We recently began comparing the big new Lincoln Nautilus with the Lincoln Navigator, which is so much, much bigger, one of our party got lost and drowned somewhere amid the sea of leather in the back row.
Maybe you don’t need a vehicle that comes with its own postal code. The 2019 Nautilus seems compact by comparison. Like its mollusc namesake, it still tucks neatly up with all you ever need (maybe not for millions of years but certainly for a daily commute and occasional jaunt to the cottage) within an attractive shell, painted ‘blue diamond metallic’.
And it’s not like you’d be depriving your passengers. The Nautilus comes standard with a heated backseat. The creamy leather seats are described as cappuccino perforated. There’s all the bling you need to enjoy it up front too, including a heated steering wheel and windshield wiper de-icer — both de rigeur in Canada. But this tester had a few sweet extras. With 22 directions, the power driver’s seat is a veritable throne. Think about that. Most of us couldn’t even list eight directions, never mind commanding 22.
Beneath the hood, the Nautilus is definitely not the kraken you read about earlier but is powered by a more-than-efficient-enough-for-city-traffic two-litre four-cylinder engine.
The Nautilus looks expensive and certainly isn’t cheap. So, you want to take care of it. The $450 interior package keeps your double espresso from spoiling the cappuccino leather. Meanwhile outside, the technology package, a $1,100 upgrade, includes the 360-degree camera. Among myriad other uses, it shows how close you are to the curb when parallel parking. But, better still, the package includes active park assist and front park aid sensors — lessening your chances of scraping.
The Nautilus would make an excellent weekend warrior’s conveyance. Icy country roads at night demand all the extra safety manufacturers can purvey. This tester also came with the $5,500 ‘Ultimate Package’. LED matrix speed-dependant headlamps brighten to greater distances the faster you go. The Ultimate includes upgraded 21” shiny AF machine aluminum wheels. Inside you’re ensconced within 19 Harman speakers. The name of the audio system is Revel — an apt description for what the discerning listener does in the well-soundproofed studio-quality acoustics that both the Nautilus and Navigator provide.
In fact, in the aforementioned recent article, I wondered about Lincoln’s nomenclature. For instance, the Navigator’s descriptive drive modes (from Slippery to Conserve) make sense of why you’d use them, better than this Nautilus’s workaday, if industry-standard, Normal, Comfort and Sport. Meanwhile, Ultimate means final or last. But right after listing the Ultimate Package on the window sticker, the dealer added the Interior Protection Package. That would’ve bumped the previous to, perhaps, the Penultimate Package except that they also listed the Class 11 towing package and we don’t have a cool sounding word in English yet for third-from-last. Anyway …
2019 Lincoln Nautilus AWD MSRP: $53,350
As Driven: $69,450
2018 Lincoln Navigator Reserve L 4X4 MSRP: $93,500
As Driven: $106,300
