{"id":48668,"date":"2026-04-04T09:21:25","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T09:21:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/i-drove-the-new-lincoln-navigator-black-label-its-basically-a-rolling-tech-lab\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T09:21:25","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T09:21:25","slug":"i-drove-the-new-lincoln-navigator-black-label-its-basically-a-rolling-tech-lab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/i-drove-the-new-lincoln-navigator-black-label-its-basically-a-rolling-tech-lab\/","title":{"rendered":"I drove the new Lincoln Navigator Black Label. It&#8217;s basically a rolling tech lab."},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/69d010f56a864f6fcd7bd465?format=jpeg\" alt=\"A Black Lincoln Navigator rests in a parking lot.\"\/><figcaption>I test-drove the Lincoln Navigator, the flagship vehicle in Ford&#039;s lineup. It&#039;s equal parts tech playground and land yacht.<\/p>\n<p>Ben Shimkus\/Business Insider<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>Business Insider drove the 2026 Lincoln Navigator Black Label \u2014 a luxury SUV with a $127K price tag.<\/li>\n<li>The Navigator doubles as a tech testbed, letting drivers send voice feedback directly to Ford.<\/li>\n<li>It delivers exceptional comfort and a massive 48-inch display \u2014 but climate controls are buried.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Last week, I picked up a family member from JFK airport in a top-trim, $127,000 Lincoln Navigator.<\/p>\n<p>They approached from the passenger side. The SUV was so massive that they didn&#039;t even notice a minivan parked next to the driver&#039;s door.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;This car is huge,&quot; they said as they got into my weeklong tester.<\/p>\n<p>Moments later, they sighed as the soft, supportive seats started massaging their back. Then, confusion: They couldn&#039;t figure out how to adjust the air vents while I was busy using the screen for directions.<\/p>\n<p>That short drive from the airport\u2014 marked by lavish comfort and a sense of excess that borders on ridiculous \u2014summed up the Navigator perfectly.<\/p>\n<p>The nearly 30-year-old nameplate has become an icon by doubling down on over-the-top luxury. It weighs about three tons, delivers some of the most comfortable seats you can buy, and chugs a gallon of gas roughly every 17 miles (with the recommended premium gas, no less).<\/p>\n<p>It&#039;s unapologetically itself \u2014 it exists to be excessive.<\/p>\n<p>It also stretches a 48-inch screen across the entire dashboard.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;It&#039;s big, right?&quot; Christian Dodd, the senior design director for digital products at Ford, told Business Insider when discussing the tech.<\/p>\n<h2>Lincoln&#039;s SUV doubles as Ford&#039;s tech lab<\/h2>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/69d01f53c02a678bd7e47ec2?format=jpeg\" alt=\"A woman lays back in the driver&#039;s seat of a Lincoln Navigator. A virtual beach is playing on the infotainment screen.\"\/><figcaption>Lincoln added dozens of stitches to its infotainment tech, including relaxation zones, weather widgets, and a section for owner feedback.<\/p>\n<p>Ford, Lincoln Motors<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The Navigator plays an outsize role inside its parent company, Ford. The automaker treats the high-end SUV as a technology proving ground \u2014 rolling out software features that can eventually spread across the broader lineup.<\/p>\n<p>That starts with that massive display stretching across the dashboard. It isn&#039;t a touchscreen, which was a deliberate choice.<\/p>\n<p>Dodd said the goal is to keep drivers&#039; &quot;eyes up and out&quot; of the cabin \u2014 a design cue that Ford will implement in future cars.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;It&#039;s big and bold, but they&#039;re intended to be glanceable by anyone,&quot; he said.<\/p>\n<p>In practice, that works. The passenger side of the screen can be customized with non-invasive widgets \u2014 weather, navigation, compass, fuel economy, et cetera \u2014 arranged across three sections. (I skipped the gas mileage readout for peace of mind.)<\/p>\n<p>The real experiment, though, is how Lincoln handles feedback.<\/p>\n<p>The Navigator includes a &quot;voice feedback&quot; app that lets owners record messages directly to Ford&#039;s tech team.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;You can find it, record a message, and I will get it,&quot; Dodd said. His team is also scanning Reddit, running customer polls, and tracking sources like J.D. Power \u2014 all of which feed into a steady stream of software updates.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;If you had a Navigator for a year, you probably would&#039;ve seen three different versions of the weather widget,&quot; Dodd said.<\/p>\n<p>I didn&#039;t record a message, but maybe the tech team will read this review: I found the climate system to be the weakest part of the tech. Adjusting airflow \u2014 something that used to take a second with a physical vent \u2014 now requires swiping through menus and dragging your finger across a screen.<\/p>\n<h2>Still an American gem<\/h2>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/69d024f4c02a678bd7e47f02?format=jpeg\" alt=\"The inside of a Lincoln Navigator Black Label.\"\/><figcaption>Lincoln&#039;s Navigator leans heavily into its luxe tktk<\/p>\n<p>Ben Shimkus\/Business Insider<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The Navigator feels unmistakably American. At times, it&#039;s more truck than luxury car.<\/p>\n<p>Under heavy acceleration, its twin-turbocharged 3.5-liter V6 (which replaced the V8 in 2014) still delivers a deep, throaty rumble.<\/p>\n<p>That character carries over to the driving experience. The Navigator feels its size. Push it into a tight turn, and passengers will lean into the vehicle&#039;s weight. The suspension does a solid job of smoothing out most bumps, but when larger vibrations reach the cabin, they tend to linger.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/69d02de6e762ed6cfe44a3cf?format=jpeg\" alt=\"The side profile of a Lincoln Navigator.\"\/><figcaption>The Navigator is large enough to engulf an entire parking space.<\/p>\n<p>Ben Shimkus\/Business Insider<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Fuel economy is exactly what you&#039;d expect. On a 200-mile trip to upstate New York, I averaged 17.7 mpg \u2014 right in line with its estimate.<\/p>\n<p>As a daily driver, the Navigator delivers on its promise: It&#039;s big, comfortable, powerful, and unapologetically inefficient.<\/p>\n<p>For buyers who want a three-ton SUV that prioritizes comfort over precision \u2014 the kind of vehicle that makes long drives feel effortless \u2014 the Navigator fits the bill.<\/p>\n<p>Read the original article on Business Insider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I test-drove the Lincoln Navigator, the flagship vehicle in Ford&#039;s lineup. It&#039;s equal parts tech playground and land yacht. Ben Shimkus\/Business Insider Business Insider drove the 2026 Lincoln Navigator Black Label \u2014 a luxury SUV with a $127K price tag. The Navigator doubles as a tech testbed, letting drivers send voice feedback directly to Ford. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-48668","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48668\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}