The dashboard design of the new Lincoln Navigator features lots of broad, horizontal lines. It should remind you, at least subconsciously, of a wide open horizon, said Lincoln designer David Woodhouse.
Kind of like you're at the beach, even though, really, you might be stuck in traffic on the Cross Bronx Expressway.
"The interior we want to be about a sanctuary," he said. "We want to imbue a feeling of calmness and equilibrium."
BMW and Cadillac can go ahead and be all about the excitement of driving. In a Lincoln, you're just chill. That's the goal, anyway.
"They get in, and they feel completely removed from competition," Woodhouse said of Lincoln drivers, "from what's going on in the world."
This new redesigned version of the big luxury SUV was unveiled this week at the New York International Auto Show
As the driver uses a knob in the center console to select a mode, a computer screen shows a shifting display of animated globes. The images depict things like snow, for the "Slippery" mode; a spinning Earth, for the efficient "Conserve" mode, or swooshing lines of lights, for the punchy "Excite" mode.
Despite all the emphasis on being laid back, the new Navigator won't be particularly plodding. In fact, it'll have a 450 horsepower twin-turbocharged V6 engine. That's as much power as parent company Ford's (F) F-150 Raptor high-performance pickup truck.
Not that the Navigator will feel like a Raptor. Its engine and 10-speed transmission will be tuned to provide "effortless" acceleration without the aggressive lunging of a performance truck, a Lincoln spokesman explained. The engineers just didn't want the Navigator to ever feel like it's working too hard.
And if even that is too much work, new Lincoln owners can get a professional driver for their car on demand. For now, it's just a test program in Miami and, soon, San Diego. For $30 an hour, Lincoln owners can request a driver to come pick them up and take them anywhere they want to go.
Then you can ride in the back seat and really relax.
