2019 Lincoln Nautilus Review

SPEAKER 1: MKX, MKC, MKT-- oh, thank goodness, this one is called Nautilus. This is the 2019 Lincoln Nautilus and it's more than just the MKX with a proper name. Lincoln has redesigned the styling and added new engine options and safety features. It's part of a move to give each Lincoln model its own identity and to make the Lincoln brand as a whole stand out in a sea of luxury offerings. Does it work? We're here in Santa Barbara to drive the Lincoln Nautilus for the first time and find out. First impressions on getting into the Nautilus and driving it is that it just fits really well. It fits well around me. The seats are comfortable. There's a lot of nice space in front of me. And, even if there's somebody in the passenger seat, it doesn't feel crowded. The Nautilus is front-wheel drive based platform. This particular one is the optional all-wheel drive. It's still front-wheel drive biased, but it knows whether or not you need more power in the back. And it can do all of that for you. So you don't have to think about it. It's definitely not an off-roading machine, but it also-- if you're not somebody who's interested in trying to figure out where you need to be sending power to which wheel, the Nautilus is just doing all of that for you. Even the suspension kind of figures out if you need to be stiffer on one wheel than another. And that makes for a really comfortable ride quality. When we first got the press releases for the Nautilus, we were a little bit surprised. We were like, oh, the previous model was the D6. And now the base engine is the two-liter turbo four-cylinder. I was talking to the engineers this morning and I was like, wait, dude, what's up with the small engine? Isn't that a downgrade? And he said, no, not at all because the move from a six-speed transmission to an eight-speed transmission allows the Nautilus to have the same performance as the MKX, but it gets better fuel mileage because you've got these extra gears. So it can keep the engine-- even the smaller engine-- in its power band so it's always got enough power to move you forward and you're not using as much gas. And then, of course, the 2.7-liter V6, it has better performance as well because of the eight-speed transmission. The two-liter is a turbocharged four cylinder-- the same one that you're going to see in the Ford Edge. And that's making about 250 horsepower. The 2.7-liter is a V6 twin turbo, and that's making about 335 horsepower. There are some SUVs in this segment that make more power, but the Nautilus is right there in the middle. Sometimes the interior in luxury cars is a little bit like wearing a piece of jewelry. There's a lot going on in it. It's very sparkly. It's really an intense experience. The interior in the Nautilus is more like a very nicely tailored leather jacket. It just seems to fit around you very comfortably. It has all sorts of useful pockets to hold stuff. And you feel very stylish in it. This is a black label. And it's the gala edition which is a new theme that they have. So if you get the gala edition, it's always going to have this combination of colors inside-- which is this sort of just off-black and a deep oxblood red. It's really, really pretty. Everything is really usable in this interior, even though it has a lot of design elements to it. And that isn't always the case. Sometimes you can tell that the designer got so into it that they forgot you were ever going to have to be able to reach across the pillar or see around the buttresses. The visibility is good. It's got these little windows in here. And you can reach all of the controls. You can reach controls on the steering wheel, on the stocks, on the dash, and, of course, in the center stack console. Lincoln has been knocking it out of the park with their interiors. I would love to talk to some Lincoln designers because I bet that they would tell me that they're all really big fans of architecture. I just feel like there's a lot of building references and interior design that's going on in here that you just don't normally see in automotive. For example, Lincoln did this great job of using the space that's cleared up by moving the shifter up onto the center stack. They've sort of allowed this bookcase feeling to happen right here. There's a nice shelf under here that nobody can see from outside of the car. It fits a purse. It could be a little bit bigger. Some of us like to carry a purse. But it's just a really neat thing that I haven't seen before on any other car. Although none of the storage spaces up here are huge, there are a lot of them. Besides the one that's kind of under here-- my little bookcase-- there's cup holders. There's this little guy which has a charging pad in it. That's both good and bad because if you wanted to keep your phone in here-- and it is the most logical place to put it but you didn't want it to be charging because it gets a little hot, there isn't really another good phone place unless you use the cup holder. Again, it's not a huge. It's very deep. I think you could put a wine bottle in here. Don't tell anybody. It's got a little change guy right here. You could put a wallet right there. I guess you could put a phone here, but then you would have to keep everything open. There are also cup holders and more storage on the side. And those are pretty big pockets on all the doors. The digital dash isn't cluttered. There's not that much information in it, just what you need to know. And you can adjust it. You can change it. You can see what music you're playing or if somebody is calling you on the phone. Or you can see navigation directions. Same for the center stack. It's fairly clean. It's easy to figure out what you need and where to go to get it. It is a touch screen. I think it could be a little bit bigger. They could have used the space to make the screen a bit bigger. I'm not a huge fan of push-button shifters. First of all, I think they're not as much fun as a snick-snick shifter. And, also, I think it's really easy to forget what gear you're in when you don't see it right in front of you physically moving. I have stopped even trying to remember how many way adjustable seats are now. Because it's like 22 ways, 48 ways, 8,000 ways. I don't know. They're super adjustable, OK? It's very clear that when they were thinking about designing these seats, they were thinking about a lot of different size people driving the car. Which I like, because sometimes I get in a car or a truck and it's like, oh, they only want the biggest of the population to be comfortable in here or the smallest of the population. And so it is nice that the seats are adjustable for short people and tall people. They're both heated and cooled in the front. And they're heated in the back and the ones in the front have a massaging option. I almost like the back seats more than the front seats in the Nautilus. It's comfortable back here. Just hang out, get someone else to drive me around, use my little magic cup holders. The only things I wish were different in the back seat is I wish that they would cool in the back seat, which isn't that common. But I wish everyone would do it because cooled seats are the best thing on the planet. They're very soft, which is great. They're very comfortable-- even the center one is well-padded. Could be a tiny bit wider, I guess, but then the whole vehicle would have to be. I think they did a good job back here. Part of what Lincoln is doing and trying to rebrand itself is not just physically changing the cars, but changing the entire customer experience. They've got a program where they'll pick up the car, they'll drop off a loaner. You don't have to do anything. You don't have to be there. They really want you to feel like your entire lifestyle is connected to Lincoln. Whether or not you think that's a good thing, I don't know. I mean, it's like, how much do you like Lincoln? Along with trying to make the whole buying, leasing, owning process more seamless and problem free, Lincoln also has been focusing a lot on safety features in its cars. So there's a whole lot of stuff that's standard, including backup cameras, and lane assist, blind spot warnings. Lincoln is also adding some interesting new things like lane centering, which isn't the same as lane keep assist. Lane keep assist can see the lines on the road and it will bring you back if you sort of bounce over them, right? It's to keep you from going out of the lane. But lane centering can see the lines on the road and figure out where the car is and it can automatically keep you in the center of the lane. And if you combine that with the adaptive cruise control, which you can see if the traffic in front of you is going faster or slower, then you can really relax a little on your commute. This car will not drive itself. Lincoln was very clear. You have got to keep your hands on the wheel. But it will make driving that much easier. Nautilus is coming into a market where there are a lot of options. You might argue that Mercedes sort of owns the luxury, midsize SUV segment, but there are a bunch of competitors there as well-- Infiniti, BMW, and then, obviously, if you're just interested in American cars, there's the Cadillac XT5. The Cadillac doesn't have the engine options that Lincoln is offering. And when you look at all the numbers, Lincoln is solidly in the middle if not towards the upper half of all of those vehicles. It certainly has some of the best cargo space in the segment. I'm always surprised when I start looking at pricing on midsize SUVs because even the luxury ones seem like they're kind of affordable. I mean, they seem to start in the low 40s but they just-- it's all about the options. Everything that you want adds money. And this particular car that we're in, I think it was like $66,000. It has every single option you could possibly want. But you can get something that's nicely equipped for, I would say, in the $50s range. So, again, that puts this right about in the middle of the competitors. I'm not going to claim that the Nautilus is the most thrilling driving experience I've ever had, but it's very effortless. It doesn't require very much steering input. It doesn't require very much gas pedal. It doesn't require very much break. It's just sort of available. It gives you what you need. And it feels very safe and very predictable in a good way. And while I totally get the appeal of having an SUV that is more aggressive, that is loud, and growls at you, and really just rips, I think that the Nautilus has a kind of nice middle ground. It's not slow, but it's not a rocket ship. It doesn't need to be. This isn't a race car. It's a daily driver. For more information about Lincoln, visit us at Edmunds.com. For more videos like this, subscribe and make sure you follow us on social media.