The door panels are lined with leather, and there is a completely flat shelf that allows you to rest your left elbow on the top of the door panel as you drive. We wish that the seat controls and the shift paddles behind the steering wheel didn't feel like they were made out of quite such chintzy plastic, but these are small gripes. It's a well-thought-out piece of interior design, and anywhere there isn't leather is covered by a high-quality-feeling soft-touch material. There are vast swaths of chestnut brown leather covering the doors, all six uber-comfortable seats, and pretty much everything else above your belt line. On the inside, initial impressions are good. But a little floatiness aside, the Aviator's ride is both calm and composed, an unfortunately far cry from the lack of refinement we experienced with its powertrain. Big undulations will occasionally unsettle the whole car, and the Aviator starts to porpoise along until it can settle back down onto its suspension. It's quiet everywhere, and the adaptive Air Glide suspension delivers - it literally glides its way over rutted, nasty pavement. When you aren't putting the hammer down, the Aviator is nearly sublime. Even our favorite mountain roads couldn't flummox the big bad Lincoln (yes, the Lincoln more than held its own on a spirited drive up twisty tarmac). As weird as this sounds, it's genuinely fun, responding quickly and accurately to steering inputs and being a joy to drive pretty much anywhere. The Aviator might just be one of the most athletic SUVs on sale that doesn't have an M or AMG badge plastered on its rump. It's not a perfect system, but these are the kind of refinements we'd expect from a $89,600 SUV. As a result, coming to a stop sends shudders through the pedal and the switch from regen to friction is often accompanied by a thunk and another lurch.

However, even if you apply a constant amount of pressure to the brake pedal, the car decides when to switch from regen to sheer disc-and-pad braking. The Aviator has regenerative braking, which feeds the energy otherwise lost when coming to a stop back into the battery pack to help keep it charged. Thankfully, the car was fine, but the episode wasn't exactly reassuring.Ĭoming to a stop is nearly as tricky.

The movement was so concerning we stopped the Aviator on the side of the road and got out to see if red transmission fluid was leaking from the bottom of the car. Its recalcitrant operation leads to frustration, and occasionally the gearbox slams its way into gear, resulting in a jarring thunk from the car jolting forward. The transmission is often asleep at stoplights, and even while on the move, the shift programming can't seem to wrap its electronic brain around which gear to select at what time. Rolling away from a stop is almost never a smooth operation, and even light brushes of the throttle can result in big lurches forward. However, once you get off the drag strip and into the real world, little gremlins soon start to pop up.

It's no supercar in that respect, but it's certainly not bad when competitors like the Lexus RX and Cadillac XT6 need more than 7 seconds to do the same deed. The powertrain is smooth and gutsy, and in our testing the Aviator scoots from 0 to 60 mph in 5.9 seconds. When the Aviator's fully charged, everything is sublime.

Lincoln hybrid suv