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-The best sport-utility vehicle is one that belongs to someone else, especially if it’s going to be driven off-road.

That became clear during my week in the 1998 Lincoln Navigator, an over-$40,000sport-ute so plushed-out, I’d never run it through mud if it belonged to me. I mean, get outta here!

We’re talking chrome cast-aluminum wheels, a chrome-vaned grille, expensive exterior metallic paint, deep-pile carpeting, leather-faced bucket seats, wood- and-leather-trimmed steering wheel, burled walnut wood inlays, six-disc CD changer. Lordy!

Is Ford Motor Co., the Navigator’s maker, goofy enough to believe lots of people will use this thing for Sunday drives through bush country? No way!

This is sport-utilitarianism at its wackiest. But don’t blame Ford. Sport-utility sales in the United States grew from 1.1 million vehicles in 1992 to 2.1 million last year. They now account for 16 percent of all new vehicle sales in this country.

That growth involved segmentation. The sport-ute market, once-dominated by mid-size types such as the Ford Explorer, now consists of multiple entries — cheap small, expensive small, cheap mid-size, standard mid-size, premium mid-size, big and premium big.

The Navigator is a premium biggie, which means it’s Ford’s ride to riches among the hottest-selling sport-utes, models costing $28,000 and higher.

The company actually expects fewer than 5 percent of Navigator owners to use their vehicles off-road. But it’s betting that the four-wheel-drive, off-road version will constitute 75 percent of the Navigator’s sales.

Background: What we have in the Lincoln Navigator is a Ford Expedition from the better side of the tracks. The two vehicles share the same platform, which means they have the same 119.1-inch wheelbase and other structural dimensions.

The Navigator and Expedition are covered, uppity versions of the Ford F-150 pickup, upon whose platform both sport-utility models are based. But little of that blue-collar family history comes through in the Navigator. It is a haughty limo-truck — rides like a limo on-road and does nicely as a truck in the rough.

Technological breeding — a combination of multiple tweaks and spiffs, especially in the suspension work — accounts for the difference.

The Navigator is equipped with a load-leveling air suspension system, which allows the vehicle to remain stable at all four corners whether it is running with a full complement of eight passengers on streets or running lightly loaded off-road. This translates to a super-smooth highway ride and a deftness along muddy, rocky paths that belies the Navigator’s gargantuan size.

Ford also made the Navigator’s interior quieter than those of its siblings, adding more sound-deadening materials in the floor and support pillars and taking other steps to cut noise, vibration and harshness.

The engine is boffo. It’s a 5.4-liter, single overhead-cam V-8, rated 230 horsepower at 4,250 rpm. Torque is rate d 325 pound-feet at 3,000 rpm.

An electronically controlled, four-speed automatic transmission is standard. Ditto powered, four-wheel disc brakes with anti-locks.

The Navigator, also available in two-wheel drive, is the first of Ford’s 1998 models to be equipped with the company’s Second Generation air bags, which are designed to inflate more slowly than conventional bags and thus reduce the risk of bag deployment injuries to children and small adults.

1998 Lincoln Navigator

Complaints: The size of it all. You can put eight people or 1,800 pounds of stuff in the Navigator, which is the only efficient way to amortize its value on a daily use basis.

Praise: The size and quality of it all. If you had to carry eight people and lots of stuff, this would be the way to do it.

Head-turning quotient: Raised eyebrows and snapped necks everywhere it went. The richies absolutely loved it!

Ride, acceleration and handling: Triple aces on- and off-road, which wass rprising. I expected something this large to be tippy in the rough and wallowy in the corners. But the Navigator did its thing with aplomb. Excellent highway braking, too.

Mileage: About 16 miles per gallon (30-gallon tank, estimated 468-mile range on usable volume of regular unleaded), running mostly highway with one to five occupants and light cargo. The Navigator can be equipped to pull trailers weighing up to 8,000 pounds.

Sound system: Optional seven-speaker AM/FM stereo radio and cassette with six-disc CD changer. Ford Premium Sound System. Excellent.

Price: Yee ha! Base price on the tested 4x4model is $42,660. Dealers invoice on that base model is $37,151. Price as tested is $46,660, including $3,360 in options and a $640 destination charge.

Purse-strings note: Compare with Ford Expedition, Chevrolet Tahoe/GMC Jimmy, Land Rover Defender 90, Land-Rover Range Rover 4.6 HSE and even the Mercedes-Benz M-Class All-Activity Vehicle.