This month marks six years since my friend, the late Gary Anderson, and his wife, Genie, did me the honor and the privilege of recommending me to succeed them with the “On the Road” reviews here at the Town Crier.
That’s long enough for you to have learned a few things about the “new kid.” One of them that I hope has come through loud and clear is that I am not a technophobe. Not a grumpy old man grousing about the automobile in 2025 being not much more than a computer on wheels.
I can even make a pretty good case for really big screens in cars. Easier to check navigation at a glance – maybe not even have to take your eyes off the road at all, if you have good peripheral vision.
But the 2025 Lincoln Nautilus Reserve … well, this might be a screen too far. Across the entire car’s width, just below the windshield, there is a curved 48-inch display divided into fourths – showing vehicle speed and other driving information, navigation, audio and a combination weather and time display.
You can re-arrange all but the driving information to put them in different places, or you can press a “calm screen” button buried in a menu on a separate 11.1-inch screen that turns off all but the driving information.
It’s gorgeous. I mean, just from a purely aesthetic standpoint, it’s beautiful.
It’s also overkill. I don’t need to watch the seconds tick down on the song that’s playing; I don’t always need a nav screen up by my speedometer. I practically never need to know what the cloud cover and temperature for each of the next three hours is going to be.
Yes, I can use the “calm screen” button, and I did. And then I was surrounded by all this wasted black space where the muted displays live.
I’d love to tell you that this is an extra-cost option on a top-level trim that you can easily avoid, because the rest of the Lincoln Nautilus is a very good luxury SUV, but no. Even on a base model with zero options, you get the 48-inch panoramic display.
And the Nautilus isn’t some shoot-the-moon electric vehicle trying to be different. It’s a gasoline-powered SUV, with a hybrid model, Reserve, available. And that’s the one I drove.
With 310 horsepower, 295 lb-ft of torque, and all-wheel drive, the Nautilus Reserve is quick, with 0-60 in 7.2 seconds, and remarkable fuel economy for the class – an EPA-estimated 30 miles per gallon combined city/highway. The ride is smooth, though I found the tire noise a bit too loud for a luxury vehicle.
There’s solid cargo room (35.2 cubic feet behind the second row, 68.8 cubic feet with the rear seats folded) and a limousine-like 43.1 inches of rear seat legroom.
The base price of the 2025 Lincoln Nautilus AWD Reserve III is $61,010 ($62,605 with destination). That buys a very well-appointed car with the following as standard equipment: black painted roof, LED headlamps with lightbar LED taillamps, a heated area for when the windshield wipers aren’t in use, heated, auto-folding exterior mirrors with embedded turn signals and approach lamps, privacy glass, rear window wiper/washer/defrost, auto-dimming interior rearview mirror, dual-zone climate control, heated leather-wrapped steering wheel, power tilt and telescoping steering wheel with memory, heated and ventilated front seats with driver’s side memory, 60/40 split-folding rear seats and a comprehensive suite of active safety features.
Our test vehicle also had extra cost equipment, including $750 for the Lustruous Gray Metallic paint, $2,000 for the hybrid powerplant, and $4,455 for a special equipment group that bundles an auto air refresh system, digital scent, hands-free liftgate, a panoramic vista roof with sunshade, 24-way power seats, a 110-volt power converter and a 28-speaker Revel Ultima 3D audio system.
The as-tested price is $69,810.
Again, overall, the Nautilus Reserve is a very nice luxury SUV with a few drawbacks. If you think you can live with the panoramic screen (and don’t plan to live with it long enough for it to be obsolete if and when it needs repair), then this should be on your test drive list. Call me a Luddite, but the screen would be a deal-breaker for me.
Mike Hagerty, past vice president of membership for Western Automotive Journalists (waj.org), has been writing about cars since 1997. Read more of his reviews at MikeHagertyCars.com.
