When it launched a couple years ago, the Lincoln Navigator redefined what an American luxury SUV could be. Unabashedly big and packing breathtaking style features and luxury accoutrements, it was an obvious choice for our Best Car of 2018. Still, for some people, even everything a stock Navigator offers isn’t enough to satisfy their wants and needs. For those folks…might we suggest this armored version?
See, the Inkas Armored Lincoln Navigator L seen here packs all the goodies you’d expect from a top-tier luxury car: driving modes, acres of leather and wood, LED headlights, throne-like seating front and rear and active safety features akimbo. What sets it apart from other Navis are its passive safety features: specifically, 360-degree ballistic protection against all sorts of small arms fire.
The body panels, windows and engine compartment have all been beefed up to provide one of the highest levels of bullet resistance you can pack into a civilian vehicle: what the European Committee for Standardization’s EN 1063 standard describes as the BR 6 level of armoring. In layman’s terms, that means armor capable of withstanding impacts from all types of pistols (even powerful Magnum rounds), shotguns, assault rifles and machine guns — pretty much everything short of dedicated armor-piercing rounds fired from sniper rifles. Inkas even says it can take the blast of not one but two grenades, in case your attackers are ambidextrous throwers.
(There is one more level of civilian vehicular protection above this, known as BR 7, but it requires armor so thick that it can begin to compromise a regular car, truck or SUV’s capabilities. As such, BR 6 is usually the toughest armor you’re likely to find on a “regular” SUV.)
Naturally, turning a Lincoln into a vehicular Luke Cage adds weight, so Inkas outfitted this Navigator with a beefed-up suspension and heavy-duty brakes and wheels, as well as reinforced door hinges and other structurally important parts. Unchanged, however, is the 3.5-liter twin-turbo EcoBoost V6, which still cranks out 450 horsepower and 500 pound-feet of torque. (That said, even if the armor adds 3,000 pounds to the 6,000-pound Navi, it would still have a better power-to-weight ratio than the original Navigator.)
Apart from a few subtle tweaks like hidden lights and sirens and a PA system, this armored Navigator is indistinguishable from a stock one, which means you should be able to slip about in the safety of anonymity as well as several inches of heavy-duty armor. The price? Not listed, but likely not cheap. Then again, can you put a price on safety…especially if it means you also get the toughest Navigator you can buy?
