Fullsize SUV: 2020 Lincoln Navigator

The Case for Excess: A five-month SUV Confessional 

March 15, 2020 

In March, I felt a tremendous sense of relief when a 2020 Lincoln Navigator arrived on my Brooklyn block. I’ve been test driving cars for years, and at the time I did not know how long I would spend with this fancy full-size SUV. This was not a normal car loan, but what will go down as normal about 2020?

Six months later, the Navigator became the vehicle that whisked my family to safety and back during the pandemic. It will be some time until any us have the perspective to make sense of the bizarre course this year took. Whenever I do look back from another vantage point, the vehicle will be part of the story on how daily life transformed at the start of a new decade. Below are excerpts from my travel diaries, a reflection on time, space and movement in the midst of an unprecedented era.

March 2020 

A few days before we’d been counting days to family vacation. I looked forward to hours spent floating in the ocean, sun-kissed and carefree. We planned to take our two kids to my husband’s native Puerto Rico.

And then all plans changed. Activities ended. School shut down. We fretted for days that we had been exposed, at art exhibitions, baseball games, and career seminars in midtown Manhattan. We are still healthy, but not all of our friends are so lucky. Keeping social distance is no longer sufficient to stay safe. Like most people, we opt to quarantine ourselves from the outside world.

One week becomes two indoors, and that period now seems that it will last for perpetuity. For our children, we know that we want to be in a place they can run free. A few days ago, I began to dream of my hometown, where I spent most of my summers resetting myself in my parent’s big backyard. I like to joke around and say that I summer in Detroit. Coming home to Detroit has always been restorative.

I start itching to hit the open road, and as a multi-tasking mama car journalist, I’m always looking for a story to frame the journey. It seems natural that our adventure would be worth documenting. I reach out to my industry contacts and arrange for a loan, and now a day later, we are frantically packing to head west. This leg of our adventure is described in detail here for Road and Track.

When I arrive in Michigan, I exhale with relief, surrounded by pine trees. As much as I love cities, I have never really left my affinity for the wide-open space afforded by the Midwest behind. When I’m here, I get used to driving. SUVs are the most popular vehicles in the world. Yet, a growing number of people believe that SUVs are a symbol of unnecessary excess. How do I reconcile the pull to be comfortable verse my desire to be more conscious?

Like so many feelings, the anxieties I experience around the pandemic and staying safe are heightened. In the back of my mind, I know that the last time I came to Michigan in March was to bury my father, four years prior. Everything feels so fragile.

April 2020

I am wedged in between two mindsets.

I have spent 15 years living in New York. I rely on public transportation, quick rides across town, and I try to walk whenever possible. My kids’ strollers probably have more miles on them than the cars I’ve collectively used in the city. It’s safe to say I lost touch with a good part of the American psyche. 

As a city dweller, I lost my appetite for SUVs a few years ago. How could I continue to promote the excessive consumption of fuel and road space that is destroying our planet?  Who actually needs to drive an oversized SUV? It’s easy to judge when that person is not you. 

Upon arriving in Detroit that driving person is me. I felt genuine relief that we were able to settle into a big, solid, souped-up SUV for the long road trip.  A car in most parts of Michigan is a requirement for easy living. There’s not even an accessible sidewalk where my mom lives. 

The rhythms of our daily lives have changed. On warm spring days, we ride bikes on empty six-lane mile roads on thick pavement. The cars are gone. The pulse of nature and budding life has taken over the hum of distant highway traffic. Even the more dew feels denser. Days stretch long, but weeks slip by, one into the next.

I barely drive anywhere. After a month I volunteer to get the groceries in the Navigator, which makes me feel protected. Studies show that SUVS impact the psyche by making drivers feel as if they have authority. In normal times these fears are based on insecurities.

I know my worries are not subsiding, and sitting up high, I feel more confident, elevated above ground. The Navigator is massive. It’s powerful, too, making 450 hp and 510 lb-ft of torque --  big numbers that show off its prowess. 

A close family member is hospitalized with Covid. I am not sleeping well. I worry about family and friends who feel so far away.  Once I’m safe in the car, I breathe freely. I appreciate the ability to tap into a sound system, windows open, driving along, thinking of nothing except being alive, tickled by a spring breeze. 

May 2020

I acclimate myself to the new routines. The careful wiping of door handles and switches. The constant sterilizing of over-dried hands with alcohol gels. The application of gloves and masks, always careful to think of order and operations. It all feels awkward and new as if I’ve just had surgery and learning how to work around a wound. But we’re all in this together. That’s how I feel when I see others doing the same. Those that don’t adhere to the same courtesies make me uncomfortable. I organized the front consul with all my supplies – a stash of new gloves, a cubby for the used ones, and so many small bottles of hand sanitizers.

Once I get used to venturing out, I sometimes load up my daughter when she’s ready for a nap, and we drive a few miles slowly on back roads far from people. It feels decadent to waste gas not going anywhere. I pull over on a leafy street and roll down the windows. The Navigator is adorned with plush heated and cooled leather seats and 30 different seat settings so it’s easy to get comfortable. I open the moonroof and breeze ripples through the trees and caresses us I write in my notebook, as my daughter dozes in her car seat. 

We don’t leave the house every day, but when we do it’s to get out and move. We pile into the Navigator and head to state parks for nature walks. My son always sits way in the way back, as a tiny act of independence. He also runs point on the Apple CarPlay system.  Middle schoolers aren’t supposed to spend all their time with their parents. He controls the rear audio and climate controls. We never do figure out the wifi password, which had its upside. If he connected, we would never have gotten him out of the car.

Cruising along, it feels like we are safe together as a unit, bundled together, waiting out the storm, three generations strong.

June 2020

It feels more normal to be in Michigan at summer’s peak. Everything we do is outside. We invest in a kayak. We watch socially distanced baseball and debate on when and how the kids use masks. We add two neighbors to our pod. They venture to the beach with us early in the day and leave before the crowds come. So much of our time is taken up by hypotheticals and risk assessment. I use the wireless charging ports in the Navigator, as the vehicle feels like a home base that keeps us tethered.  

For so many years, I walked everywhere. Here I take a walk with my mom every day, but never as much as I did in New York City.

I go through magazine archives I’ve left in my mom’s basement. I find my byline in old newspapers. When I first started covering cars in 2003, my focus was largely on popular culture figures — musicians, rappers, business leaders, and athletes. Often, cars were metaphors used in the article.  In the music industry SUVs were a unique forum for self-expression, bedazzled objects that sparkled with candy paint and glistening chrome rims. I loved the over-the-top efforts that car customizers took in preening monster gleaming rides. Where others saw gaudiness, I saw creativity. But soon after the Toyota Prius became popular, I backtracked some of my views, concerned about my role glorifying SUV culture. When the 2003 Lincoln Navigator earned 12 miles per gallon, and it wasn’t even the worst of the offender. The Hummer H2, made by GM, earned a horrifying 9 miles per gallon. It’s worth noting that SUVs have gotten better on fuel economy over the past decade -- the 2020 Lincoln Navigator earns 22 miles per gallon when you do highway miles. While this is far from carbon-neutral, it’s a sign that the industry has had to respond to regulation and social pressure. 

July 2020 

We begin to prepare for our return. In suburban life, we stock up on what we will need. We visit Ikea, and buy my daughter her first twin bed to take home with us. I marvel at the ease of the switches that automatically flip seats forward in the second and third row. It all seems so effortless, this suburban way of life. It’s why people are moving out of cities. It takes me a moment to notice that when I push the button to close the rear door, it doesn’t move at first. Not everything is as easy as a touch of the button. The cabin chairs in the second floor don’t fold flat, but I have no problem wedging parts to the twin bed inside the massive trunk. Fun fact: Navigator claims 103 feet of usable cargo space.  

August 2020

In early August, we took the Navigator back to our favorite Michigan park for one last visit. I felt autumn undertones in the morning breeze on the trails. There are changes that happen to you, and then there are the changes you make happen. We felt the change happening around us, and so we began to pack our things. It was time to return to New York, to prepare ourselves for what was to come. We began the process of separating the things that we had accumulated, putting aside kids’ clothes that were outgrown. When you create space, it seems something new always finds its way in. At last, coolers packed, electronics charged, and playlists organized, we were ready. As I shut the lift gate with the push of the button, I paused to look around. Kids loaded in back seats cushioned by blankets and pillows. Our masks, cleansers, and alcohol wipes contained in cargo compartments. We had filled that open space with things I didn’t know that I’d need.  I remembered how the Navigator had once seemed so big and hulking. By the time we headed back, my driver’s seat perch felt like my comfort zone. A fews day later I felt a twinge as I turned the keys in, back to reality in New York City.