2020 Lincoln Corsair Review

[MUSIC PLAYING] WILL KAUFMAN: The 2020 Lincoln Corsair is based on the new Ford Escape, but the days of just swapping the badges out and going for cocktails are long gone, and the Corsair is a proper Lincoln. Lincoln swears that the Corsair is named after the Latin word for, "course" and not the notorious pirates and privateers, but they can't dictate my head canon. So before we take a look at Lincoln's all new Pirate SUV, make sure to subscribe here for more videos and check out edmunds.com for all your car research and shopping needs. There's not a lot of escape left in the Corsair. You can see the doors get this deep contouring designed to evoke a more organic feel. Upfront, the Corsair inherits Lincoln's trademark grille, and around back there's the tailgate spanning tail lights. Overall, it looks a lot better and a lot more upscale than the new Escape. Two engine options will be available at launch behind that big grille, and a plug-in hybrid electric power train will be joining them at a later date. The Corsair's base engine will be a 2-liter turbo charged four cylinder, putting out 250 horsepower and 275 pound feet of torque. That's the same as the top tier engine option in the Ford Escape. The Corsair will also let you opt for a 2.3-liter turbo charged four cylinder that puts out 280 horsepower and 310 pound feet of torque. The base engine will come standard with front-wheel drive with all-wheel drive as an option, and the 2.3 liter will only be available with all-wheel drive. Both put their power down through an 8-speed automatic transmission. Before we hop inside the Corsair, there's one more feature to introduce. Lincoln will now let you set your phone up as a key that will not only let you lock and unlock the doors, but start and stop the engine, roll down the windows, things like that. It will also remember your preferences, so when you hop in the car it'll be setup just the way you want, regardless of who was driving at last. Lincoln has really stepped up their interior game, recently. As you can see here, with this long flowing dash, the floating control console, and these crisp screens. Interior touch points have also been treated with premium feeling materials. Although, you don't have to go too far to find hard plastics. The 8-inch touchscreen come standard and it's running Ford's sync 3 system, but it's been re-skinned by Lincoln to look a little different. This car is also equipped with a 12-inch digital display for the gauge cluster and a big color heads up display that Lincoln says you'll be able to see even if you're wearing polarized sunglasses. The upgraded seats in the Corsair are 24-way perfect position seats. Now in other Lincolns you can get the 30-way seats. I've always found those a little overcomplicated. I actually think these are more comfortable. There are a few more unique features I wanted to point out. The prompts for the steering wheel controls change as you select different menus, so it makes it easier to understand what you need to do. The push to talk button has also been moved up here onto the steering wheel, where your thumb would normally fall if you're driving at 10 and 2. The backseat has a lot of Ford Escape in it, but that's not a bad thing, as you know if you watched Dan Edmund's first look at the Escape. The seat can slide forwards and backwards about six inches, depending on whether you want more cargo room or more leg room. Which means, the Corsair gets up to 38.6 inches of rear seat leg room. There's a lot of space back there. I also appreciate that the seat will stop in between its extremes. You don't have to either have all or nothing. There is a full suite of active safety features that come standard, and active driver aids will be an optional add on. Things like active park assist, that doesn't even require you to touch the accelerator or brake. All of those are accessed via hard buttons here on the dash, which makes it easy to find all the settings and reduces some of the clutter in the cabin. The Corsair is looking very promising. But the one big question mark is the price. We've seen that other Lincolns can get kind of costly as you start adding on features and options, so we'll have to wait and see how the course there lines up against its competitors. To make sure you get all the latest news about the Corsair and other vehicles, subscribe right here.