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THE IMMEDIATE CHALLENGES THAT DRIVERS FACE have evolved unimaginably since 1922 — from avoiding horses on the road to avoiding e-scooters, and from finding places to refuel to finding places to recharge — but over the past 100 years, the overarching goal of the Lincoln Motor Company has remained admirably clear. Next year marks a full century since the brand began working in earnest to make drivers’ lives easier, turning the task of driving into something that’s less of a chore and more of an escape. Achieving that lofty goal, however, will look very different in 2022 than it did in 1922.
To mark its centenary next year, Lincoln has some big reveals in store, including its first fully electric vehicle, an ambitious slate of cutting-edge connected in-car technologies, a new hands-free driving system, and — as if all that weren’t enough — a new flagship SUV.
Arriving early next year is the new Lincoln Navigator, overhauled for 2022, which embodies the brand’s elevated take on first-class travel. Driving a Lincoln should be a smooth, exhilarating experience — like taking off in an airplane — with an added sense of serene calm and quiet, as the company’s president said recently. “Quiet Flight,” the brand calls it.
“Elevating a vehicle as successful as [the] Navigator is no small feat,” says Kemal Curic, design director at Lincoln. “We explored more ways for clients to enjoy the sanctuary of their vehicle, using it as a space for personal relaxation and wellness — from home to work, and to stationary moments.”
To that end, Lincoln is debuting its ActiveGlide hands- free driving technology with the 2022 Navigator. On more
than 200,000 kilometres of predefined “Blue Zone” highways across North America, drivers will be able to take their hands off the steering wheel. Blue lights appear on the digital dash and head-up display to indicate the system’s advanced camera and radar are activated, while a camera in the instrument cluster monitors the driver’s gaze and head position to help ensure their eyes stay on the road. It’s a convenience you’ll be especially grateful for on longer journeys.
That’s not the new Navigator’s only high-tech trick — far from it. The vehicle can get better over time thanks to Lincoln Enhance, an over-the-air update system that should mean more features and fewer visits to a dealership.
Stepping into the cabin, you’ll immediately notice the Navigator’s many screens — including a larger 13.2-inch cen- tral display, a 5.8-inch second-row display, and a reimagined head-up system. The main screens run Lincoln’s gorgeous Constellation visual theme. It was designed to match the cabin’s serene atmosphere and offer even more customization than before, so you can personalize your Navigator’s tech in a way that makes sense to you, even adapting it to various journeys or occasions. To run all those displays, the new Navigator has twice the computing power, which should make for a snappier experience. Deeper Amazon Alexa integration means it’s pos- sible to ask the Navigator questions like “Alexa, what’s on my calendar today?” and get the answer without ever having to take your eyes off the road.
The lengths the team went to in an effort to try to inject more calm into the daily driving experience borders on obses- sion. For example, instead of the usual alarms and beeps that alert drivers to, say, an unbuckled seat belt, Lincoln brought in the Detroit Symphony Orchestra to record six unique crys- talline chimes that play through the vehicle’s speakers. You may be tempted to leave the fuel-filler door open on purpose just to hear the orchestra in action. For another example, look to the honesty of the materials — the wood and leather — used throughout the cabin, or to the beautiful minimalism of Lincoln’s Monochromatic package, available on all four of the brand’s SUVs.
There’s a lot to take in here, but the short version is that everything in the new Navigator seems intended to ensure that the time you spend in your Lincoln is time well spent, and in that, Lincoln’s vehicles have remained remarkably consistent — be it in this century or the last.
The arrival of the Navigator in 2022 is an exciting start to Lincoln’s second century. Later next year, the brand will unveil its first fully electric vehicle. We don’t know what it will look like yet, but our interest has certainly been piqued with the spectacular early images released by the brand: a concept rendering of an airy all-glass cabin that looks like it could be a spaceship, and a teaser image of a single beam of light shining out from Lincoln’s star emblem like a lens flare.
This first EV is part of Lincoln’s accelerated plan to offer a complete portfolio of connected and electrified vehicles by 2030. The company expects that half its sales will come from zero-emissions vehicles by mid-decade. Far from being a de- parture for the brand, electric vehicles — with their smooth, silent, and seemingly infinite power — are perfectly suited to Lincoln’s Quiet Flight ethos.
In short, Lincoln’s next century is shaping up to be even better than its last. There’s no predicting what fresh obstacles and challenges drivers may face in the next 100 years — or even whether we will still be driving at all by 2122 — but from what we’ve seen in the new Navigator and in the first teasers of its debut electric vehicle, we feel more relaxed knowing Lincoln will continue working hard to make our lives just a little bit easier.
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