Lincoln’s antediluvian Navigator does, apparently, still exist—and the name will live on, according to Lincoln’s global boss Matt VanDyke. (Don’t miss the irony in “antediluvian” literally meaning “so old it’s from before the Biblical flood” and the Navigator being called, uh, the Navigator.) Motor Trend originally reported that VanDyke said the Navigator would stick around even with Lincoln trying to reboot its image and lineup, and that it would add Ford’s twin-turbocharged EcoBoost V-6 engine.
That Lincoln wants to keep the Navigator is somewhat unexpected. Yes, profit margins on it are thick, but it sells in miserably small numbers, its 8400 sales last year is less than half of the Cadillac Escalade’s volume. If what VanDyke describes as the “next-generation” Navigator is another F-150–based body-on-frame truck, there’s no reason not to install the EcoBoost V-6. Livery shoppers don’t care what’s under the hood, while the F-15o has shown that even macho truck buyers are fine with a boosted V-6.
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The better question, though, is whether the next-generation Navigator is a massaged version of the current truck or—far more sensibly—a rebadged, upgraded Ford Explorer. Buyers may be scarce for Noah’s Ark–sized SUVs, but there’s still plenty of consumer interest in three-row luxury crossovers. Infiniti demonstrated this thinking perfectly: The Nissan-Pathfinder-based JX crossover launched in March of last year and romped all over the truck-based (and pricier) QX56. Should Lincoln follow suit with the next Navigator, expect naturally aspirated and turbocharged EcoBoost V-6s.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/caranddriver/blog/~3/x1ZR_ZMVVvk/
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