… I was reading the Utah Ride section in the Salt Lake Tribune and came across a disturbing article; “Crown Vic a victim of police-car wars.” According to the article, Ford is going to custom design a new rear-wheel drive vehicle, specifically for police use. This means, since they will no longer be building the big, agreeably outdated, Crown Vic for police use, they will stop building the Panther platform car (which also includes the Mercury Grand Marquis and the Lincoln Town Car).
… The Crown Vic (full name Crown Victoria), was originally used on a model of Ford in the 1950’s, but was revived in the mid 80’s as the upper-level trim for my beloved Ford LTD, which ironically started out as the upper-level trim for the Ford Galaxie. The car came out in 1959 as just the Ford Custom and Ford Galaxie. In the late 60’s Ford offered the Custom, Galaxie and the upscale Galaxie LTD*. By 1969 the upscale model dropped the Galaxie name, becoming known as just the LTD. By the mid-70’s the whole lower level cars were dropped, and Ford only offered the LTD, until the early 80’s when they offered the LTD and the upscale LTD Crown Victoria. In the late 80’s or early 90’s the LTD Crown Victoria became simply the Crown Vic. and later in the 90’s Ford dropped the LTD moniker, selling nothing but the Crown Vic.
… So it seems the family line of my classic car corral is about to die out. According to the Tribune article, 2011 will be the last year they sell the Crown Vic. Bummer.
* There is still debate over what LTD stands for. According to the Wikipedia article I got my information from, it could stand for “Luxury Trim Decor”, “Lincoln Type Design” or simply be three random letters. Personally, I always believed it was the abbreviation for “Limited”, as in Limited Edition.
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