When Lincoln’s new boss Joaquin Nuno-Whelan takes over from Dianne Craig in May, he will have one immediate issue. Namely what to do about the brand’s best seller. The Nautilus, an import to North America, is the only one in a range comprising four vehicles not to be manufactured in the USA. Unluckily for Lincoln, it comes from Changan Ford’s Hangzhou factory in Zhejiang.
Two bosses for new leader
Why the luxury marque’s incoming president will not, unlike the retiring Craig, report directly to Jim Farley is yet to be explained. Instead, he has two superiors. They are Ford Motor Company’s chief marketing officer Lisa Materazzo, and Andrew Frick who not only heads up Ford Blue and Model e but is also interim leader of Ford Pro.
Hopefully the ex-Rivian executive can hit the ground running on 1 May working as one, so to speak, with his dual directors. Until Donald Trump up-ended the business plans of so very many OEMs, becoming president of Lincoln might not have seemed to contain any serious challenges. Dianne Craig has run things well and much of the product line-up, whilst small in number, is fresh and very competitive.
Navigator launching right now
Let’s look first at the biggest model or rather biggest pair of models, these being the Navigator and extended length Navigator L. Seen for the first time during last August’s Monterey Week gathering in California, the body-on-frame models compete with the Cadillac Escalade and other enormous SUVs. Their margins are likely to be as large as an owner’s garage and bank balance.
Joaquin Nuno-Whelan has in fact been vehicle program director for full-size SUVs within Ford Motor Company since 2024, so he knows all about the new-for-MY25 Navigator (and its Ford Expedition twin). Pricing is sky high, and the outgoing Navigator was quite a success. So getting the launch right is vital.
Perhaps by the 2030s we will see electrification in an XL-sized Lincoln but for now, it’s V6 power only. Two turbochargers help the 3.0-litre engine produce 440 horsepower and 510 pound feet of torque - similar numbers to the same powerplant in the F-150 Raptor. A ten-speed automatic transmission is standard, as is four-wheel drive, along with giant wheels. At 24 inches in diameter, these are the biggest yet to be fitted to any generation of this model series.
Electrification coming?
Manufactured at the Kentucky Truck plant, Ford’s own data show 4,058 units were produced during the first three months of 2025, the company building up inventory for this month’s nationwide dealer launch programme. The emphasis is on projecting an image of unrivalled success, Serena Williams having been retained for the ad campaign. Features include a Range Rover-style ‘Split Gate’ two-piece trunk opening.
What is being promoted as a new model is in fact a major revamp of the previous generation. Which means that the T3 platform will likely not feature for the eventual replacement. This underpins multiple Ford Motor Company light trucks as well as being modified and strengthened for their heavy duty counterparts. A mid-cycle facelift for the big Lincoln SUVs should arrive in early 2029. There could be a hybrid powertrain before that too. A properly new successor is expected for the 2033 model year.
Of the other three models, the Nautilus is the next newest. Revealed in China during April 2023, it arrived in North America nine months later. Two 2.0-litre turbocharged powertrains feature, one with 250 hp and linked to an eight-speed automatic transmission, or else a 310 horsepower hybrid driving through a CVT.
Will Nautilus pricing rise along with tariffs?
Outgoing president Dianne Craig recently stated that the division will not (yet) raise pricing to reflect the full cost of the Trump Administration’s new tariffs. This issue remains fluid and her successor will inevitably have his own views on the topic along with a variety of possible strategies. One of these might even be dropping the US market’s only imported Lincoln.
The CDX707 series Nautilus will continue in China until its replacement arrives in 2029 or 2030 after a mid-life refresh in 2026/2027. Will the next generation be an EV? Almost certainly, yet some form of IC power seems equally likely for North American markets. US build could be another strong possibility.
Like the Navigator, the Corsair, Lincoln’s best seller, is made in Kentucky, with additional build taking place in China mainly for that country’s own market. Until 2024, annual production in Chongqing easily surpassed that of the Louisville factory but Lincoln sales in the PRC almost halved last year. The Changan-Ford JV was therefore obliged to dramatically slash the number of vehicles it manufactured.
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Will there even be a new Corsair?
Due to its base being Ford’s C2 architecture, the Corsair is front- and all-drive, while all engines have four cylinders. In certain countries, including the US, a PHEV is available. Now six years old, this model will likely be discontinued later in 2025. Worth noting, Chinese production in 2024 fell to little more than a third of the almost 46,000 examples built in 2021, the peak year.
Technically, a new Corsair would be due within the next 12 months but the business case must be marginal. In China, the brand now averages fewer than 5,000 sales per month (of locally made vehicles), while Louisville Assembly produced only 6,240 Corsairs in Q1. The model’s Ford Escape twin is itself due to be axed later this year with no scheduled successor.
Next for the Aviator
The Aviator is the fourth of this premium brand’s four vehicles. Built in Chicago, it is related to the Ford Explorer and almost the same age as the smaller Corsair, each having been in production since 2019. In addition to the standard biturbo 3.0-litre V6, Lincoln also offers a plug-in hybrid option, this having the same basic engine but boosted by a 75 kW motor.
The 5.1 m long SUV, which is positioned below the two Navigators (5.3 m+) and above the slightly less lengthy Nautilus (4.9 m), was due to go electric-only for its next iteration. Not only would the platform have been a fresh design, but build would have switched out of the US and into Canada. However, both this three-row EV (think Volvo EX90 positioning) and an equivalent Ford model programme were cancelled, that announcement being made official last August.
Another Lincoln in 2027?
What will now take place is an extended production cycle: facelifts for the Illinois-made Aviator and Explorer are set to debut in 2027, with both models scheduled to stick around until the end of the 2030 model year. Lincoln could gain an additional vehicle for MY28, that being a large hybrid SUV which would take the place of the aborted EV at the Oakville plant in Ontario. However, for obvious reasons, sources indicate that this project as well as its Ford twin have been recently paused.
"Lincoln future models 2025-2035" was originally created and published by Just Auto, a GlobalData owned brand.
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