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We're here in beautiful northern California
with the latest new vehicle from Lincoln,
and that is the 2020 Corsair.
The Corsair is a replacement for the Lincoln
MKC, their previous compact SUV offering.
But beyond just having a new name,
it's also completely redesigned from top to bottom.
Now the Corsair does have a few things
in common with the Ford Escape, which is also
redesigned for this model year.
But we think that there's enough difference between the two
vehicles for the Corsair to really stand out on its own.
Let's take a look.
Now in the Corsair, one of the big highlights of the vehicle
is actually this interior.
So even though it's only a little bit bigger than the MKC,
it seems like they've really expanded the interior.
The sight lines are better.
There's a lot better visibility all around.
Lincoln engineers actually told me
that the rear glass behind the C pillar that you
used to see your blind spot is actually 300% larger.
That's because the glass in the MKC was kind of tiny,
and you couldn't see over it.
But now very good visibility all around,
and that extends also to back seat passengers.
What has really come down from the Navigator into the Corsair
is sort of the setup of the interior.
So up front here is an eight-inch touchscreen,
which is a little bit small for this segment up front.
Placed nice and high so that you can see it
without taking your eyes too far down off the road.
But also, this center stack area has been completely redone.
And this is actually one of my favorite treatments
for any center console.
What Lincoln has done has they've actually
consolidated all the controls that you
would need into this little shelf sort of thing here that
juts out from below the screen.
So that means you have these buttons here
instead of a shift knob.
And you have all of your climate control
and your multimedia and your radio functions
here on this little shelf.
Thankfully, they're all physical buttons,
so they're very easy to kind of learn where they are.
And what that does, is it actually
opens up a large area underneath it for storage.
So you have a second storage bin here up front that
has the USB A and USB C ports.
It allows you to fit things in there.
So you could actually fit a phone or other kind of larger
objects in this as well.
The center console back here as well contains
one of my other favorite features
about the car, which is a wireless charging pad that's
actually set up vertically.
So one of the problems with wireless
charging pads these days is phones are getting bigger.
But what Lincoln has done is they've actually
made it kind of like a sleeve.
So it's a little plastic sleeve, and you actually
just drop your phone in there.
So even if phones continue to grow out of control
and get to even--
I don't know-- eight, nine inches long,
it'll still fit in this charging pad,
which is a very good solution for an unknown problem.
Also up front, what we really like,
24-way powered front seats.
Kind of a modular design on these seats,
so a lot of the parts kind of move independently.
And it's actually pretty easy to find a perfect seating position
for you.
Now as much as I like the front of the Corsair,
I actually probably like the backseat better.
One of the problems with these compact SUVs a lot of times
is that the back seats are kind of sneaky terrible to be in.
However, even though the Corsair is only a little bit bigger
than the MKC, it seems like Lincoln has done a lot of work
to really expand the back seat and make
it comfortable for passengers, and that
starts with visibility.
So the roofline on this car--
it might look kind of low from the outside,
but inside you actually have a lot of clearance
between your head and the roof.
And what happens is that way, when you turn your head
to look outside the vehicle, instead of seeing the roof,
you just see a lot of glass.
And that makes the whole thing feel just very, very airy,
and very roomy.
What also helps is the available panoramic sun roof,
a feature that I particularly like,
because it does a very good job at allowing light
into the cabin.
Now another unique feature about the second row
is it has actually six inches of travel.
So most of the time, you actually
keep it all the way back to give people maximum leg room.
But if you need to fit more cargo in the rear
and carry passengers as well, you
can actually slide that seat forward up to about six inches.
So the question of the Corsair is, is it luxurious enough?
And sitting in the cabin, it definitely feels that way.
Materials are great, real metal accents.
The leather is really good.
There's only kind of a few plasticky parts,
and that would be on top of the dash
and on top of the door sills here.
But otherwise, it's a pretty impeccable cabinet.
And that's indicative of how far Lincoln
has come with the interior.
So kudos to them for that.
Another thing that feels very luxurious about the Corsair
is just how quiet the interior is.
Now Lincoln's said that this is a point
of emphasis on the Corsair to make
the cabin very calm and serene.
And they've definitely succeeded.
There's extra insulation up front.
You don't really hear the engine much.
And the cabin is quiet enough for you to easily
have a conversation with a back seat passenger
without raising your voice.
As I mentioned before, some shared
parts between this and also the redesigned Ford Escape.
But one way that the Corsair is different for the better
is that it has a multilink rear suspension
with larger bushings.
And what that does is it allows you
to dial in a ride that remains pliant and comfortable
without feeling sloppy.
So for example, as you're going around corners,
there's a decent a bit of body roll.
This is an SUV, after all.
But the Corsair does a really good job
of controlling that body roll coming back.
So go around the corner like this one,
you'll feel the car kind of lean.
But then as it comes back to neutral, it's very controlled.
There's no real bounce to it.
And this is true even when you go over speed bumps or potholes
or things like that.
You don't really feel the suspension get unsettled.
And that's just another way that the Corsair ends up
feeling like a true luxury vehicle.
Now the engines in this vehicle are
ones that we're familiar with.
We've tested them before in other Lincoln and Ford
products.
So the base engine is a turbo-charged 2-liter four
cylinder.
That makes 250 horsepower.
The optional powertrain-- the one that's in this vehicle--
is a 2.3-liter turbo-charged four cylinder.
That makes 295 horsepower and 310 pounds/feet of torque.
Now, both engines have plenty of power for this vehicle.
I don't think that if you opt for the 2-liter,
you're really going to miss the 2.3 at all.
But if you go for the 2.3, pretty good performance.
A lot of power coming out that engine.
Ford also uses it in the Mustang and the Ranger,
two vehicles that are pretty quick.
And with that engine in the Corsair,
it's also pretty quick as well.
As good as those engines are, they're
not enough to overcome what I would
say is the Corsair's biggest weakness,
and that would be its transmission.
So this is the same 8-speed automatic
that we tested in the Escape previously.
And we had a bit of trouble with it in that application as well.
What ends up happening in the Corsair
is that it feels like there's a disconnect between the driver
and the powertrain.
What I mean by that is, let's say
you hit the gas pedal harder because you either need to pass
someone, or get up an on ramp.
You do so, and there's a big delay
between you hitting the pedal and the powertrain
actually responding.
And that just ends up being frustrating.
And this kind of repeats itself over and over again.
Pushing the Corsair into its more aggressive drive
mode, which they call Excite--
it helps with it a little bit.
But Excite should actually probably be the normal mode,
and you probably need another mode
on top of that to actually be exciting.
The transmission just seems like it tries to hold on
to gears a little bit too much.
It doesn't downshift quick enough.
And so it ends up making the car feel sluggish, even though it's
actually pretty quick.
One final thing to mention about the Corsair
is it does get expensive fairly quickly.
So even though the base price is pretty reasonable,
the model that we're in now, which is pretty much fully
loaded with the optional power train,
comes in right around $60,000.
Now that's not completely out of bounds for this segment.
There are competitors who can also get up there.
And thankfully, the Corsairs interior
pulls up when you compare to them.
But definitely not a cheap vehicle.
Much like with the Navigator and the Aviator,
what Lincoln has on its hands with the Corsair
is a bona fide luxury SUV.
Not a premium one, a luxury one.
The way it rides, the amount of comfort that it has,
how quiet the interior it is, it just feels like a luxury
experience inside and out.
And that's what we really like about the Corsair.
Now for more information about this vehicle,
be sure to head over to cars.com.
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