From the biggest cities to the smallest towns, in private ownership and in public service, the Ford Crown Victoria was once a ubiquitous sight on American roads. After its discontinuation in 2011, though, its numbers were destined to dwindle, and dwindle they have. Police have largely supplanted them with the Explorer and Dodge Charger, while taxi fleets are now a more eclectic (if less iconic) mix. The Crown Vic has lost the throne—but that doesn’t mean it’s gone yet. Far from it, in fact.
Though the workhorse-sedan is not as common as it once was, numerous police departments around the United States are still holding on to their venerable Vics. With newer and more efficient cruisers available, why haven’t many departments gotten with the times? Do they just like the Crown Victoria Police Interceptor — the P71 — that much? Here’s what I learned after calling departments around the country.
How The Ford Crown Victoria Became The GOAT Of Police Cars
The Crown Vic’s status as America’s quintessential fleet vehicle traces its roots back decades, to a revival of the Crown Vic name on the new, Panther platform-based 1980 Ford LTD. Originally a trim package for the 1955 Ford Fairlane (with the “crown-of-chrome” stainless steel-trimmed sunroof and A- and B-pillars), Crown Vic returned as a suffix for the LTD.
Ford had marketed the LTD toward fleets for years at that point, competing against Chrysler’s M-platform and GM’s B-body full-size sedans for police, taxi, and other livery sales. Eventually, the Crown Vic would come to dominate this market, and that seems to come down to two main reasons.
For one, Chrysler’s contenders were unibody rather than body-on-frame like Ford’s and GM’s offerings. The latter two’s more truck-like construction made them more durable and easier to fix, which counts for a lot in the grueling lives that police cars live.
Though Ford and GM continued to duel over fleet sales with body-on-frame sedans into the mid-1990s, GM seemingly saw the writing on the wall, and killed the B-body to make room for GMT400 truck and SUV production at Arlington Assembly. The unibody Chevrolet Impala and Caprice still found some success in fleets, police included, but the Panther was crowned king (or I guess queen).
And so its reign lasted, from 1996 until 2011 when Ford finally pulled the plug. The more than 30-year-old Panther platform was a dinosaur even by the mid-2000s, which saw retail sales start to trail off while fleet sales remained strong. Between the public increasingly favoring SUVs, the 2008 recession hurting full-size car demand, and stability control becoming mandatory for 2012 models, the Panther platform’s time had come. It was succeeded by the Dodge Charger as police departments’ staple sedan, and by the Explorer as their favorite Ford.
Crown Victorias Are Tough And Easy To Fix
Now, many years past the Crown Vic’s heyday, these sedans are a comparatively uncommon sight on American roads. Those that remain are getting increasingly dilapidated, with fleets liquidating surplus Crown Vics whose useful service lives have all but been wrung out of them. But remain they do, despite the availability of the larger Explorer Police Interceptor Utility and (until recently) abundant Charger Pursuit. They’re hanging on for the same reason they became a fleet favorite in the first place: They’re tough-as-nails.
Nobody can attest to this better than one of the Crown Vic’s biggest remaining operators, the Foreign Affairs Security Training Center. The Autopian previously visited FASTC (pronounced “fast-C”) to cover its tactical driving training programs, which are elemental in keeping our nation’s diplomats safe abroad. While many government agencies are ridding themselves of their aging Crown Vics, FASTC is actually snapping up those old cars because they’re still the best option for the Center’s full-contact training regimen. We’re talking PIT maneuvers, countering a PIT, high-speed reverse driving, J-turns, breaking through roadblocks, and more—every skill you’d need to survive the worst day of your life.
FASTC Unit Chief Mark Perkins explained that the facility sources its Crown Vics through a local scrapper, who scoops them up from civic or police surplus auctions. (Many are also former school district fleet vehicles.) In his words, “we literally buy every one we can get our hands on” because of what happened when FASTC first tried using unibody vehicles after Panther-platform production ended.
“We first began experimenting with unibody platforms like the [Ford] Taurus police interceptor and other similar cars about a decade ago, but quickly came to recognize that the suspension pieces and pick-up points on the chassis were not as strong,” Perkins told me. “Things like upper wishbones, track rods, and knuckles just are not strong enough when you start banging cars together, they tend to bend with the punishment we put them through.”
When it comes to taking a hit, it seems there’s no contest between a Crown Vic and something like a Dodge Charger (shown below). Not only are they unibody, but they have more complex suspension, with independent multilink rear axles as opposed to the Panther’s coil-sprung solid axle. But FASTC does use Chargers, with more than eighty 2019 and 2022 models dedicated to high-speed and vehicle dynamics training programs. Their bodies aren’t subject to the same punishment, but their drivetrains are, and they’re holding up well, even in comparison to the P71.
“To date, they have been very reliable overall,” Perkins said. “They have needed a handful of rear differentials rebuilt, one engine and various suspension and brake components, but overall have had a very good track record for us.”
Perkins couldn’t speak to the durability of the Explorer-based Police Interceptor Utility, which his unit doesn’t use. They may be popular with police (more on why and with whom later), but their high center-of-gravity means they’re not optimal for high-speed or full-contact training. The rollover risk just isn’t worthwhile for the FASTC. Chevrolet Suburbans, on the other hand, are popular with both municipal and federal authorities, and they too have a good track record according to Perkins. “There have been a few engines and transmissions, but their age range is much greater as we have 2006 models all the way up to 2023s, so some of them have been in service for a long time and seen a whole lot of action,” he said.
“Due to the age of the [Crown] Vics, we get the usual check-engine lights and replace coil packs, fuel pumps and a number of transmissions.”
“A lot of times when we buy them, they have been sitting for some time, so the fuel pumps are gelled up, but a new pump is pretty cheap and with a fully equipped shop and excellent technicians, it’s a simple fix,” Perkins continued. “When something does break on a Vic, getting things replaced is generally cheap and easy versus more modern vehicles where some parts need to be coded and matched with the vehicle.”
“Again, based on the age of the cars and the 95-105º temperatures we have here in the summers, transmissions are probably one of the bigger failures we have, but there really aren’t a huge number of them,” he said. “Our shop has gotten pretty adept at doing a quick transmission rebuild, so we have them sitting on the shelf ready to go if we have a failure.”
Of course, the brutal lives FASTC’s Crown Vics live takes its toll. There comes a point where they’re not worth fixing, and that’s when they’re taken out to pasture. This day will come for all the Center’s Crown Vics, at which point they’ll have to resort to using the in-some-ways less-rugged Chargers.
“It is normally when they get too smashed-up for the doors to stay closed, or the frame has been pounded back from ramming to the point that the steering gets too tight, or the steering joint snaps at the rack from the front suspension being pushed towards the rear of the car,” Perkins said. “We really prefer rear-drive platforms for multiple reasons, so as we move forward, we will at some point end up switching over to the Chargers by necessity because there just won’t be any Vics left out there, they are already getting harder to find.”
Crown Vics Keep Holding On, So Police Departments Keep Them
In short, Crown Vics’ longevity can mainly be attributed to their sturdy bodies, reliable powertrains/drivetrains, and ease of maintenance. This basic durability is the chief reason why Crown Vics remain in service with departments across the nation; they’re still around because they’re reliable, and if they’re still around, you might as well use them. Such is the case for police departments in cities like Kansas City, Missouri and Las Vegas, Nevada. In fact, a spokesperson for the former indicated no special preference for the Crown Vic at all.
“We do still have Crown Victorias in our fleet,” commented Officer Alayna Gonzalez, Public Information Officer for the Chief’s Office. “We have very few remaining as the car is not manufactured any longer, so our updated fleet consists of Ford Explorers, Ford Tauruses, Dodge Chargers, and Dodge Durangos.”
“I can’t say that we have a preference of [the] Crown Victorias over other vehicles,” she said. “We update our fleet with what is available from the manufacturer and is most useful for department needs.”
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department’s spokesperson also confirmed to me that their department still has a dozen cars in service, though they did not elaborate on why (or respond to further inquiry). As for the duties they serve, some are retained only for ceremonial or parade use, or are preserved in the museums of larger departments.
Portsmouth Police Department in Rhode Island has one Crown Vic left, which it uses for traffic details, but the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department uses its famous stockpile of Panther bodies for the full spectrum of police duties. Some of the fondness I perceived when talking with police departments comes down to what the Public Information Officer for the Portsmouth Police Department in Rhode Island said: “It’s a generational thing.”
“People that came up with the Crown Vics were certainly attached to them, and the younger kids coming up with the Explorers kind of never really had them,” he explained to me. “I’ve been on [the force] for 19 years now, and I personally love the Crown Vic. Obviously, that’s what I came up with. To me, it just feels like a police car, you know what I mean?” Like so many law enforcement agencies, the Portsmouth Police Department has mostly traded its Crown Vics for Explorers, whose popularity is also well-earned. That said, the Crown Vic seems to have been (at least anecdotally) a more reliable vehicle than the Police Interceptor Utility.
“I would say that the Explorers are probably much more purpose-built,” the PPD’s PIO continued. “You can put more equipment in them, [they’re] easier to transport prisoners [in], probably a little bit more comfortable, particularly for our larger, taller officers.”
“Powertrain durability-wise, I don’t recall as many issues with Crown Vics as we see with the Explorers. As they’ve changed transmissions over the years, [with] more gears, more speeds, I feel like the newer transmissions seem to be a little bit more problematic. But I would say just from a general durability standpoint, I feel like Crown Vics were a little bit better.”
Similar reasons were given by a spokesman for the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, who previously spoke with me about its fondness for the Crown Vic. The LASD famously stockpiled 600 Crown Vics before the sedan’s discontinuation in 2011, citing it as a proven rugged platform. These cars have held up especially well in California’s car-friendly climate, and as a result, they still had more than 400 units when I last spoke to them. Like up in Rhode Island, Lieutenant Robert Furman of the LASD’s Fleet Management Bureau reports that there’s a generational preference. Older officers prefer the Vic, while younger members of the force tend to favor the Explorer. But Lieutenant Furman also proffered another reason for the Crown Vic’s deferred retirement: Money.
“We simply don’t have anything to replace them with,” Lieutenant Furman told me. “Since 2019, budget cuts have significantly hampered our ability to replace the beloved Crown Victoria with the new generation Ford PIU explorers. The production challenges during and post-COVID didn’t help any. When we did have a budget, it was difficult to get our orders delivered.”
It is worth noting that the LASD’s budget cut claims are, according to the LA County Chief Executive Office, “not a reality.” Aside from a one-off cut to all city programs during the COVID peak (amounting to 0.2 percent of the LASD’s annual budget), it seems the department’s budget has increased every year since 2017—from $3.2 billion in the financial year 2017-18 to $4 billion for the financial year 2023-24 according to The Los Angeles Times. Still, it’s not hard to see why accountants would hesitate to earmark money for new Explorers for a department that publicly squirreled away hundreds of (arguably more reliable) Crown Vics that are still usable.
Long Live The Crown Victoria
Image: Knoxville Police Department
But while the Crown Vic may still be holding on in every corner of our country (aside from the rust-belt, where the Crown Vic — like many vehicles — tends to succumb to rust), its grip is slipping. The parts supply is thinning out, and it’s a main threat to the Crown Vics that still serve the LASD. They’ll probably be able to cannibalize parts cars to keep their Crown Vics on the road for plenty of years to come, but these historic sedans will answer their final dispatches much sooner for many smaller departments.
All things must end, and even the best of tools will eventually break, become obsolete, or both. The Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor is suffering both, and in a matter of years might be thought of like a Nokia cell phone. They may be antiquated, but both are enduring symbols of a time when things seemed to be built to last. As flexible as our smartphones and Ford Explorers are today, it’s hard to see them aging as gracefully as the enduring king of all fleet vehicles.
Long live the king. Or, Queen…
Denver PD has at least one or two still kicking around. I rode in so many of the ex Police Interceptors as cabs back in the pre rideshare days. I’ll always have a fond memory of the great engine note and subtle gearbox whine they all seemed to have while being flogged by cab drivers, bathed in the glow from the Check Engine light.
The Vic reminds me of another Ford vehicle produced long after its design became antiquated, but remained extremely useful and sometimes beloved to the end: the C-Series cabover, produced almost completely unchanged from 1957 to 1990.
James, did you leave the drive?
Anyway, thanks for your post here!
When I started reading the article, I was going to comment that there was still at least one in service local to me. I was pleasantly surprised to see that you had talked to them (Portsmouth RI). I also see a few unmarked Vics with municipal plates around that area. I assume the belong to town officials or building inspectors, etc.
A few years back, Portsmouth PD would often park an empty marked unit towards the bottom of a fairly long & steep double lane hill with a 25mph speed limit. People would normally hit 40+. I remember always spotting the car right away, knowing 99% that it was empty, but still checking my speed for that 1% chance there was someone in it. At the time I wondered if the car even ran.
Personally, I think this method of speed enforcement is probably more effective than catching 1 speeder here or there.
A few small towns around here that only have like one officer, if that, have bought old cruisers from other departments, and just park them on the edge of town to deter speeders, and move them once a week. It seems to work decently well.
I work in fleet and fleet operations and yes, our maintenance side did like the CVPI better than PIUs for all the reasons given above. We’ve still got about 30 Crown Vics in service, about half of which are with the police department. I haven’t seen one in a while. I did do a test drive of various patrol vehicles around a dozen years ago – Crown Vic, Charger, Caprice and maybe Explorer – and the Crown Vic was easily the most antiquated but I can see why officers liked them.
I’ve run my 2004 P71 Crown Vic in two stock demolition derbies (taking 2nd in the most recent after snapping a rear axle shaft and getting stuck) and plan to run it a 3rd time with minimal repairs. These are fantastically tough vehicles.
I get the advantage of toughness for FASTC, but will it really prepare trainees for the driving dynamics of the vehicles they’re likely to use in the field? A trade-off, I guess.
I kinda thought the same initially. But, the maneuvers that they are teaching and practicing in school, when translated to the real world those dynamics are probably not that different. If a protection detail is having to do some busting through or a PIT maneuver in a car that isn’t a crown vic, they probably aren’t going to be too concerned with how damaged the car is going to be long term. That vehicle will probably not be used again.
However, at the school they are in need of vehicles that can take the abuse over and over and over again, repeating the same training maneuvers time and time again. This is why the choice of the CV and the BOF design. It’s more robust for the repetition of training.
Learn the technique first, then learn how to generalize it.
The crown vic was the sedan equivalent of a Chevy Express van.
It’s a tool that does it’s job effectively for a long time. Even the design is fleet optimized. Just a few examples:
-The alternators are front & center, easy to change.
-One engine and one transmission option
-The low output 2V 4.6 was tough as nails and survived high miles, high idle hours, or a combination of both
-There’s only two part numbers for calipers. Front & rear. They just flip the mounting bracket from front of the rotor to rear depending on the side.
Likely a dozen other various optimizations that kept parts stock numbers and cost low.
Little known fact: The main reason that the Ford Crown Vic replaced Dodge vehicles is that the national reserve of Dodge cop cars were all used up in filming the Blues Brothers: https://youtu.be/mHItLbTp7N0?feature=shared&t=246
🙂
I have a friend that is a cop in South Florida and he said that they switched to Explorers thinking they’d have better ground clearance for navigating flood waters during hurricanes, etc., but the Explorers actually ended up being slightly worse.
It’s worth remembering what “budget cuts” means to a policeman or fireman. To you and I, a budget cut is when the amount of money allocated for a purpose goes down in absolute dollars from one year (or budgetary period) to the next.
To an accountant or comptroller, a budget cut is when the amount of money allocated for a purpose goes down in real dollars from one year (or budgetary period) to the next (this of course accommodates inflation).
To a policeman or fireman — or, more accurately, their leadership & unions — a budget cut is when they aren’t given as much money as they asked for. If a police department requests $4.5 billion dollars and they’re actually given $4 billion dollars, it will be framed as a budget cut — even if they’d only been allocated $3.7 billion dollars this year.
Finding out that the LAPD is full of shit is like finding out water is wet.
According to Inflation Calculator | Find US Dollar’s Value From 1913-2024 (usinflationcalculator.com), $3.2M in 2017 is equivalent to $4.12M in 2024. That’s a lot of inflation. In this case it’s a budget cut in the eyes of both an accountant and a policeman.
Your point stands though. I’m generally in favor of reigning in police spending, especially for the departments that buy military vehicles.
Yeah but when you back out the 2020 budget cut it turns out that their budget has been flat!
Way, way back when I was working towards a career in LE, I did a lot of ride alongs. Most police preferred the Chevrolet Impala/Caprice over the Crown Vic because of the engine. 5.7L vs 4.6. The Chevrolet simply were faster and if you patrolled highways, the choice was clear, if you couldn’t get one of the Mustangs/Camaro units. Where the CV was preferred was in ride quality. No police vehicle was especially nice to ride in, but over bad city streets the CV had the slight advantage.
Years later I took a civilian police academy program and they let us do a short driving training. The CV was the only vehicle they used until you got towards the end of the training as a full LEO. Ours was just one day. I came in with an easy first place out of the 40 some odd people. Let me tell you, those CV aren’t very sporty and you really have to push them to do the various turns, stops and takeoffs. I was either on the gas or brake. It would have been waaaaay more fun in an old school Impala or newer Chevy (Holden) SS, but they said the CVs were easier to fix and expendable.
I recently heard that some police forces are moving away from the Explorer due to having too many issues. What I was told was that the Kansas Highway patrol canceled a huge order of explorers and is instead purchasing Tahoes and Durangos.
This was word of mouth… but I can say I haven’t seen a Highway Patrol Explorer in a long time.
Durangos‽ The one that is supposedly ending production this year?
I’m sure their long term plan is Tahoes. But, I see more highway patrol Durangos than anything else here.
From what I hear, Durangos have powertrain issues.
The TX DPS (Highway Patrol) had some Explorers, but these days all I see are Tahoes with some Chargers thrown in the mix.
Local PDs run Explorers mostly, but Tahoes make a good showing. The local school district PD (yes, they are their own entity) have full-on Tahoe PPVs, but I’m skeptical they have ever pursued anyone faster than the posted speed limit.
Wait, your local school district has its own police department?
Yup. the district is on the larger size. Approx 45K enrollment, 56 schools (inc 35 preschools, most located inside elementary schools). Used to be covered by the Sheriff, but the school district didn’t want to pay the county so much money for SRO services. The PD is mostly stand alone from a regular operational standpoint. It spans at least 5 different LE jurisdictions
It’s actually pretty common in Texas for the larger ISD’s to have their own police forces.
I think part of the Tahoe trend is that they’re made in Arlington. The Arlington PD even has some in a special shade of blue, not the default black.
I work for a small county in Western WA. We have two or so in service with our sheriffs department, and the neighboring City also has a couple. Nice to see em. I love my Grand Marquis, they really are fantastic cars, even if they aren’t exactly the “FULL SIZE SPORTS CARS” that people online liked to hype them up to be.
It’s time for a sedan based on body on frame SUV or truck. Sedan loosely based on Tahoe.
I think you’re on to something here. The modern presidential limo is a Cadillac SUV body mounted onto a GMC Topkick medium truck, so it can be done.
I was about to say the same. Build a modern Checker Marathon on a F150 2WD fleet chassis.
Definitely heard from police a lot of love for the Crown Vic because it’s easy to repair, it’s got a cavernous trunk that’s not accessible from the back seat, it’s got plenty of room for a partition between the front and back seats without squeezing the driver too much, and it came from the factory with column shift so you could mount all the necessary gear between the front seats.
Trying not to be the old man yelling at the cloud, and I’m the one who’s known for cracking jokes here, but it really bugs me that every article I’ve seen about the Crown Vic has referred to it as a “dinosaur” and “antiquated.” That’s not a fair characterization IMHO. It was the ultimate evolution of the body-on-frame sedan. There are plenty of unibody cars that ran longer than the Panther platform. Had there been more of a civilian market for that kind of car, who knows how amazing of a body-on-frame modern vehicle we could have. That frame is beefy enough to support a hybrid or electric drivetrain. The packaging overall could probably have improved to make repairing them even simpler.
Yeah, they are heavy and won’t necessarily handle as well as unibody cars, but antiquated? I just… ugh.
I’m going to go be that crusty old guy while messing around on my antiquated Fender Precision Bass while I chill out.
Definitely cool to see these cars are being preserved to be USED for sure.
The Panthers are antiquated in the same way deep ocean tube worms are primitive. One of my professors said calling them primitive just means that they are very simple animals that haven’t changed much because they have no need to. They are exceptionally good at living in the most hostile environment on the planet. The old school BOF construction of the Panthers makes them better than more modern vehicles for certain uses.
Haha, I typed a comment about isopods before I read your comment about the tube worms. What a couple of nerds …
Lol, may the invertebrates reign supreme for millennia to come!
Maybe they’re more like isopods than dinosaurs. They evolved hundreds of millions of years and ago and, needing no improvements, have remained essentially the same.
As a 6’4″ person who has been in the back of a police crown vic there may be room for the drive with the partition but not so much for the person in the back.
I wasn’t even breaking the law. Got run into by a red light runner while plowing in a bobcat. Lots of witnesses. Officer let me warm up in the back seat.
They are quickly becoming the main staple in the Derby Car fields. basically the used up ones they talk about here end their days on the battlefield rather than peacefully rusting back into the ground.
The Taurus nearly killed the police with exhaust fumes seeping onto the trunks at idle and of course the fun issue with FWD duratec water pumps/timing chains make for a quick switch.
I see a lot more F150’s being used lately. got to wonder if the moordoor mustang might become a police darling though? They might have to consider putting a frame under those to make them easier to repair, and raise up a bit for better clearance.
FWIU it was the Explorer that had the exhaust fume issue, and it wasn’t even a Ford design flaw because it was caused by upfitters drilling holes in the cargo floor.
F150 must be like going on patrol in a U-Haul box truck. Existing police cars are already 3 sizes too big
In my area they are using Rams more than F150s right now. But yep, a lot of pickups in use.
Spent some time in Oakland this summer, and can confirm their fleet includes a lot of Crown Vics still!
Oakland has a police department?!?! Do they ever leave their secured compounds?
I think my local PD has 1 Crown Vic that they park around town as a movable DUI PSA billboard. I honestly don’t know when I last saw a Crown Vic serving as an actual police vehicle.
Is that the setup where the front half is a black-and-white cruiser and the back half a yellow cab (or vice-versa?) It’s a lot harder to splice an Explorer and a Prius together to do that.
“Don’t drink and drive or you’ll be transported back to the 90s when your parents knew what kind of car this was. Also, there were no smartphones.”
Teen DUI drops to zero.
Midwest here, I don’t know when I last saw a Crown Vic on the road. They used to be everywhere. Even when the police stopped using them, they were the default “cheap clapped out car that I can keep running with junkyard parts” for a long time.
Knowing they made them up until 2011, I’m kinda surprised that I’ve stopped seeing them. My daily driver (not a CV) was made in 2009. It’s not THAT old.
Editorial question because I’m curious (my friends call me Whiskers). I thought the general rule was, every time you use an acronym, the first time you write it out full phrase or name with the acronym in parenthesis i.e. What the Hell (WTH), and then use the acronym there after. Is that rule going by the wayside? Just noticed it with FASTC (written out but no acronym) and PIT (not written out), but I’ve been seeing the new trend even in newspapers too.
Hey Whiskers! Do you jump around all nimbly-bimbly from tree to tree?
Do you see them eating mice?
Typically, you’re right, but we’re a little more colloquial, voice wise. And PIT is a pretty well-known one.
Now you are making me sad that I let my last CVPI go last summer. My state patrol still has at least one still in service as I saw one sitting on the side of the freeway doing revenue generation.
Back shortly after their discontinuation a number of local depts, started having their CVPIs rebuilt by a local company that specialized in that after having one or two Chargers and finding out their TCO and down time was just too high.
I know a guy who signed the purchase orders for a local city and after one batch of Chargers they switched to Tahoes for their lower TCO and down time vs the Chargers. It seems the majority of depts in my area came to the same conclusion since the CVPI is still more common in service than Chargers.
Great piece. The Nokia phone example is spot on. Like them, the Crown Vic focused on doing one thing very well (being a good fleet vehicle), rather than a whole bunch of things moderately well.
There’s a lot to be said for that. Or to riff on a contemporary sage, never half-ass a couple of things; whole-ass one thing.
We need somebody to make a modern CV type vehicle, or maybe a mass produce-able police only vehicle.
Like a really basic, durable crossover that could then be tweaked for more performance (police), longevity (taxi), or mileage (fleets). In an alternate universe, if it had gone through with it, Ford’s modular engine family could have also offered 4 and 6 cylinder engines for this in the recent near term, and then hybrids for the upcoming medium term.
IMHO, nobody should have to drive a Panther-platform anything unless they are wearing a uniform and getting paid to do it, because they are bloody awful cars to drive or ride in. I am firmly of the belief that anyone who likes driving them has simply never experienced a decent car, or just doesn’t care about driving.
But they are a fleet manager’s wet dream in terms of durability and TCO. Makes sense given they are fundamentally a slammed to the ground pickup truck with a sedan body on top. But I have higher priorities in my driving life than TCO, and no need of slamming my cars over curbs and through medians while chasing the bad guys around.
I did get out of a speeding ticket once though thanks to one – I had a cop nail me on the interstate from the opposite direction one mud season in Maine. He tried to flip a u-turn through the median. His Crown Brick went in, but it didn’t come back out again. Was still there beached in the muck when I went home from work eight hours later. The AWD Cop Exploders will probably not have that dilemma, though they also can’t really do that anymore since Maine put up catch fencing in the medians due to a horrific head-on crash some years ago.
Yeah, having sat in the backs of them for a decade at least (cabs, mostly), they were never about the ride but rather the destination.
Also generational I think, for older folks used to 50s – 70’s BOF American cars the “handling” and “acceleration” of a late Panther is a revelation.
Drive a ’70s full size Ford sometime.
As someone who owns a CVPI and has driven econoboxes with crap sound deadening and you feel every single bump in the road, you’re not entirely wrong. Tires make a heap of different in terms of taking corners fast but it drives like a boat, still feel every bump, and really likes being at the speed it’s in. But I’ll take CVPI seats over a lot of newer car offerings, they’re pretty cozy for a cheap fleet car…at least the front ones 🙂
The back ones were surprisingly comfy too. I know I’m not the only person who, drowned in stress on one of the worst days of their life, had their brain momentarily break with a “huh, this seat is actually really comfortable”.
That said, I had the cloth seat and not the plastic bin. I’m sure the plastic back seat wasn’t as nice.
My memory is foggy, but the Lincoln Town Car was a pretty nice road trip ride, but IIRC that was more about soft dampening, cushy seats, and a long wheelbase than any kind of engineering wizardry.
A limo car staple for decades for a reason. The mileage that airport limos accumulate over the life of one of those cars is truly impressive
I take issue with that. Back in ’12 I drove all the way from NY to Memphis and back. As it was the last year that Crown Vics would be on the rental fleet I was very insistent that I wanted one – so much so that rather than picking up at JFK I spent the day hiking over to Jersey City where they had one available. I drove near enough 3,000 miles that trip, averaging 25mpg which I thought was very reasonable. Sure, it wasn’t much for slinging around mountain roads, but for 12 hour interstate schleps I don’t think anything would have done the job any better.