Last Crown Vic rolls off the line

[nester7929]

Taken from Jalopnik:

http://jalopnik.com/5840709/the-deat...ay-for-america

Today, the Ford Crown Victoria, a slope-nosed metal box with an unquenchable thirst for gas built with manufacturing methods Henry Ford would have recognized, died after 32 years of production. Here's why its passing marks the sad end of a great American era.

The vibrant white Crown Victoria that rolled off its Candian assembly line this afternoon marks the last of a V8-powered breed, an endangered species of vehicles that modern America was built by and for. It's not that the "Panther" platform underpinning the Vic, the Lincoln Town Car and other models was ever groundbreaking — it was derided as slow and small from the moment it launched in 1979.

Yet no other American car has ever proven as durable, which is why Ford built 9.6 million of them. Taxi and police fleets routinely put 200,000 miles on Crown Vics and Town Cars. Having its body built separate from its frame meant Crown Vics could survive collisions that would total lesser unit-body vehicles. And police departments grew to rely on them not just for their roominess and durability; hitting a curb at high speed in a Crown Vic wouldn't end a pursuit by bending a drive shaft the way it could in a front-wheel-drive car. It even does well off-road.

The death of the Ford Crown Victoria is a sad day for AmericaEven though most of the Panthers built became taxis or cop cars, the Panther cars were superior interstate cruisers. They came from the era when thousands of children were tortured by squirming next to their siblings on road trips, without infotainment cocoon and yacht-quality captain's chairs to save them from the inspirations of boredom.

By the 1990s, older Crown Vics became sought after by hot rodders; there's often still no cheaper way to get a V8 car turning its rear wheels, just like the 1932 Ford V8s that sparked hot-rodding culture in America. All engines make noise, and a modern turbocharged four-cylinder can surpass the Crown Vic's power, but a V8 makes a feeling, a tremor that transmits through steel and plastic and time.

The official cause of the Crown Vic's death is neglect. The Panther platform made a mint for Ford over the years, but the line was already a corporate stepchild by the late 1980s. The last major coin dropped by Ford on those models came in 2003 with the souped-up Mercury Marauder, which only exists because the executive in charge was a member of the Ford family. Today they're collectors items, a status rare among Ford sedans from the past two decades.

It wasn't a lack of money or know-how or popular demand that doomed the Crown Vic and the Town Car; making old tech new is how Ford has made the F-Series pickup America's most popular vehicle, and taxi companies have been hoarding the last Panthers they could buy. Rather, it was a lack of will by Ford, a bet on technology and global engineering rather than simplicity and affordability.

The Crown Vic isn't the last American rear-wheel-drive V8 sedan, but thanks to a combination of regulations and avarice, it may be the last one that's accessible — not just to everyday buyers, but to people who love it enough to make it their own. Just as Henry Ford imagined his cars should be.



I'm not sure why I was saddened to hear this. Maybe because a lot of my friends had Crown Vics in high school, and we used to go around and get into trouble with them (for example, my buddy had a white crown vic; we used to pull to the side of secluded roads, wait for a car, turn on the lights, follow them, and watch them drive exactly the speed limit until we turned off).

Better cars are out there today, I'm certain, but the Crown Vic has an unspoken nostalgia to it. RIP.

[20Camaro11]

An awful lot of people have experienced the numbing...gut punching...cold feeling of seeing one of those dinosaurs roll off the shoulder or median while knowing their day just got really shitty. I am not sure I will miss the Crown Vic all that much .

[helmincamaro]

Originally Posted by 20Camaro11

An awful lot of people have experienced the numbing...gut punching...cold feeling of seeing one of those dinosaurs roll off the shoulder or median while knowing their day just got really shitty. I am not sure I will miss the Crown Vic all that much .

my grandpa has an '02 Lincoln (same thing, just fancier) . Its pretty nice, drives good. lol, we put a K&N intake on it today.... he's the only 92 year old I know that mods his Lincoln

[LostInMoscow]

My grandfather had on of those when he died in 1982. The following weekend, my sister promptly drove it off the road, over a hill, and into a field, destroying the car and scaring the living sh*t out of a car full of teenagers and later on my mom. Exciting cars they were!

[nester7929]

Originally Posted by 20Camaro11

An awful lot of people have experienced the numbing...gut punching...cold feeling of seeing one of those dinosaurs roll off the shoulder or median while knowing their day just got really shitty. I am not sure I will miss the Crown Vic all that much .

Haha, no doubt. Although these days, it's the Chargers that cause that particular feeling.

[AZCamaroFan]

i'm not sure how 'sad' it is. I mean, car that was 'launched in 1979' still in production in 2011?!

[CamaroSkooter]

Good riddance. I can't wait to see the updated fleets of Chevy Caprices

[toesuf94]

BUH - BYE


Now...over here we have the GM Chevrolet Caprice PPV...a MODERN V8 powered car that actually handled and should NOT explode when rear ended.

[Drew10]

I use to have a 96 Impala SS and loved messing with my friends at night since it looked like a Caprice. The 3 inch Flow Masters were kinda hard to play off as a cop car though.

[cab2g]

Originally Posted by LostInMoscow

My grandfather had on of those when he died in 1982. The following weekend, my sister promptly drove it off the road, over a hill, and into a field, destroying the car and scaring the living sh*t out of a car full of teenagers and later on my mom. Exciting cars they were!

My wife's sister had the same story. Grandma died. Her sister was gifted a low miles 2002 Signature series town car (fully loaded) Within a couple days she had scraped up both bumpers horribly and gotten a major gash in the driver's side door. A week later it was totaled when she plowed over 3 trees because she couldn't see the road when she didn't properly remove the frost from the windshield.

The worst part is her parents got her another car. Which she promptly knocked off the driver's side mirror and fog lamp. But she didn't total it in the 3 months she drove it before going off to college and deciding she didn't want a car...

[Berean]

Good read, and yes, it is kind of sad.

[LOWDOWN]

Bad news for Ford...bad news for St. Thomas/Thamesville, too, as there's no new product planned for that plant. One of the worst-hit areas of Ontario for job losses...so many auto-sector jobs have disappeared, in both assembly and parts supply. The erosion of the Middle Class continues...

[djsnoflake]

32 years of production, with minor changes. Yep, time to be put out to pasture.

[RocketCutlass]

Well that's it I suppose... It's sad to hear that these have gone the way of the dinosaurs. It doesn't matter that they were Fords. They were a class of car that was uniquely American. I was the last of those kids that fought in the back seat of those giant fullly framed beasts. We had Delta88's when I was growing up and the thing that I loved about them was what is described in the article, their toughness and durability, plus the fact they could be driven on/off road, which I have had many dukes of hazzard moments in my Delta I used to have and my current Caprice. When GM stopped making the B and C bodies that was sad. It wasn't their fuel economy that killed them because my Caprice gets way better mileage than most would expect at 27-28mpg highway. I had always hoped that Ford dominating the police and taxi market would sway GM to bring back the fully framed cars. The B-body and the panther had a quality about them like no other car. They were capable of handling very well in police trim while cruising like a ship on the highway. It's very hard to find a car that can do both these days. I wish that there was still an option for a car like the B-bodies and panthers available just because they what set America apart from the rest of the world as far as cars go. I'm pretty sure no other country built a vehicle that was as multi purpose as they were. You could tow quite a bit while hauling the family very comfortably. They were they truck/suv for those that didn't want something like a truck/suv, but with some of there capabilities. While I look forward to the new caprice, and plan on buying a ZL1 I will always keep a Delta or old Caprice in my stable, I have never had one fail me yet.