WORDS DUNCAN BRADY
PHOTOGRAPHS WES ALLISONCOMPARISON I 2020 Lincoln Aviator vs. 2020 Cadillac XT6
I
won’t waste your time. I’m not going to
yank your chain. No dillydallying here,
heaven forbid. If you’re shopping for
an American three-row luxury SUV, it
would be a regretful mistake to buy a
Cadillac XT6 over the Lincoln Aviator.
From a pricing perspective, they’re
pretty even. Each carries a starting price
in the high-$50,000 range. As tested,
Lincoln’s three-row comes to $75,120
and Cadillac’s rings in at $73,040. Both
have their strengths, but by almost every
measure, the Aviator provides a superior
luxury three-row experience. Here’s why.Both cars generate power with gas-fueled
aluminum V-6 engines, one force-fed
( by two turbochargers) and the othernaturally aspirated. The free-breathing
powerplant lives under the hood of the
Cadillac, and it’s the same 3.6-liter V-6
that General Motors defaults to in count-
less Chevy, Buick, GMC, and Cadillac
vehicles. In this application, it makes 310
hp and 271 lb-ft of torque. It’s paired with
a nine-speed automatic.
The Lincoln is powered by a 3.0-liter
twin-turbocharged V-6 cranking 400 hp
and 415 lb-ft of torque, in the same state
of tune as the engine motivating the Ford
Explorer ST. A 10-speed auto handles
gear-changing duties.
But these are three-row family
SUVs, not sports cars—does the power
advantage matter? I assure you it does.
The Aviator’s powerplant has higher
peak numbers than the XT6’s, sure, but
because it’s turbocharged, it producesmore torque down low in the rev range.
Say you want to pass someone on the
highway. In the XT6, you’ll use most of
the throttle and hear the growly V-6 spin
all the way to its 7,100-rpm redline, where
that engine makes all its power.
The Aviator’s engine, on the other
hand, doesn’t have to work as hard, spin
as fast, or generate as much noise and
vibration to produce the same level of
thrust. It just quietly churns away in the
background and gets you up to speed.
Traditional wisdom tells us the car with
the more powerful engine will use more
fuel, but that’s not the case here. Both cars
return an identical EPA-estimated 17/24
mpg city/highway running on regular
gasoline, in AWD form. Without AWD,
the Lincoln actually ekes out a 1 mpg
advantage on the highway.56 MOTORTREND.COM FEBRUARY 2020