2026 Lincoln Navigator Black Label Quick Review

Welcome to Extra Throttle House. I'm Tom. And I'm James. What car are we reviewing today, by the way? This is a Lincoln Navigator. This? Black label L. This must be a mistake. This is an airport transfer shuttle. It 100% is. Yeah. But it's one of the fancier ones. Okay. And we've looked at the Escalade and we always say get the Escalade. We've looked at the Infiniti QX80. We said get the Escalade. So this is the car we're filming. This is our model. We said get an Escalade. So does the Lincoln Navigator break that? I can't know. I don't know anything about the Lincoln Navigator. Okay. I do know that you had one a few years back and you drove it up to my cottage. I did. Yeah. And it was lovely. And it has since been massively refreshed. Okay. Some say for the worse in ways. Oh. 3.5 liter twin turbo six. Similar to probably what's in the F-150, just not hybrid, correct? Yes. Yeah. It's got the EcoBoost, but it's based on an Expedition, right? It's the fancy Expedition, the same way the Cadillac is a fancy Chevy and GMC. Got it. This has 440 horsepower and 510 pound feet of torque. It is absolutely no slouch. It comes at somewhat of a premium. In this caviar paint, you're buying this for 176,000 Canadian. That's a lot of money. It's a lot, but everything's a huge discount off an Escalade V, which is like 250. Wait, how much is an Escalade V? 250. 250. It's got nuts. This is the big one. This is the L and it's still somehow a little bit shorter than the Cadillac Escalade ESV. Right. I understand. Okay. Other than that, it's decked out with 24 inch wheels. It looks fine. Big fat light bar. I think they've done a good job with the styling because it's, well, it's so inoffensive that I thought it was an airport transfer shuttle. Where are you going? Just have a look at the back. Just, it's cool. What? Far away, isn't it? So far away. Yeah. It is really long. Okay. Should we drive it? Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent drive it. Okay. Yeah. Because there's some quite interesting things going on inside. Whoa. Okay. Welcome. This is, uh, this is actually nicer than I thought it was going to be. Opulent. Opulent. Now I know what the first thing you're seeing is screens. Yeah. However. How do I adjust the steering wheel? It's really low. Why are you going to start with the negatives? What do you mean? So the steering wheel is strange. It is? You've got this button. Okay. So it gives you your functions up there and then you, you have to swipe over. No, how do you just, you click into it, click into it adjustments. Yeah. And then you can move that around. Wait, where's the steering wheel? That's the steering wheel. How do I, how do I select it? Just press the top one. Press the top one. So basically what happened here is that somebody looked at what Elon was doing and went, that guy seems like he's making really good choices. Let's copy that exactly, but make it worse. Yeah, it's worse. It's worse. And what's really dumb about it is on the left side, which is the one that allows you to do your cruise control. Click that once. There aren't any more functions than what you could have fit. Like I get it if it gives you multiple functions. Right. It's, it's actually less than. They could have just lit it up. Just lit it up and then you click it. Yeah. There's no need for that whatsoever. I will say I've got used to it with the music because you just press in on that, except it's dumb because you have to press exactly in the So that doesn't click even though there's a satisfying click. Right. You have to press exactly there. Ah, so it's ----. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna turn my cold seat on at least. We got those. Cold seats are not great. They're a bit weak. Good. Off to a strong start. Here we go. All right. So they've given it a bit of a Cybertrucky steering wheel. Yep. Except. Ooh, nice engine. Yes. Powertrain is one of the absolute highlights of this car. Yeah. It's, I think it's north of 60 in like six seconds or sub six. It's pretty quick for a big thing like this. Whatever it is, it is quick. And if you stick it into excite mode. Excite. Amaze, amaze, amaze. It does a V8 sound piped into the cabin. It took three business days to downshift there, but that does sound like a V8. Yeah. And what I do like about it is not only do you have the speedometer reading out your actual number. Yeah. But it has this almost like manor or a building of an ultimate in a video game light that starts lighting up the background. I've never made it across the valley to the other mountains because it's based on speed. I imagine that's probably 135, 150 kilometers an hour to get to the other side. I see. Look at that. I see. Doesn't that feel magical? Go, go. Yeah, that is actually really cool. But you know what I'm not doing is watching the road. I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I think that you're being somewhat unfair because the whole point of this, I'm going to get their words right here. Okay. I wouldn't want to put words in their mouth. So the whole point of this 48 inch display, which has to be noted is seven inches shorter than the one in the Escalade. Right. Of course. Is to look up and out. Up and out. Up and out. So ignore this finicky one down here. That takes away from the mantra that Lincoln have got a little bit. Okay. Because yeah, I actually enjoy this stuff up here. I don't find it too distracting and you can change the widgets that you see up here. So right now I've got tire pressure, but I can throw a weather up there. Oh, I see. There you go. And hold it there. There's weather. Burlington is currently 15 degrees and partly cloudy and in a fuel economy there. So I think this actually does work and I find myself not distracted by it. And then ways when you have ways it pops up to there. Yeah. So you really don't have to look at this much apart from climate. This whole interior is really nice. This, this design and the wood here, it does look like somebody was brushing their teeth and sneezed onto the mirror. I was going to say shook a Coke and just opened it. Yeah. This is part of the, cause this is a black label. You get like black label interior designs. This is the atmospheric one. I see. So there's supposed to be a starry night. Okay. Ice, ice, starry night. That's paint flecks, but whatever. Yeah. Um, Jackson Pollock. The seat, the seats are nice. Why is there a, why is there like a slit right here though? I think it's, you're supposed to the seat, right? I'm sorry. Of course it's a sissy. Oh, we're going to get, if he gets canceled, there were different people for me. So these are very adjustable seats as part of the back. Who's giving us the keys to these cars? As part of the black label, you get 30 adjustable seat setting rather than right. 24. So I can make my right leg higher than my left. Yeah. You can change it. And then I can do the cha-cha. When I do this, I feel like I'm like Dolly Parton adjusting my boobs. It's got a real like, Oh, you know, if you like maybe talk about if I had boobs for a day, all I do is this. It's that, that energy. Whoa, buddy. Whoa, Jesus. He was like a foot and a half over the line. Fine. You're in excite mode still. So it's agile. Yeah. It's agile. This actually doesn't have air springs. It doesn't have soft closing doors. It doesn't have things that you expect the top end luxury versions to have. I will say it sprung very softly. No, this is actually quite nice. The ride's good. I haven't had any complaints. It's good because they've, because they've made it soft. It's not good in the, like an Escalade where they use the MagneRide and it composes itself. This is a bit, it's wallowy like an LX. But I don't mind that because I don't believe that big SUVs should be good handling. They're big SUVs. I agree. There should be a, there, look, a rollover risk warning. That's what I want to see because I want it to be squishy and nice. The only thing, the only time it affects me negatively is just speed, is speed humps because the whole car goes woof, woof, woof. So that's really aggressive. Right, right. But otherwise, yeah, it drives, as I said, the trans, 10 speed transmission's smooth. Yeah, this is, Ford's good at, Ford's good at making big vehicles drive easily. Like the F-150 still drives like a much smaller vehicle than it is. But it has a live rear axle. This is independent rear suspension. It's, it's, it's more, it is more sophisticated than that. There is a secondary vibration over the bumps though. It's going through my butt. I wonder if that does change with the, if you go with the 22 inch wheels and a bit more rubber. This is spec'd. Yeah, big, big wheels are stupid. They always have been. I got this 28 speaker Revel sound system. Pretty good. Is it good? Yeah. Uh, you got lots and lots of storage space. It has scents in here. It has like a good sense. No, it's got. Oh, scents. Gordy scents that you can set the cabin with if you want. It has some relaxing. I can smell them. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, they're really strong. It's got, it's got like relaxed features. That one smells exactly like that stuff you spray on the toilet before you take a deuce. Okay. I haven't used it. I don't like it. It's got rejuvenate thing that massage, these seats massage. It does like a whole thing like the lucid gravity does with garbage like that. You never use them. So irrelevant. How do I adjust the angle of this vent? Uh, yeah, so that's, there's no like knob or anything. Yeah, no, it's here. Oh, again with the Tesla stuff. Why is what? Nope. Didn't didn't didn't. What's his name at Ford? Not the comedian Farley. No, Chris, Jim, Jim Farley, Jim Farley famously go to China and look at the EBS and go, Oh my God, we're so behind. Yes. So that tells you maybe that is exactly what's happened. Yeah. Maybe that makes sense. You know, there's a lot of confusing things going on here. There's a lot of chasing new tech that just didn't need to happen. Even though I actually think this works. Yeah. But there isn't a single issue that's actually felt like a deal breaker driving this car compounded in the aggregate. Maybe I'd look elsewhere. Just throw other things compounded in the aggregate. Ergo concordantly vis-a-vis potentially look elsewhere. Maybe an escalator, but I really have got on quite well with this. Even this squircle feels fun. Like got to turn right here. I'm going to good. Yeah. I've manifested that. Yeah. Got a little blind spot. Like the squircle feels fun. It is the ratio needs to be short. Yes. I was going to say that was like two and a half turns to get around that corner. Especially if you just get out of a Cybertruck and into this, you're just going to crash into a tree. The Cybertruck changes the ratio. I think a dynamic ratio could benefit this car. The good thing is that if you do get out of a Cybertruck and into this, you can look at yourself in the mirror again. Right? You could. Yeah. I think there's a dynamic ratio for that, but otherwise throttle and braking is great. These seats are almost Volvo. They look like the XC60 seats. Almost Volvo? We've already went over that. No. You're going to get us cancelled on both channels. They're almost Volvo-like. They're really nice, really soft, very adjustable. Yeah. Plenty of room in the back. The center console for the middle basically mirrors this. Yeah. This is actually a very nice vehicle. Other than the vibrations coming through into my hands, into my seat, it's quiet, plush, easy. Lots of points there. However, I do think that the Cadillac with its MagneRide takes it. Yeah. I think it still does. But then I don't know what the used market looks like for these, but I know that it's not good. It's not great. Yeah. This is going to plummet in value. Yeah. So used would be quite good. And it's got USB, USB-C, wireless charging, cup holders. It's got a trailer brake controller. It's a workstation. It's an apartment building on the road. It feels selfish. I always feel so indulgent. I jumped out of the Nissan Armada Nismo into this. Yeah. And it's like another giant, road-clogging, child-killing machine. Yeah. And it's lovely. It's lovely. It's better than the Nissan Armada. I know the Nissan Armada is not a direct competitor to the Infiniti. Okay, fine. It's better than the Infiniti QX60. Is this? QX80, sorry. I say this is better than the QX80. The QX80 impressed us with its interior materials. They were really nice. The powertrain was a bit lacking. The transmission wasn't great. This makes that up much better. But it is pricey. But it is nice. I don't know. Yeah. It is hard to really have an opinion. Because again, usually you're sitting back there being taken to the airport. And it's nice back there. There's TVs. Yep. Ventilated, heated seats. Ventilated and second row? Second row, yep. That's pretty good. And it's quiet back there. Like quieter than if you went like discount with a Palisade or a Teddy Ride. They're quite loud in the back. Yeah. You know who would love these seats? Oh God, who? JDV.