Pure Michigan Luxe SUV Test! 2025 Cadillac Escalade vs. Lincoln Navigator vs. Jeep Grand Wagoneer

Comparison tests don’t get more Pure Michigan than this one. These luxury SUVs were all primarily designed and developed in southeast Michigan by the Detroit Three. The bosses overseeing development had particularly keen interest in how each turned out, because these are the rigs they use to haul their broods and tow their boats up north—it’s a Michigan thing, if you didn’t know—to their lake retreats. Which of these SUVs best telegraphs the message, “My company is more powerful than yours,” or, “Our designers have better fashion sense than yours,” or “We’re the biggest ballers in this game”?

To answer those weighty questions, we rounded up a new fifth-generation example of the first of this breed—the 2025 Lincoln Navigator in its top Black Label trim ($120,490 as tested) and pitted it against the recently refreshed 2025 Cadillac Escalade (also in its fifth gen; optioned to $125,020 in Sport Platinum guise). Jeep only jumped back into these highly profitable luxurythree-row SUV waters in 2022, reviving the Grand Wagoneer name for a fourth time since it was first applied to an ancient Kaiser-designed SJ in 1984. Upon introduction, the new Jeep impressed us enough to muscle ahead of Cadillac and Lincoln and claim the top spot in our Ultimate Car Rankings. Defending that title is a Jeep Grand Wagoneer Series III Obsidian model optioned to $119,290.

We drove these full-size luxury SUVs from Oakland County, home to the Jeep and Cadillac engineering teams (Michigan’s second-most affluent county), to lower Michigan’s pinky finger, Leelanau County (the state’s most affluent). Ranking second in the nation for most water area (behind the Upper Peninsula’s Keweenau), its 100 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline and 33 inland lakes provide frontage for lovely homes aplenty. Picturesque villages, wineries, and cherry orchards dot a gorgeous landscape crisscrossed by rolling, curving, traffic-free two-lane roads we “down-staters” can only dream of. This road trip would afford ample opportunity to determine which company’s flagship dreadnought is now king of the road.

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What’s New?

Our Navigator’s entire exterior is new (except for the side doors) and features a split liftgate/tailgate arrangement. Interior upgrades include a 48-inch curved pillar-to-pillar screen way out at the windshield base, a 28-speaker Revel Ultima sound system, rear captain’s chairs with heating, ventilation, and massage, a digital scent dispenser, plus numerous other pampering “spa on wheels” features. Cadillac’s parry was to give the Escalade a front and rear freshening, a 55-inch curved screen, 36-speaker AKG sound (with an option for 40!), and power-opening and -closing doors all around. Entering its fourth year of production, the Grand Wagoneer’s smallest-in-test Hurricane 3.0-liter twin-turbo inline-six vaults well ahead of its competition, with output increasing to 540 hp and 521 lb-ft of torque at no cost to fuel economy (which still bests Cadillac’s V-8 and trails Lincoln’s EcoBoost V-6).

Onboard Ambiance

In terms of the sheer impression of expensive materials, Cadillac’s interior is way out in front. From our test car’s glossy “linear marquetry wood” inlaid with real metal to the woven wool-look fabric accenting the lower dash and door panels to semi-aniline leather perforated and stitched in chevron shapes, there’s nothing within view that doesn’t look rich, though there is some plastic very low on the doors. Jeep’s interior comes close on materials quality, swathing nearly everything you see or touch in something swanky—including the full door panels—but the design lacks the style impact of its rivals’, which both strive for a midcentury modern motif. The Navigator makes a great first impression, with its faraway screen, roomier-looking low dash, and mod steering wheel, but the materials let us down. Our Black Label fits genuine wood, but with a peculiar crosshatch surface texture that looks like a porch screen was pressed into it, and the distantly spaced light-colored “grain” looks fake. Most egregious is the naked pebble-grain plastic on the lower half of the doors and dash more befitting its Ford Expedition sibling.

Digital Real Estate

There’s no denying Cadillac and Lincoln win on wow factor with their giant curved screens. Jeep tallies “nearly 45 inches” of front screen area, but individually framed screens are so 2022. Of course, as the saying goes, “It’s not the size that matters; it’s how you use it,” and we kind of prefer how Lincoln uses all 48 inches to display data the driver can always look at, in non-threatening, large-format, jitterbug-phone-style fonts, as one of our drivers put it. It’s a cinch to master. On the downside, unlike in the MotorTrend SUV of the Year–winning Lincoln Nautilus, the touchscreen that controls everything is mounted distractingly low on the dash. Cadillac gets points for all fonts matching across all screens, but the big touchscreen requires quite a reach, and controlling things via its twist knob is fussy. Jeep’s UX is old-school intuitive with a button for everything, but it ends up looking somewhat cluttered.

The Cadillac and Jeep passenger screens almost always appear dark to the driver, reserved for streaming video either from the cloud or via an HDMI cable. Both screens seem miserably small to watch a movie on—and they require wireless headsets that discourage family (or at least front seat) conversation. We also fret that AV tech’s relentless march will orphan these screens long before the powertrains give out, while the Lincoln’s screens will continue sharing their simple weather, audio, trip, and clock info until meeting their natural end in the crusher along with the rest of the SUV.

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Let’s Pack Up and Head North

We didn’t have a season’s worth of cabin-opening gear to schlepp, but in folding seats and reconfiguring cargo areas, it became evident the Jeep’s extra length and wheelbase paid off in the largest cargo area with all seats up, by almost 3 cubic feet. Yet the Escalade gains a huge advantage with the third or both rows folded. Lincoln’s split gate protects a loose Veuve Clicquot bottle from rolling to its doom as the liftgate opens, and its Cargo Tailgate Manager can serve as a shelf, a canape table mounted above the tailgate, or a tailgate-partying backrest.

Had we headed north with every seat belt clicked, the three people sentenced to the way back would grouse loudest in the Cadillac, which offers the least leg- and shoulder room and is the fussiest to climb in and out of; its captain’s chairs dump and fold, while the others’ lean and slide forward. The Navigator wins the middle-row decadence prize for duplicating most of the front amenities, while Jeep ranks best for third-row space and accessibility.

The I-75 Slog

Northbound Friday and southbound Sunday summer traffic is thick on this artery, and Level 2-plus driver assistance can mean the difference between arriving frazzled or fresh. There were no surprises here: Cadillac’s Super Cruise remains way out front, unilaterally executing lane changes around slower traffic (even passing the odd left-lane bandit on the right). It even surprised us by functioning on several larger Leelanau County two-lane roads. Lincoln’s BlueCruise and Jeep’s Active Driving Assist make the driver signal before changing lanes, and neither works on many (if any) two-lane roads. Ford/Lincoln are yet to adopt a camera or capacitive-touch-based hands-on-wheel sensors, so the Navigator annoyingly demands periodic steering wheel wiggling. Lincoln’s interior noise levels were also deemed the loudest. The Jeep was least permissive of even brief glances at the mirrors, nagging the driver to pay attention and threatening to disengage. Had we been relocating our ski boats, the Jeep’s 9,810-pound towing capacity bests the others by a half ton, while the Navigator’s trailer-reversing aids earn points for making execs who seldom tow look like pros.

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Long-Haul Comfort/Infotainment

As noted, all three flagships offer massage functionality, multispeaker name-branded audio systems, and screens aplenty, but which kept us most engaged and invigorated? Picking a winner among the massaging seats isn’t easy, as each offers five programs at three intensity levels. All feel great, and sadly they all automatically switch off after 20 minutes. If screen images of the massaging elements are to be believed, Cadillac has a few more of them, so maybe … it’s the winner? All that said, two of our judges were unable to get comfortable in the Lincoln’s seat despite 24-way adjustability. “It always ended up feeling like an overstuffed chair with a devil’s forked tongue licking my thighs,” one of them said.

Another said of the audio features: “The Jeep’s McIntosh sound system trounces Lincoln’s Revel audio and Cadillac’s AKG system. It delivers all the depth you’d expect with a couple dozen speakers even when you’re listening to relatively low-fi satellite radio.” Still, Lincoln’s Revel Ultima ranked a close second, and we were left wondering if some speakers were offline on the distant-third-place AKG system. After finding the app button that turns on the Jeep’s passenger screen (a touch activates the Cadillac’s), we discovered that with no active video subscriptions and no portable players with HDMI output, there was little for our passengers to do with either passenger screen but surf the internet or watch YouTube reels. We recognize their main value might be letting a front adult passenger control what plays on each rear screen—something that’s trickier when kiddos use brought-in tablets.

As for what the driver’s looking at, positioning of the Cadillac’s largest-in-test screen means the steering wheel obscures much of it, and there are fewer options for what to view. Even the standard gauge view is peculiar with horizontal hockey-stick graphs for speedometer and tachometer above a linear fuel gauge. What look like diagonal lens flares serve as indicator lines (and without demarcations, the speedo one is useless). That said, Cadillac’s head-up display was the one most visible through polarized sunglasses. Jeep offers the most options for what appears on the main instrument cluster. Cadillac and Jeep offer a night vision “deer cam” view of the road ahead.

One human sense only the Lincoln can stimulate on demand is the olfactory, with a digital scent dispenser in the armrest offering a choice of three aromas, none of which seemed cloying or department-store-perfume-aisle repulsive in any way. Our favorite was Mystic Forest.

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Up North on the Fun Roads

Spec chart scrutinizers might get the idea the Navigator is the Nürburgringer of this bunch. It is the lightest, and on our flat, featureless black lake it laid down the best lateral grip and figure-eight numbers along with the second-best braking and acceleration results. But out in the curves, as the only contestant without air springs, it trails the other two in ride comfort with lumpy and noisy impacts and busy body motions—it’s simultaneously too soft and too firm. Our judges found themselves making small course corrections in sweeping turns as the Navigator ran out of compliance and took a set, and its absurdly slow 20.7:1 steering requires abundant flailing to parallel park.

The combination of air springs and adaptive dampers eliminated this phased cornering situation on the others. Cadillac’s hyperaggressive stability control thwarted our test team’s efforts at laying down impressive track numbers, but we can attest our Sport Platinum test car felt more sure-footed on lightly traveled county roads. It might even have taken top honors in ride quality in one of the Luxury trims or on the base 22-inch wheels. (This one wore $1,800 worth of 24s.) As configured, however, the Grand Wagoneer grabbed the brass ring of ride supremacy with a body structure rigid enough to eliminate secondary body shake and a general feeling of “there is a layer of cream cheese between the road and the Jeep,” as one of our drivers described it.

The Jeep’s engine feels every bit as impressive as its spec chart implies, delivering on its 18–27-percent weight-to-power advantage every time you crack the throttle, accompanied by what sounds like the muffled cries of a BMW imprisoned in the engine room. Speaking of noise, the Navigator EcoBoost’s native V-6 dialog gets translated into V-8ese by the radio speakers, while the Cadillac’s natural V-8 gets a lot of exhaust whoosh overlaid as both twin-turbo sixes run away from it. We lamented the fact the Cadillac’s chassis and the Jeep’s engine deserve one another, and we’d be willing to sacrifice some speed for the V-8’s aural character—an ideal match for the Escalade’s brash, menacing mien.

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Valet Forecourt Presence

At the end of a long day of driving, photographing, and filming these jumbos, we pitted to dine where the vacationing/summering auto execs do—at Blu in Glen Arbor. Parked here, the Cadillac looks most impressive from every angle—a crisply faceted unified sculpture. Lincoln’s glider-wing light signatures easily identify it, and its front-3/4 view is appealing, but the rear styling elements seem less cohesive. Overall, the Navigator seems to hover above its wheels more than the others. The Grand Wagoneer is better at looking like a well-proportioned big Jeep than it is at looking six-figure expensive—perhaps an impossible task for any vehicle whose identical twin sells for $62,000. Lincoln, meanwhile, deserves credit for offering a Rejuvenate mode: A driver arriving early at Blu could have enjoyed a curated 5–10-minute program of massage, Zen music, and scent, coordinated with screen imagery and ambient lighting designed to relax and then reinvigorate.

Bottom Line

These three luxury SUVs are frankly all fabulous, and in this class the Detroit Three execs can legitimately claim supremacy over all their offshore competitors. The Lincoln might be the best choice for trailering novices, tailgate partiers, and folks who end up waiting in their car for a kid’s extracurricular events to end, but in this contest its ride quality, interior materials, noise levels, and rear exterior design land it in third.

The Jeep’s Rolls-Royce ride, stout powertrain, and stupendous sound system keep it in second place despite feeling the least extrovertedly fancy in terms of interior and exterior design and overall brand reputation.

So despite legitimate nits to be picked with its big screen’s functionality and despite its third-place finish in every performance category but braking (hey, pony up for the V-series or IQ variants if you’re always in a hurry), the Escalade performed all its intended functions superbly while looking, feeling, and telling the world it was priced way more than $5,000 above the others. Just maybe spring for the 40-speaker AKG?

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3rd Place: 2025 Lincoln Navigator

Verdict: The best Navigator ever comes within an air-ride suspension and a few more interior spiffs of the winner’s circle.

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2nd Place: 2025 Jeep Grand Wagoneer

Verdict: Jeep arrived at this party with all the right credentials but looking like it didn’t quite know what to wear.

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1st Place: 2025 Cadillac Escalade

Verdict: The king of Interstate 75 remains the perennial moving target its crosstown rivals must continue to aim at.

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