The new Lincoln Corsair will handle highways for you

We’re just going to say it: Corsair is such a cool name. Refers to a lot of bad things throughout history, of course, but it’s been a hot minute since we’ve called pirates (or their ships) corsairs, so it’s likely an unfamiliar association for most people.

For those unfamiliar with the Lincoln Corsair, on the other hand, it’s a smallish SUV that sits on the same platform as the Ford Focus, Kuga (Ford Escape, for our American cousins) and Maverick, to name a few.

It’s actually Lincoln’s best-selling vehicle, apparently, which is a) quite an achievement for a model that only started back in 2019, and b) likely why Lincoln’s put a decent amount into the facelift.

So while the 250bhp 2.0-litre four-cylinder and 266bhp 2.5-litre hybrid are untouched, as is the eight-speed-auto, Lincoln’s focus has been on more tech, fancier interiors and updated styling. The new giganto-grille is SUV styling du jour, of course, while the addition of an IMAX-worthy screen – that now houses all the controls for radio, climate and so on – is bang on-trend as well. Not, as we would argue, a good thing, but then you could say that about almost any trend and get at least a few to agree with you.

More important than ever-expanding grilles and touchscreens is the addition of Lincoln’s ‘ActiveGlide 1.2’, which offers proper hands-free driving on highways.

It’s something that’s perhaps just as du jour and on-trend – and, again, hardly something we’re fans of – but if robots taking the wheel makes sense anywhere, it’s on the drudgery of boring highways. And just because we still find it amazing to be in control of a motor vehicle in any circumstance doesn’t mean that everyone else has to view it with such starry-eyed wonder. As for the ‘ActiveGlide’ moniker... well, not everything can have a cool name.