Ford Crown Victoria RIP

Robert Farago
by Robert Farago

According to WardsAuto.com, there will be no '09 Ford Crown Victoria. It was bound to happen sooner or later, what with sales of Ford's last full-size rear wheel-drive sedan tanking by 90 percent since 2000. Twisting the knife, Wards says Ford moved just 46,188 Crown Vics year-to-date, down 9.1 percent from last year's totals. So that's it for Ye Olde Crown Vic, at least on the retail side. Ford will continue making a fleet-only Vic at its Ontario plant, alongside the newly relocated, equally doomed Lincoln Town Car. Meanwhile, the Grand Marquis variant will continue not to clog Mercury dealer parking lots for the forseeable future, despite underselling the underselling Crown Vic by about 15 percent. By 2010, when job guarantees to Ford's St. Thomas-based Canadian Auto Workers' union expire, all of Ford's full-sized RWD sedans will be toast. What a waste.

Robert Farago
Robert Farago

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  • Steven Lang Steven Lang on Nov 01, 2007

    RobertSD, one of the best emails I've read on the subject. Thanks for sharing.

  • Sajeev Mehta Sajeev Mehta on Nov 01, 2007
    Launching the Fusion, Flex and F-150 successfully is helpful. Once the core - the bread and butter - are fixed up and righted (ie - aligned with their EU counterparts in the case of cars and given significantly new powertrains and updated designs in the case of trucks) and sales stablize and grow… then we get our niche RWD sedans back. Sounds right to me. Luckily the Crown Vic is durable enough as a used car, since the money for niche RWD sedans from Ford will be years (maybe over a decade) away. Its gonna take a long time to turn this ship around. In the meantime... Wouldn't kill Ford to slap a GT500 motor in a special edition '09 Vic. You know, just to give a proper goodbye to American Iron like Buick did with the GNX.
  • Riverman Riverman on May 10, 2009

    I have a 92 Grand Marquis and I have always said I would not buy any other type of car after owning this one. The ride and comfort are amazing and I have got 28 mpg towing my race boat at 75 mph. Today I lifted the car and went underneath to change the starter, noticed it was leaking a bit of oil and proceeded to poke my finger through the oil pan! The engine was sealed up so well the pan rusted!! Yes I'm going to buy another Panther - there is a nice black 08 on the Ford lot up the street.....

  • Irishflyer97 Irishflyer97 on May 10, 2009

    I own a 99 Interceptor, and just love the handling and performance. Bought it cheap. It does sadden me to know these are heading out to pasture. I will admit BMW and Mercedes do handle nice but they have independent rears. But the sheer number of computers those two brands have installed have only lead to reliability problems. Plus the large bodies ones are 70-80 grand. My CV, on the other hand, is a simple and blunt instrument. What an American automobile is supposed to be like.

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