When the Lincoln Navigator and its Ford cousin, the Expedition, were redesigned for 2025, they got more than just updated styling and circular steering wheels. The jumbo SUVs also received a rare and beautiful new feature: a tailgate.
Some people think tailgates belong exclusively on pickups, or have no opinion about tailgates at all. I’m on the other end of the spectrum and believe a tailgate improves any vehicle. Give me a tailgate on an SUV any day, but also give me a tailgate on sedans, convertibles and two-seat supercars. Every vehicle is enhanced by a tailgate. Yes, fighter jets are cool, but look at the C-17 Globemaster cargo plane. It has a tailgate of 6.5 meters. Think of the party you could throw if you brought it to a football game.
The first new car I bought was a 2007 Mitsubishi Outlander, a purchase that caused many of my professional colleagues to say, “What did you buy?” And then I’d explain the many virtues of that second-generation Outlander: magnesium paddle shifters, all-wheel drive with front-wheel drive and, most importantly, a tailgate. Mainstream crossovers typically don’t offer tailgates because a tailgate comes with costs and complications, but those factors also come with luxurious panache. A tailgate is an extra: the 2026 Range Rover has a tailgate, but the Range Rover Sport does not. When Mitsubishi redesigned the Outlander in 2014, it swapped the split tailgate for a conventional tailgate. I didn’t buy another one.
I took the new Navigator on a ski holiday and expected the tailgate to come in handy for the inevitable parking lot sorting through helmets and mittens and the a million other specialized garments required for gravity-based winter entertainment. And it worked very well for that, serving as a seat or table while ensuring no one had to lean over the dirt-stained rear bumper while he packed up his stuff. But the split-hatch setup also surprised me as a cargo extender: When I realized my skis were too long to fit behind the second row, I simply slung a blanket over the top of the tailgate, stuck the skis out over the edge, and closed the hatch as far down as it would go. It was only a few kilometers at low speed to the parking lot in the mountains, so my improvisation worked fine. And yes, you could do the same thing with a one-piece hatch, but you’d be afraid that if it opened at all, everything else would end up out there on the road. No problem with the tailgate up, which serves as a baffle against cargo ejection.
With the Navigator tailgate up, you can enter the cargo area without everything else ending up in the parking lot.
Over the years, I’ve found no shortage of use cases for tailgates. While driving the original Smart car in Arizona, I discovered that the rear hatch – yes, the Smart Fortwo had a rear hatch – could serve as an elevated viewing platform at the Grand Canyon. During a football game, I discovered that the tailgate of the Mini Cooper Convertible (yes, the Mini convertible has a tailgate) works great as a platform for condiments, but not so great as a seat for two large men. (We broke one of the support cables.)
No, the Mini tailgate should not open at that angle.
When I toured Namibia in a BMW And yes, we did, and it probably wasn’t even the worst thing that would happen to that X5 on that particular day.
It was really that hot.
I dream of mounting an old tailgate to the wall of my shed to use as a seat or makeshift workbench. I need to frame it and make sure the latch works, but it seems like a feasible project. But which tailgate?
A truck tailgate is an obvious choice. What I’d like to find is a double-hinged station wagon tailgate that opens from the side or bottom, and which first debuted on the 1966 Ford and Mercury wagons (no, the Honda Ridgeline didn’t invent that). It’s probably hard to find one like this now, but the last big GM bubble cars of the 1990s also had a double-hinged tailgate. And how cool would it be to flip one of those off the wall and grab a chair? Or swing it outwards to access the fridge you’ve stashed back there? (I’m assuming we’re not using an exterior wall in this plan.) In case you’re wondering, I’ve been thinking about building this garage tailgate for, oh, 15 years. One day!
In the meantime, kudos to Ford and Lincoln. I’m not sure the serpentine steering wheel will stand the test of time, but the tailgate will.
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Ezra Dyer is one Car and driver editor-in-chief and columnist. He now lives in North Carolina, but still knows how to turn right. He owns a 2009 GEM e4 and once drove 330 km/h. Those facts are mutually exclusive.
#honor #tailgates