WC-MAN

I agree. Tastes and horsepower requirements (real or imagined) make it unwise to try to market the same engines worldwide. The best bet is a four that is strong enough to be a top engine in Europe and a base engine in the US.

Great looking car! Don't scare you buddies too much!

No you buy a sedan with too little motor, wind it up like hell to maintain highway speed, then gripe about your mileage. One thing you never hear a Panther owner ask: "Do I have enough power for this pass?"

Only D3 sedans should count in the sales totals. Maybe the X, but you start to stretch it when you start lumping in the Flex et al. That's like trying to count the Expedition as an F150 since, technically, they are the same platform. Besides, it still doesn't explain how the all powerful D3 sedans are performing so poorly that they are selling at the same rate as the"need to be replaced" panthers.

Great article. Go Panther! :happy feet: :happy feet: :happy feet: :happy feet:

Wait! I got it! Mercury Park Lane Vista Cruiser! :happy feet:

Unit body construction dates back AT LEAST to the 1950's. Damn, that's some real NEW technology. BTW, why did all of America start buying BOF SUV's if they were so bad? Whay about the Millions of BOF f150's sold? And no, they aren't "settling" because they need a truck, only a very small percentage of truck owners actually need a truck. The rest have 'em because they like 'em. Today, unit body cars weigh well more than BOF cars ever did. And Chryslers (Unit body throughout the 60's BTW) were never noticably lighter than BOF Fords and Chevies because they were unit body. GM tried to copy Toyota from the minute the first Malibu came off the line. The first one copied Camry precisely, and sold like crap! Only when Chevy gave up on copying Toyota and concentrated on building a great Chevy that they had a hit. A big powerful BOF car is found one place on earth, at Ford. Update it and you have the market to yourself. Why? The Panthers have excellent rollover ratings. What in the hell are you talking about? Exactly, because Lexus buyers are not going to go to Lincoln to buy a Lexus. Better to establish Lincoln as its own brand. GM finally figured this out. They go out and build a real Cadillac, people come in and buy it. Look at BMW. What a wonderfully dedicated brand. When was the last time their cars copied anybody? They built rwd sport sedans before Americans liked them, they built rwd sport sedans when they were popular, they built rwd sport sedans when SUV's where popular, they build rwd sport sedans today. Sure they've gotten freaky from time to time on there other products, but there core product has always been the same. You want a BMW, come see us, you want something else, there's the door.

Blasphemy! That's Mercury's job!!!! So if Lincoln switches from selling "Nice Fords" to "Nice Toyotas", they will suddenly sell Luxury cars? Maybe instead of telling someone they are deluding themselves, you could come up with a list of all of the luxury features Lexus offers that aren't available from Lincoln. A small Lincoln would be stupid. They've tried that before, chasing Mercedes in the 70's. The S40 has that area as covered as it needs to be, Lincoln has mid-sized up covered, and they need to focus on improving the products they already offer.

The Mercury Plain Marquis?

Must be propaganda! No way the Panthers could win any sort of award! Just as well forget it master, Henry Ford could descend from the heavens and personally dub the Panthers the greatest thing ever, while simultaniously they start selling 50,000 units a week, and people will still set here and tell you they are junk and the D3 is the way to go. Remember Slim Pickens riding the bomb in Dr. Strangelove? Now imagine that bomb has D3 on it. And there they go, happily into oblivion.

I gotta tell you, I would consider a Milan as a small fuel efficient "go-to-work" car, but I don't know if I could say the same for the Fusion. I just do not like the three bar grille. Mercury does in fact apeal to another audience, and has been said, it cost nothing to turn a Ford into a Mercury, and you are not saddled with asking your "luxury" lots to sell your basic vehicle.

Maybe we should keep Panther and drop other vehicles that are selling less and doing worse. Grand Marquis 2,182 2,245 -2.8 21,492 35,543 -39.5 Sable 1,226 1,987 -38.3 12,928 14,814 -12.7 Milan 1,816 3,013 -39.7 24,078 25,084 -4.0 Mariner 2,609 2,939 -11.2 23,322 25,151 -7.3 Mountaineer 560 2,112 -73.5 8,580 17,048 -49.7 Monterey 0 0 NA 0 700 -100.0 Mercury Brand 8,393 12,296 -31.7 90,400 118,340 -23.6 Sable out of course. And yes, MGM dropped 2.8 percent. But FCV was up 17%, Even with LTC, the Panthers outdo several products. The Mountaineer, Milan, Sable, and Mariner ALL dropped harder in sales, and only the Milan sold significantly more units than MGM.

Luxury choices?? I mean, c'mon. Ford offers Luxury in FWD and SUV versions. Hell, they aren't even trying to touch Chrysler on RWD luxury w/o Town Car. Offering the Sable, Now in Lincoln Trim!, won't mean Jack on the luxo market. Just another American trying to imitate Lexus and Acura :titanic: . Updating Panther gives a true option. Offer Hybrids as well as the newer trannies. Why is that so expensive? The modular is already offered with them in other applications. Keep the frame and solid axle. Actually TRY with the cars. Then you can say "We have the MKS for the techno savy FWD crowd, and the Town Car for the traditional luxo crowd, and the MGM to challenge Buick. CV, especially with Hybrid, will target primarily the Police and Taxi market.

Well, they may call it Weber City, but "urban" is not exactly a term I would use. Its a small town. The CV's are used mainly to nick speeders on US 23 and patrol lazily through the neighborhoods. This car had been wrecked once and suffered from years of use. Even under the best conditions, a 5 year old police cruisers gonna be in rough shape.

I would go with the 2005 w/77K. I cannot tell you for a fact what the difference in performance would be, but you would be better off IMHO to buy a nice used CV civilian car and doctor it up to look like a police car. I know I was warned off the town CV that was put up for sale, the cheif told me the car was total junk ( this is a small town too, nowhere near the wear and tear of a HWY PT vehicle). The guy that bought it wanted it because they had not removed the cop stuff, he was going to use it for Photos or something and was not going to put it on the road.

Okayy I get it. I don't understand why everybody seems to want to copy Wolksvagen styling, hell, they can't even give their cars away. One of the things that attracted people to SUV's was the fact they could see the corners of the car as opposed to the minivan hood that sloped out of view. Now they seem determined to do the same thing with cars.

Its not on you past rides list. When were you HS? Your first car is an 89 Escort and the Expo wasn't even introduced until 8 years later.

Okay, so the 79+ Mustang had the headlights of of every dull Ford sedan in the stable, but it had one huge advantage, it wasn't a Mustang II! The Fox and Panther cars might as well had been spaceships when they came out, they were that futuristic. In 1979, nobody had a 5.0 from the late eighties to compare the car to. All they had to go by was the Mustang II (built from a Pinto!). It was 2 more years before GM countered and shed their 70's bodystyles.

If they put a pickup body on it and called the F-100, they'd call it the greatest engineering feat in Ford's history. But since its a sedan, its too heavy and old fashioned. Never mind that Unit Body cars have been around over 60 years, they are brand new! I have to agree with Armada Master. If the new Falcon has already been signed off for in 2010, either its still RWD or its the D3. They aren't going to develop a new fwd package just for Australia.

Not true! Mafia hitmen want a Town Car to throw dead bodies in! :rip:

The nose on it doesn't resemble and "80's style" mustang. In fact, it looks more like it would fit the current car than an from the 80's. Maybe they are going with classic 70's Mustang II styling! :titanic:

SO it is advantageous for a car to have a snub nose? Just to play devil's advocate, neither my MGM nor Nick's Mustang has a short nose. Does that put us at a disadvantage? Or are we just poor judges of automotive styling. RWD is more reliable, easier on tires and brakes, and has a big handling advantage. But I guess its a good idea to drop all those things in favor of a cube.

What advantage? All FWD cars today have a center console as big as a transmission hump and just about all still retain a drivetrain tunnel in the middle of the back seat. N/S orientation is easier to work on with V engines. Do you consider a snubby nose a major packaging advantage? Maybe on small cars, but on big rides I don't think this argument holds any more water than "they weigh more" or "they get worse gas mileage." The D3 comes as AWD, meaning it has 0 packaging advantage over a RWD car.

Next time I go to Bristol, I'll check the dragway and see if Town Cars are pulling up to the tree. When was the last time anyone saw Lincoln screaming around Laguna Senca? :shrug: Lets be honest, most of these guys are middle aged men stuck in their pre-teens who are embarassed by the size of their manhood and make themselves feel better by becoming car snobs. The the general populace of rubes read their stuff and think that the best way to buy a grocery getter is to pick whichever pull off the best lap of Road America. :bowdown: And the writers get to feel good about themselves. My advice is screw Edmund's et al. and drive the cars yourself, then pick the one you like.

Considering a panther hybrid could be parlayed into trucks, SUV's and the Mustang, Ford could corner the Taxi market again and have a hybrid for several of its strong selling platforms. I still tell you, once gas saving technology is available, Americans will move to big safe vehicles again.