, I don't disagree with you from a performance standpoint, right? That engine is fantastic, by far the best engine in this comparison test. I do think if Cadillac were to overnight go from naturally aspirated V8 to twin-turbo six-cylinder, they're going to hit the same problem that Jeep and Ram and Dodge are hitting right now, which is the people love their V8s. They've come to expect them, and if you give them something else, even if it's better, they are extremely skeptical of it. The V8 works, and I know Frank pointed out that there's this kind of, like we'll do it right now, this exhaust whoosh at wide open throttle, especially at the upper revs. You're hearing this kind of whistling from behind us, and yeah, that's a little bit untoward, but the rest of the time, if you're just driving around normally, not foot to the floor, and you get on it, you get that V8 sound without that going on, and it's kind of like a crisscraft sensation, like you've got the nice little low rumble. It's very pleasant. I think if Cadillac can learn anything from Lincoln and Jeep in this competition, it's yeah, maybe you do need to move to that turbocharged engine, whether eight cylinders or six cylinders, but maybe you need to do it gradually, right? Ford and Lincoln have been doing this for more than a decade now, making their EcoBoost turbocharged engines a thing, right, and offering that EcoBoost turbo engine alongside a V8, so that customers have some time to pick up on, oh wow, this is what's better about these turbo engines. Tons of low-end torque, hopefully a little bit better fuel economy. That's, you know, that's kind of the mistake that Stellantis has made, is just replacing them, you know. Dynamically, this Cadillac has a lot going for it. It also has a lot going for it as a stylish modern luxury vehicle. Love the interior here. I think the infotainment system isn't perfect, but it's well enough done that I would tolerate it to live with this design, the materials, the execution's incredible, right? The brushed aluminum look, trim, real wood, kind of heavily covered in a high gloss finish here. It's working, it's working. It's okay, I would love to see a matte finish there. Really love the wool on the door panels and lower dash. A little bit of piano black here and there, used sparingly, which is how it should be used if you're going to use it at all. The Cadillac has a just right amount of Corvette in its DNA. The deep V8 rumble and the wide bandwidth of the magnetic ride dampers make it feel like the sports sedan of the group, and yet it's equally capable of being a relaxed, comfortable cruiser. It rounds out the luxury car package with cutting-edge tech and a cockpit that justifies the $125,000 price. Put it all together, this Escalade update feels like more than a mid-cycle refresh. Frank, what do you think about the interior of this Grand Wagoneer? Well, it is flawless in terms of materials. There's nowhere I can feel, okay, maybe in the bottom of the side bins here is some plastic, but it's soft touch and wrapped and stitched and sewed pretty much everywhere. And you can't say that about the Lincoln, and even the Cadillac has a few hard plastic bits. They're hidden, they're down low, but nevertheless, that is a difference that sets this vehicle apart. Yes, although the Cadillac distracts the eye and the finger with its brilliance in the stuff that's up above. I mean, that is the most wow interior. I feel like this one's a little more staid, a little more old-school in its approach, don't you? It feels traditional, a little bit dated, I'd say, in terms of the layout, the shapes, just the way things are trimmed out. It doesn't really look all that modern. Gorgeous, and if you've come up to the Jeep world, this is the nicest Jeep. There's a Ben, you know. And it feels and looks exactly like what it is, which is a mainstream brand making a premium vehicle. Right. And there's a difference there, I think, between a luxury company making a luxury vehicle, right, which is where they design it from the outset, and the base model up through the top trim, they're all going to be very luxurious. Of course, this vehicle, there are cheaper variants of it, lower trim levels that don't have the stitching, the same soft touch materials in all these places. Right. I love the color combinations, too. The high contrast, I just hate all black, and fortunately, I don't think any of these is 100% black. Yeah. All right, opening it up, this is the high output, inline-six, twin-turbo, three liters, 540 horsepower. That's up from 510 horsepower last year. This engine has been criticized and kind of, I don't know, saddled with the, that it's responsible for the death of the Hemi V8. I actually quite like this engine. What do you think about it? You know, it does make more sense on an efficiency standpoint. An inline-six is the inherently smoothest choice of any of these engines in this competition, and sure enough, it is very smooth. It is quieter to me than the others, partly because they just chose not to pipe in a bunch of engine noise in the speakers. Yeah, I, especially in this application, have no complaints about the way this engine sounds. No, or runs. It's spectacular. Yeah, it's a luxury vehicle. It should be smooth. It should be torquey at a low end, and I think, you know, the Hemi, the 5.7, and even the 6.4, they're getting pretty long in the tooth, right? And they were always, even compared to other naturally aspirated V8s, a little bit slower and a little bit thirstier. They never really progressed the way some of the small blocks from GM progressed. So to me, it was time, and the engine they came up with is such a vastly better engine that we should be celebrating this, and nobody should be ashamed to drive a product with this engine. So with the torque bonus that you get with this engine, you don't miss the two gears that you're down. An 8-speed versus a 10-speed seemed to me to be no problem. Yeah, and the transmission to me is a really nice balance of never being harsh, but shifting quickly, and you can feel those shifts. The Lincoln has a nice way of kind of making shifts disappear, which is very fitting of its character. This car, you feel the shifts. You're aware of them, but they aren't too much. They're not harsh. Right, absolutely. All right, we've got a little bit of a sweeping corner here. These vehicles are all huge. You don't think of them as cornering vehicles, things that are meant to be driven all that hard. The Jeep to me is the one that's kind of most balanced, right, and splits its time between being soft, luxurious, isolating a little bit, and yet also feeling fairly composed through corners. I did notice when you switch back to auto on the straightaways, you do feel a little bit more wafting or float, but when you're turning or braking, it pins that stuff down pretty well. Size-wise, I mean, this one is the longest and widest. Yeah, and I like the rear seat entertainment system in this one the best just because of the options, right? It gives you Amazon Prime and Netflix, kind of the obvious default choices that you would think anybody would have to have. Right, you do not have to bring in a device with an HDMI output to enjoy the screens, which it seems to do. To use this front passenger screen, for example, you do kind of need to bring something in. Yeah, that front passenger screen is a little bit weird to me. It's kind of angled such that it catches outside sunlight and glare. It always feels dim no matter how bright you turn it up. Like you said, it doesn't have any built-in streaming, but you can, the one nice thing I'll say as a parent, you can control the rear screens from that. So if you're on a family road trip, whoever your passenger is is in charge of navigation and keeping the kids entertained, and they can do that without leaning into the back seat or using a remote and asking the kid, what's on the screen now? Right, and it's better at controlling the back screens than it is at depicting entertainment. Jeep's Grand Wagoneer has all the right moves for a large luxury SUV. The engine pulls hard, the ride is plush, and the body motions are nicely controlled. It's held back by the dated interior design and lagging technology that keep it from feeling as opulent as the Lincoln and the Cadillac. It has the look of a mainstream vehicle dressed up for a formal affair, which is exactly what it is. Okay, and I'm gonna put us in excite mode here so that we can... I'm gonna hang on. Excite the brakes as much as possible. All right, so what were your predispositions coming into this thing about the Navigator, if any? Uh, you know, looking at it, it's like really the only one of the bunch that's perched up on its wheels. Like, it has that very, like, concept car-y, like, here's a slab of body on top of these big wheels, even though these are some of the more modestly sized wheels. Yes, they're about 22s. Yes, and, you know, it drives like that. I feel very high up in this, even though I'm sure dimensionally we're all... they're all pretty close, you know, in terms of their roof heights and things like that. It's just somehow in this, it feels the truckiest of the three. A lot of... I mean, I'm holding on here because a lot of head toss side to side here every time we go over every little undulation near the shoulder. Well, that's the excite mode. We've got ourselves nailed down a little bit more. Undoubtedly. I'm very excited right now. Thrilled. I feel like I'm in the minority cutting this car a bit more slack. I, for one thing, let's talk about the screens because that's a big differentiator. Cadillac and Lincoln have gone big on the screens and the others have not. This one is quite different from the... this is 48 and the Cadillac is 55. I would say they use the 48 better than Cadillac does the 55. What's your take? Oh yeah, this is a much more efficient use of the space and it, you know, you can look at it and glean whatever information you've set it to show you, which is great. I don't love that, you know, all of it's controlled through this lower display that's a little bit... it feels small, just maybe relative to this bigger one, but it's also way out of your line of sight. So as you struggle with getting CarPlay to work here, you're having to go, you know, take your glance way off the road and futz around with it. The way it works though is really, really good. I think it's surprisingly easy to jump in and start setting everything up and using it because of the way they prompt you on the screen and how those little steering wheel buttons kind of come to life. And I find this to be less intimidating than some. We're not trying to show a million things. You can pick, you know, three of five options for the screens over there, or you can turn them off in calm mode. Also, I feel like we have yet to take the opportunity to investigate rejuvenate mode in this car. Yes, there's a rejuvenate mode that is only when you're parked and outdoors because the engine has to run. It rolls the seat back, and it plays some nice zen music, and it sprays some nice perfume, and it does all this stuff. Yeah, I mean, I certainly would need a little bit of rejuvenation after, say, a fast drive in this car just because of the bumpy factor. The handling seems fine, like it kind of hangs in there. It's not unruly or anything, but it's definitely on the firmer end of the group in terms of ride comfort, and then, you know, you're making a lot of little corrections at the wheel mid-corner. It just seems to move around on its tires more. Handling-wise, especially that last big sweeping right-hander we came through, there was some undulation and some... Yeah, it runs out of compliance. Once it's loaded up, that's it. Like, you don't get any more, whereas in the Jeep and the Cadillac, you could be kind of loaded up in a corner, and it keeps soaking things up, so you're not... You just... It seems more serene going around a corner in either of those SUVs versus this one. Right. Most people, most users, are not going to drive these cars like this. Well, and there's no... But that's a key point, though. There's no payoff, right? It's not like, oh, it's a little bit stiffer, there's all this head toss, and the payoff is more athleticism or occasionally more comfort or something. Like, it doesn't really strike either of those targets. Right. It's just kind of not quite good at being sporty, and pretty... I think everyone's in agreement. It's not that great on the comfort side of things. It's, you know, it's a little louder in here. The ride is, again, firmer, but in the Cadillac, the payoff is it handles really well while still exhibiting nice refinement, but this... The way it goes down the road is not particularly comfortable nor particularly sporty. Not quite where you'd expect it to be given the price point. Right. This one. Lincoln's buttery twin-turbo V6 and the innovative Lincoln Digital Experience are first-class fixings, but the Navigator is let down by its graceless ride. While it's the newest vehicle here, the chassis feels like it's at least a generation behind the Cadillac and Jeep. The interior materials and relatively loud cabin also come up short of genuine six-figure luxury. With 500 miles of highway driving and a tour around Leelanau County's undulating two lanes behind us, it's time to rank these full-size SUVs. The Lincoln Navigator lands in third place. We like the idea of an SUV that abandons all sporting pretensions and leans into isolation and comfort as the ultimate luxury. Lincoln seems to like the idea too, but the Navigator gets the execution wrong. As good as the powertrain and interior concept are, they can't smooth over at the Navigator's rough edges. No $120,000 vehicle should feel this discombobulated on a lumpy road, especially one designed and engineered in Michigan. Jeep's Grand Wagoneer rides into second place on the strength of its 540 horsepower engine. It's also the most comfortable of this bunch thanks to its stiff structure and supple suspension. The Macintosh sound system can turn even the most basic pop fan into an audiophile. As luxurious as the cabin is though, the Grand Wagoneer lacks the sense of occasion you get in the Navigator and Escalade, and the infotainment and hands-free technology lag behind the rest of the field. That means the Cadillac Escalade is our winner. From the power doors to the interior design to supercruise, the Escalade exudes more ambition than any Cadillac built in the past 60 years. It isn't the quickest or most comfortable of this group, but as an incredibly well-rounded vehicle, it is every bit as quick and comfortable as it needs to be. It's effortless in day-to-day driving and surprisingly fun when driven swiftly. It blends modern technology and timeless luxury with an impeccable sense of style. And it proves that Michigan still knows how to make world-class luxury.