Including civilian models, since 1979 almost 10 million Crown Victoria, Mercury Grand Marquis and Lincoln Town Cars – so-called Panther Platform vehicles – have been sold. But sales numbers have been falling steadily in recent years due to changing consumer preferences and demand for better fuel economy and performance.
In recent years the cars have only been offered to fleet buyers, not individual retail customers. Now all production has stopped. Ford says that it sold about 80,000 Crown Victorias and Town Cars combined last year. That figure just wasn't enough to support a factory capable of producing 250,000 cars a year.
The Crown Victoria has been popular with police and fleet users because of its roominess, ruggedness and relative simplicity. The Panther Platform was an old-fashioned body-on-frame design which, while heavier than other cars, has an excellent reputation for being able to withstand heavy, punishing use. The Crown Victoria has also been an easy-to-service vehicle.
Ford has already begun marketing vehicles to take up the Crown Victoria's role in police fleet use. The automaker has started producing a specially designed Taurus Police Interceptor as well as a version of the Explorer tailored for police use. Chrysler and General Motors are marketing their own police car options with the Charger and the Caprice PPV. And Carbon Motors, about whom we wrote back in 2008, is still planning to produce their own specialty police car.
Police agencies aren’t the only fleet operators mourning the loss of the Crown Vic. Taxi companies and livery service companies face some hard choices. Vehicles such as the Ford Transit Connect van are being marketed as a taxi cab, along with a Nissan van. For livery service companies Ford is making a special version of the Lincoln MKT, a large crossover SUV.
In one sense, we have been though this before. When Chevrolet stopped making the large, body-on-frame rear-drive Caprice in 1996, police officers nationwide were unhappy to see it go. But the Crown Victoria was a readily-available alternative, and Ford through the years kept tweaking the car to improve its suitability for police service.
But today the alternative choices are not as obvious. The Charger has ample performance but is smaller; the Caprice PPV is a new and as-yet unproven model in the American market; and the Ford replacements are based on front-wheel-drive designs, heretofore weaker for police use. The Carbon Motors entry simply isn’t here yet. Fleet buyers have a headache on their hands.
