The 2020 Lincoln Aviator Is a Fantastic Luxury SUV

This is a

2020

Lincoln Aviator and I've been waiting all year to review it, that's pretty important because 10 years ago Lincoln had an SUV called the Aviator and it was generally accepted that it was one of the worst

luxury

SUVs on sale. just a slightly rebadged Ford Explorer with cheap plastic everywhere, but that's no longer the case. The new Aviator is a completely different vehicle and shows that Lincoln is a completely different brand. I borrowed this Lincoln South Coast Aviator, which is a gorgeous Lincoln. The dealership here in Orange County in Southern California, Lincoln's South Coast is just starting to stock up on the new

2020

Aviator;

In fact, it was difficult to get one for review because demand is so intense and no wonder two years ago Lincoln showed us how serious they are. It was all about getting back to the top of the

luxury

car game with the new Navigator, which is an excellent full-size luxury SUV. Now, using the lessons they learned from the Navigator, Lincoln is giving us the new Aviator, which is smaller and intended to compete with other mid-range vehicles. Three-row luxury SUVs in size such as the Volvo XC90, Lexus GX, Audi Q7 and Range Rover Sport. Yes, a Lincoln is competing with those brands and does a much better job than you might think.

This

aviator

is a top of the line black label. model with a sticker price of just over eighty thousand dollars, that's impressive money, but this is an impressive car, it uses a twin-turbo V6 with 400 horsepower and Lincoln says they will soon release a plug-in hybrid version that has 494 horsepower and 630 pound-feet of torque, which is more torque than a BMW x5m, so today I'm going to show you the

aviator

and show you all the cool quirks and features of the latest Lincoln to rock the luxury SUV boat. then i will take it out on the road and drive it and then give it a dig score and for more of my thoughts on the aviator click the link below to visit autotrader.com oversteer where i have also completed a list of some trucks cool old school estates for sale on autotrader, in case you prefer a station wagon to a van.

Well, I'm going to start with the quirks and features of the aviator before you even climb inside by just getting closer because there are several interesting things that happen when you do, starting with the fact that it drops several inches to make it easier to enter. Well, look at this. I'm walking towards the aviator and if you look closely you can see what it is. they actually drop down and they make it so it's easier to get in so it's not so high off the ground it takes about eight seconds to drop all the way down and then you can walk up and climb inside and then when you turn it on and start driving.

He will raise himself to a normal ride height. You can see it here again. I press the unlock button and then you can see the flyer actually goes down before you get in so it's easier to do it. Pretty cool feature and that's Not the only cool thing that happens when you approach the aviator look at this, you walk up to this car and the headlights recognize you doing a little dance. You can see first the Lincoln badge and the grille light up and then the headlights like something like that. turns on gradually from the inside out to show you that they see you and to make it easier to identify your aviator in a parking lot, which is a pretty cool little feature and it's the same when you walk away, press the lock button and then the headlights they fade out gradually and the grill badge fades out at the end, just a little quirk of the aviator when you approach now, if you approach the aviator from behind the taillights also do something interesting but it's not as cool as what happens above.

In the front they basically also gradually come on and the same thing if you lock it and move away from the rear the taillights gradually go out, similar to what happens in the front, but there's not as much fanfare back here and I. I'm still not done with all the cool things that happen with the aviator when you just walk up to it or in this case when you walk away now if you're walking away from the aviator and you want to lock it you can press the lock button on your keychain or you can tap this little icon on the side of the front door, it's a little lock and it unlocks when the car is unlocked.

When you want to lock it, you just touch the lock and then it locks and that's really cool. One small touch and it's a great way to tell if your Aviator is unlocked or locked. Now after a few seconds it completely disappears so that no one else can know and now I finally start to climb into the aviator, but before it does something interesting you notice when you go to open the door, this does not have a traditional latch, but that the door latches are electronic so you reach for the door handle and you just push a little button and the door opens electronically and that means inside the aviator you don't have traditional door latches you have buttons that press to exit, you press the button and the door opens and then you can open it from there.

Now you're probably thinking what happens if you're on the aviator. and the battery runs out, are you stuck? Actually, Lincoln thought there is an emergency handle on the backup door at the bottom of the inside door pocket. He pulls it and that will manually unlock the door and open it in case the door mechanism is not working. your battery is dead now, another cool thing about the aviator interior door, there are ambient lights on the interior door panel, whatever color you select, but when you open the door the ambient light turns red, i guess to let you know the door is open but maybe also to let approaching traffic know the door is open with a slightly brighter color, close the door again and it will return to the typical ambient lighting color, a cool touch , not that I really notice any of that on the door because the truth is that when you open the door of the new Aviator you will be absolutely consumed by the incredible quality of this interior.

Let's start with the seats. The first thing you'll notice is that on the side of the seat's headrest there's an attractive little silver trim with the Lincoln insignia on it, but it barely scrapes the surface. The most impressive thing about the seats is that you can move them however you want and, anyway, in your car, if you have power seats, you can move them maybe four, maybe six or eight ways in this Lincoln 30-way power seats. It's called perfect position seats and in fact they are because you can move them 30 different ways, it's absolutely crazy and the craziest part is the fact that there are all kinds of seat controls on the door but they barely scratch the surface of what What you can do, press the seat button and the infotainment screen displays even more seat controls to give you the rest of the 30-way seats, including a pretty impressive and fairly comprehensive massage function that you can change to several different levels. and different types of massages for the driver and passenger seats, but my favorite seat control has to go to the leg support, now drivers with longer legs want the bottom of the seat to extend a little to support their legs and most luxury cars. offer this feature, the way the Lincoln Perfect Position seats are different is that each leg can be adjusted individually, so if you want one leg to stretch out, you can stretch the leg support and if you want to keep the other leg more close to the seat, you can move the leg support closer, you can choose what distance no one else offers, not even Rolls Royce and by the way, if the 30 way power seats don't impress you, how about the fact that the interior of the new aviator has 28 individual speakers for the sound system, they are everywhere, there are speakers above your head in the roof and look at the ones in the door, absolutely beautiful quality, they look

fantastic

, a great addition to the high quality trim in this interior and talking about that high level. quality trim, take a look around and you will be completely surprised that this is a

lincoln

and not a mercedes, a bmw, maybe even a bentley look on the center control console, this beautiful aluminum trim , it looks like an old car or maybe an old airplane.

After all, it's the same aviator on the dashboard, that the trim is carried there too, but it's not just that the stitching on the seats is absolutely beautiful, the black trim on the center console is surrounded by all these little silver pieces that frame each individual element. It's a beautiful interior for a mid-size SUV, certainly the best in its class and another interesting luxury feature on this car. Lincoln wanted the aviator to be as quiet and luxurious as possible and they decided to extend this to the warning chimes in your car if a warning chime sounds like you don't have your seat belt on, it's like ding ding ding ding and it's really annoying, but in this car they wanted to make it a little more luxurious, so all the warning chimes are nicer, friendlier, listen.

For my personal favorite, the chime that sounds when you open the door while the engine is running and there are a couple of other quirks and features that make it notable to be here, starting with the gear selector. It's not an old school lever. or even a new dial, it's these buttons on the top of the center control console under the vents that you have p r n and d and that's how you move the car between gears by pressing those buttons like piano keys, they feel good and they're cool . And speaking of buttons, the steering wheel on the Aviator has some pretty interesting ones to boot, the voice control button is on your left like a thumb control, so if you want to tell it to find a navigation destination, change the radio, there's no need.

Go find a voice control button, just tap the steering wheel with your thumb and it's there on its own so you'll never confuse it with anything else which is cool but the steering wheel is more interesting than that on the right spoke. On the steering wheel there is a small joystick that gives you four options for navigation, phone music or settings, but if you enter any of those options, you can see that the joystick has now changed its function and you can now use it to go back or press ok. If you do that, the joystick changes its function once again, basically its function depends on the screen displayed in the gauge cluster and it will darken the items it can no longer do and light up new items when you enter each new screen and that .

It's a really cool touch, but cruise control takes this a step further. If you look at the steering wheel you will notice that there are no cruise controls, but they are there, they are just hidden and don't come on until you press. the button on the left to activate the cruise control and once you do you can see that all the cruise control buttons have lit up and you can choose between them, but you turn off the cruise control and they disappear, which actually does It's pretty good that you don't. I don't want to be overwhelmed by all the buttons on the steering wheel, so you can turn off some of them and they won't be there complicating things and then move on to the center control console in this car, my favorite thing aside.

Of that gorgeous aviation style finish is the font and display for the climate control temperature, instead of using those ugly 80's clock fonts they actually have little screens on each temperature display to show what temperature it is, It's a small thing but it makes it look. much better and more modern, and there are these nice aluminum rocker switches you can use to control the temperature, which feel

fantastic

, much better than the plastic buttons you see in so many other cars now, plus the climate control screen and those rocker switches you have. There's a pretty typical set of controls here and it seems like Lincoln has put a lot of effort into making it as simple as possible and not overwhelming.

I would say that it is actually too simple because some important features are hidden in the infotainment system, for example, you can't. turn off auto stop start unless you press this button between the climate controls and then turn it off on the screen and it's the same for auto hold which is a feature that I use all the time you have to enter the screen. I would prefer those To be simple, the buttons on the center control console are easy to access, but I guess they wouldn't fit. Now next we move on to the center console area.

It's quite simple, you have these two small sliding doors that when opened, one of them hides the cup holders. They all have storage and you also get a big storage compartment in the back under this leather armrest, but what I like most about the center console is the drive mode selector button and I especially like it for what happens when you shift driving mode now. The first two are quiteNormal, you have deep conditions if you drive on snow and then it's slippery like ice or maybe heavy rain, but the next three driving modes on the aviator are quite interesting.

The first is called normal and Defines that in the gauge cluster as effortless and balanced they simply looked for two words that perfectly sum up the experience, the next is conserve and shows you an image of the earth and then you go to the sport mode which in the aviator It is called arousal and the words they have used to describe it are receptive and attractive. I'm not entirely sure why they felt the need to deal with words for each driving mode, but that's what they did and speaking of the gauge cluster, it's a Full Screen like so many gauge clusters in luxury cars now and it has some interesting quirks of its own, such as you can adjust what's on the information display pretty standardly, you can choose between tire pressure with fuel economy on the go or my favorite quiet display, so Yes You don't want some information pointing at you and confusing you, just put it on the calm screen and then you won't have to look at any of it.

Calm stuff, another interesting element on the gauge cluster screen, if you go into the settings, one of The things you can choose is border crossing and then you can have the car alert you if you have just crossed a border. Carl says: Hello, we are. in Mexico now, in case you haven't seen that giant booth with the customs agents where they took your passport, just FYI, maybe it works for state borders too. I'm not sure why it would be a configurable option, but it is and below. Moving on to the infotainment system which has a couple of quirks and features of its own, it is in the vehicle settings you can set the Aviator to have a maximum idle time of 30 minutes, in other words if the car is idling and does nothing. for 30 minutes it will automatically turn off if you have that setting checked.

It's very unusual, I guess they're worried about people accidentally leaving it running as it doesn't have a key that you insert and another interesting quirk of the infotainment system if you get in. in the display settings you can turn off the infotainment screen or again you can put it on a quiet screen and then it will just show the date and time and not force all these different options, buttons and menu options on you in order. To make things a little quieter inside, as for the infotainment system itself, I played with it for quite some time and what I found is that the screen is reasonably responsive.

This would have been a fantastic system a couple of years ago, but now. Some screens are more responsive than this but it's pretty good, not at the level of the best smartphones but better than you'd expect for car screens if you haven't been in most modern luxury vehicles I will say one downside . is for the navigation system, there is no destination input panel like in BMWs or Audis, which means if you want to enter a destination, you have to type it in letter by letter using a keyboard like in old school vehicles. The benefit is that it's a pretty responsive screen, it responds pretty quickly and you can type pretty quickly and then you can set the destination and it will run, it doesn't really take that long, but those handwriting pads for entering the destination are all the rage now and they are really useful, I would say this infotainment system is okay, pretty good, it's not the best in the business by any means, but it's pretty good and it will do exactly what you want it to do and then it'll move on to the rear seats, the aviator to the second. row once again one of the first things you notice when you open the doors is how nice it is here the quality of the leather the stitching the materials and the seats on the door panel everything looks really very nice now there are some interesting things in the back of the aviator, but probably the most interesting thing is the fact that it has its own screen, it's on the back of the front center console and it's a touch screen like the screen on the front, obviously it's smaller than that, but Still it is organized. to view it and there are several different functions, starting with the seats, you can use the screen to turn on the heated or cooled rear seats.

Not many SUVs have that especially cooled in the rear, but this one can also use the screen for power. Audio or climate controls in the back seat are pretty standard stuff, there's nothing too exciting, but my personal favorite screen feature is in the settings where you can select the quiet screen again and if you do, it shows you flying to through the clouds with the time displayed because there is nothing else. It's more calming than flying through nice puffy clouds with blue skies. Here's something interesting about clouds and screens. The front screens do it too. When you turn off the Aviator, you can see that both the gauge cluster and infotainment screen show a small sample of you flying through the clouds and when you turn on the Aviator, the gauge cluster screen briefly shows you flying through the clouds. clouds, so what's with all this cloud stuff?

Remember this is the aviator, the aviator aviation flying, I guess that's supposed to bring them together, and that's why it's There's a lot of cloud stuff on these screens, but anyway, moving on to other cool stuff in the part back of the Aviator, this one has captain's chairs, two individual bucket seats back here, so in the middle you have this giant center console, the only drawback I have. However, the back seats are how the seats move, the front seats are these 30 way power seats in an ultra crazy perfect position, the back seats don't have any power to move them back and forth, it's a bar on the front, there is a plastic lever on the On the side it is as if they used all the capabilities of the power seats for the front seats and left nothing for the rear seats.

It's a little surprising considering that back here you have heated and ventilated seats and all of these other controls don't have any power movement and while we're talking about the rear seats you could also talk about the third row, starting with just accessing the third row, which is pretty simple, there's a little button on the top of the second row seats, you press it, it folds forward, you move it and then you just get in. It's that simple now when it comes to getting into the third row, it was obviously designed more for kids while I'm a human adult, but I'm going back up there anyway because that's what I do and now I'm in the third row aviator and again quite tight in the back here quite small quite tight for adults but usable for children if you want to put them back in the third row now it's worth noting that when you're in the third row there's really nothing particularly interesting back here, It's just a standard third-row seat in a luxury SUV.

Now, moving on to the exterior of the Aviator, there's nothing particularly interesting with the lighting on this car, as there aren't some of the cars I review on the back. a big light bar running across the rear but that's becoming common on a lot of cars, nothing really interesting back there, the only really noteworthy element with the lighting are the front turn signals which are separate on the bumper and They look great when turned on, I like that piece of lighting design, now speaking of lighting, it's also worth noting that this is one of those cars where the badge lights up the Lincoln emblem on the grill when you have the headlights on. lit. it's just one of the stupidest things to ever exist in the entire history of the automotive industry, mercedes-benz and mazda do it too and i sincerely hope it doesn't become a trend and spread to other car manufacturers but i I deeply fear that that is exactly what is happening, however, unfortunately it does, but I can forgive that flaw of the aviator, in fact, I can forgive basically any flaw of the aviator, not that it has many due to its design, friends, I think that this is one of the most beautiful vehicles that exist.

On sale today, without a doubt, one of the most attractive SUVs on the market. They got it absolutely perfect. I feel the same about the aviator as I did when the new volvo xc90 came out a few years ago and I rarely feel the same about cars, they usually get dirty. They uploaded some details or a lot of details, but not this time, this is a magnificent car, perfect proportions, absolutely attractive, they really did it right and with that in mind in the rear and specifically in the cargo area, where you can see that It's quite small.

Here, although it's pretty standard for a three-row SUV, to get real cargo space you have to drop the third row if you want extra cargo space, although it's worth noting that under this cargo floor there's a small place where you can put things in and you can keep it private because the cargo floor will cover it when you're parked now. If you want to drop the third row, it is very simple, as in most modern luxury SUVs, you can electrically fold this third row. There is a small button on. the side to fold the left button on the side to fold the right or the button in the middle will fold them both at the same time and you can also press all of these buttons to bring them back up and into place so that you don't have to look for latches Nothing like that.

It's worth noting that you can't fold down the second row of seats from here. If you want to fold the second row you have to go around each individual seat and fold them individually, there is no button or release in the cargo area to lower the second row of seats and those are the quirks and features of the 2020 Lincoln Aviator Black Label, it is now time to take it out on the road and see how it drives. Alright, drive away in the Aviator Black Label. I saw this car at the auto show about a year ago and wanted to drive it since it seemed like a fantastic player in this segment and it was kind of proof that Lincoln wasn't a one trick pony that the navigator wasn't the only thing about it. that they were capable now I will say that poking around the car for the last few hours filming the beginning of this I realized that the technology is not quite up to the level of the higher end German brands, you know, the cluster screen gauges and audis are so good, the virtual cockpit is just fantastic and we are not at that level in this car, i noticed there is no usb in the third row.

The second row cannot be folded from the cargo area. There are a couple of things that just aren't at that level. The German brands are so focused on technology that they are at the forefront of every new infotainment feature in this car. It's not quite up to par, but the bonus here is that the luxury, finish and look of everything is just better. I mean, there's no doubt that if you get into a gle or an x5, this is a nicer interior than those cars. It looks better, there's no doubt about it, so now there's a bit of a trade-off situation.

The first thing you notice when being in this car is that it is very quiet here, surprisingly quiet, actually for a mid size you expect this from a full size. Range Rover X7 Navigator, but it's nice and quiet. I hear the engine a little bit and you may be able to hear it, but I have it in sport or excited mode as they call it. Wow, yeah, it's actually surprisingly fast. The last thing, it has 400 horsepower, it is not. Really fast but it's not slow, it definitely moves more than you'd expect considering it's a Lincoln and only a v6.

I wouldn't call it fast yet, it's not x5m and I'm looking forward to seeing the plug-in version of this. The numbers are just ridiculous 500 horsepower in a Lincoln crossover, that's the world we live in now. Really what Lincoln has done here and in a really cool way is they've looked at all these brands that are going sporty. Every Mercedes is now sporty. all these amg models at a lower level bmw sporty they're all trying to get um you know, a different cadillac, you know this edgy style, they're trying to feel younger and more modern and

lincoln

has said, you know there's still a market for the people who just want luxury, fine craftsmanship, good materials and that's what they went after and this might not be the most high tech car although it's certainly enough and it might not be the fastest although again it's enough it drives well but probably be the best on the inside uh And they just didn't, they decided not to go into that whole luxury sport SUV segment and they went their own way and I think they will benefit from it, so that's the new Lincoln Aviator that I drove and the BMW X5 I had. i drove the mercedes-benz gle the audi q7 theVolvo and now it's time to give the aviator a great score, starting with the weekend categories and style.

The aviator is really attractive and gets a 7 out of 10, which ties the range. Rover, it is the best score of any luxury SUV in this segment. Acceleration from 0 to 60 is 5.6 seconds, giving it a 4 out of 10. Handling is average for the segment, getting a 4 out of 10. The fun factor is low, it's quick and enjoyable to drive , but it's not particularly attractive and gets a 4 out of 10. Finally, it's a cool factor and it's cool right now, this is one of the most requested cars to review in 2019 according to tweets, emails and Instagram comments. It gets a 5 out of 10, which is huge for a midsize luxury crossover, with an overall weekend score of 24 out of 50.

Next up are the daily categories and features, it has a lot of great tech, and it gets an 8 out of 50. 10. Comfort is excellent and scores a 7 out of 10. Quality is really fantastic with a great interior and scores an 8 out of 10. Practicality is good, average for a three-row crossover and scores a nine out of ten, The lowest sticker price on this Aviator is around eighty-one thousand dollars, which is worth it for an SUV that's this nice, but it's a lot of money for a Lincoln, especially considering the resale value. may not be as strong as that of its key rivals;

It gets a 6 out of 10. For a total daily score of 38 out of 100 added together and the score obtained is 62 out of 100, which places it here among other luxury SUVs, you will notice that the Aviator surpasses the Navigator and that is because it is basically just as nice, but better looking, faster and cheaper, I would only buy the Navigator over the Aviator if I needed extra space, since for mid-size luxury SUVs, the Aviator is tied with the BMW superior, but the simple truth is this if you want to drive more. compromise, get the x5 if you want more luxury, get the aviator, this is probably the best lincoln ever.