2021 Lincoln Navigator 4×4 Black Label - Review (Hagerty)
Since 1998, one name has remained steadfast in Lincoln’s product lineup: Navigator. Is it a luxury truck with a long roof? A rolling couch? However you slice it, the SUV responsible for kicking off an American full-size luxury SUV arms race has, throughout its lifetime, often felt like little more than a thin veneer of luxury over the more everyman Ford Expedition body. That all changed in 2018. Lincoln stepped up its game with the fourth-generation Navigator by taking the world-class interior design philosophy that debuted on the Continental sedan and applying it to the modern-day luxobarge: the big-box SUV. Still, Navigator sales remain well shy of its crosstown rival, the Escalade.
Context is key, so let’s reacquaint ourselves with the current competition, namely the two stalwarts from The General. You know them well: GMC’s Yukon (specifically the Denali trim) and as previously mentioned, Cadillac’s beloved Escalade, long the sales king of the segment. Each is brand-new within the last year, riding on a new frame headlined by the addition of — at long last — independent rear suspension. Since 2005, the Escalade has outsold the Navigator every year on the trot, often times at a two-to-one pace. The debut of the fourth-generation Navigator seems to have drawn Lincoln no closer to that top step, selling 18,656 in its best year (2019) while the Escalade moved nearly twice that volume — 35,424 — in that same time period. Despite the three-year head start, the Navigator is somehow still playing catch-up. What gives?
To find out, we flung around Michigan’s lower peninsula in a decked-out Navigator. Our $106,115 tester was a top-trim Black Label machine, laden with all the features that lesser trims — Standard and Reserve — have to tack on piecemeal. To the Black Label’s $99,420 base price (including $1295 destination fee), just one package was added: The Special Edition Package, new for 2021. For $6695, you get a black roof, black grille, black sideview mirror caps, and — well you get the point. Black rooflines are certainly trendy right now, but we prefer a single color for body and roof — this test vehicle’s Flight Blue especially.
(photo credit: Nathan Petroelje - Hagerty)
