The 2025 Ford Expedition and 2025 Lincoln Navigator launched as two innovative SUVs that pack substantially more technology than their direct predecessors. Additionally, both SUVs come standard with the Split Tailgate – a first for both models. While Ford let slip some details about the new feature’s origin story, prominent YouTube automotive personality Doug DeMuro recently revealed that he inadvertently helped get the feature past management.
In his recently released 2025 Lincoln Navigator review, Doug DeMuro said that the team behind its development cited his videos extolling the virtues of the split tailgate to get the feature past management and onto the production model. “In fact, the Lincoln people told me that my videos talking about how much I love this feature were an inspiration for them in getting this feature through management and added to the new Navigator which is lovely to hear,” said DeMuro. If it sounds like his videos weren’t directly cited in the team’s pitch to management, he actually made things more clear when he talked about it on his podcast from last week. “And the fellow who was responsible for the engineering of it, he said “I actually used your videos praising the split tailgate of other cars to help sell this to management,” he said. So it seems like DeMuro had a somewhat indirect influence on the feature’s inclusion on both SUVs, potentially a first for an automotive YouTube personality.
While this may be the first time Ford has paid attention to Doug DeMuro when it comes to automotive quirks or features, he’s been on the automaker’s radar for at least two years now. As Ford Authority previously reported, CEO Jim Farley is very clearly a fan, having praised the personality after he published a video saying the automaker was justified in killing off its cars, saying “good things happen when we listen to customers & double down on what we do best. The next 5 years will be even better.”
Comment
Major L for Lincoln listening to that nut job