2022 Lincoln Corsair GT PHEV

The Lincoln Corsair Grand Touring stands as the range topping model, in the compact SUV/Crossover lineup offered by the luxury division of Ford.

The Corsair replaces the Lincoln MKC and designers have elevated it’s appearance with the latest generation of Lincoln styling. The chrome mesh front grille and clean lines that flow backward, give the Corsair an elegant appearance. One design feature that adds an air of elegance and streamlines the rear of the vehicle was the clamshell rear tailgate. With the liftgate panel joints taken around to the sides of the rear quarter panels, the Corsair looks much more refined. This gives the Corsair a premium look and compares nicely to other vehicles in the category.

Stepping inside the Lincoln Corsair, the combination of genuine leather seating, wood grains and soft synthetic surfaces provides a great first impression. The Corsair Grand Touring or GT, comes standard with a glass panorama roof. This addition is a must on the luxury Crossover/SUV market and showers the interior with natural light.

An 8 inch LCD touchscreen is mounted in the middle of the dash and acts as the interface with the vehicle’s various systems. The panel is a bit small compared to other offerings but the menus are fairly intuitive and allow for quick adjustment of systems such as ambient lighting, imperial or metric calibration, as well as other comfort settings. Another feature which reinforces the premium atmosphere in the Corsair is the replacement of warning alarms with more subtle chimes. Its a minor feature but goes a long way to showing the attention to detail imparted to the Corsair.

Our tester came fully packed with a number of upgraded packages and features, however, the list of standard equipment is quite impressive. Heated front and rear seats, active noise controls and an adaptive suspension along with a 10 speaker audio system are included in the base price of $58,500.

The Corsair shares its mechanical underpinnings with the Ford Escape and Ford Kuga (which is available in Europe). The framework for the hybrid engine in all these models differs slightly even though they revolve around a 2.5L four cylinder Atkinson cycle engine, a pair of electric motors coupled to a continuously variable transmission.

The Ford Escape and the Lincoln Corsair plug-in hybrid electric vehicles share similar drive trains yet the Ford gets 61 km of range versus 41 on the Lincoln. The most likely reason for this deficit being the all-wheel drive system on the Lincoln, while the Ford is front wheel drive.

Upon delivery of the vehicle, I proceeded to fully charge the empty onboard battery of the Corsair. This took almost 11 hours and was plugged in overnight. The following day it was quite a pleasant experience to be able to drive around using electric only power and made one complete cycle of my errands that day without having to burn any fossil fuels. The following day the car was fully recharged again and I tried the preserve EV mode which focuses in maintaining and recharging the battery, thus relying on the combustion engine most of the time. We were still able to get decent fuel economy of around 6L/100 kms, much better than you would in a compact gasoline engine Crossover. The switching between gas and electric propulsion is imperceptible to passengers and even the driver without noticing the presence of the blue “Electric Driving” text on the instrument cluster.

The ride comfort of the Lincoln Corsair was quite good. Nothing seemed to upset the Corsair and the handling was above par, likely due to the inclusion of the adaptive suspension. Overall the Corsair delivers a ride inline with what one should expect from a comfort oriented vehicle without feeling soft or vague. Despite its compact classification, the Corsair easily transported 4 adults in relative comfort for a couple hours drive down to Niagara.

A couple quirks with the vehicle, one being the XM Sirius radio would disconnect for extended periods and not be able to receive signal. This was something that was also found in the Ford Escape. However the down time in the Escape was days not hours as was the case in the Lincoln Corsair. Another peculiarity is the voice activated button on the steering wheel, which is located at about the 10:00 position. If you learned to drive with the classic 10 and 2 steering wheel position, this causes frequent activation of the voice activated interface on the Ford Sync system.

The 2022 Lincoln Corsair offers a relatively good value in the extra packages added ;Perfect Position 24-way, ventilated front seats that had massaging options, rear heated seats, active park assist, adaptive cruise control, a heads up display, Lincoln Co-Pilot360 Plus (lane keeping, back-up safety and pre-collision emergency braking assists), the ability to use your phone as a vehicle key and a heads up display broadcast to the windshield. The only issue with the add-ons was that they pushed the as tested price to a rather lofty $71,100, before delivery charges and taxes.

If you can live without the more expensive packaged options, the Lincoln Corsair holds up nicely against the other PHEV luxury hybrid SUV/Crossover in the market place. Besides a premium driving experience, the efficiency of the powertrain is noteworthy.

While the Lincoln Corsair is currently available as a 2022 model year, scarcity of actual units meant our test was done in a 2021 Lincoln Corsair model. The units are mechanically identical but packaging and pricing differ slightly. Please visit the Lincoln Canada website to review exact features and pricing.