The Lincoln Town Car Was the Last True American Luxury Sedan

This is a 2005 Lincoln Town Car and is the

last

true

American

luxury

sedan

. Yes, there are still American

luxury

sedan

s from brands like Cadillac and Tesla and even Lincoln, but this was the

last

old school full-size American luxury sedan and today I borrowed this well-preserved car to show you what I mean. Now before I start here I have some news, people always ask me for t-shirts or caps with Doug Demiro products or whatever, but I think that youtuber t- The t-shirts are a little worn out and people actually wear t-shirts of their favorite youtuber . I don't know, so I came up with a different idea.

Signed photos right now. You can go to doug demuro dot com, link in the description. from this video and you can get a signed photo you can choose from a few different cars I will sign my name and send it to you which is cool or for extra money you can have a custom signed photo which I think is a cool thing you can be up to 90 characters and you can personalize it to say happy birthday or congratulations or I don't know what people want it to say but I'll write it and then I'll sign it on a photo and send it to you uh now there's some no bad rules words, obviously, the photos are all this size, no bigger or smaller, just this size, just the cars that I have selected you can choose between uh and of course.

Now I am only sending it to addresses in the United States, now the cost of these photos will be 35 for the one above, the photo signed by Doug Demuro and fifty dollars for the one below, the personalized and signed photo of Doug Demuro, I give I realize it's a lot of money, but I also realized while I was putting this together that if I charge like ten dollars and I get hundreds and thousands of orders then I have to sit there writing all this stuff since I handwrite it and sign it. Maybe it's a little more expensive to try to limit receiving orders a little, so anyway go to doug dmuro.com, buy a signed or personalized doug demuro photo and I'll send it to you in the next few weeks, first a little description general.

Years ago, the

town

car was a trim level that meant the most luxurious and expensive version of the Lincoln Continental. In the early 1980s, the Town Car was spun off to be its own model and was a traditional American luxury sedan in the

true

st sense. Basically, without paying any effort or attention to creating an exciting driving experience, but rather focusing on making a large sedan that was as comfortable and smooth as possible, the last generation of the

town

car was sold from 2003 to 2011 with only minimal changes. They were because Ford was ending production of the Panther platform that carried the town car alongside the Ford Crown Victoria and Mercury Grand Marquis, so there was no point in changing and updating the car to keep it fresh. of their imminent demise, but what makes them so old, well, for starters, the town car is body-on-frame, meaning the body and frame are separate units, which is an old-school way of building cars that are no longer seen.

Except for full-size pickup trucks and some large SUVs and the increasingly rare rear-wheel drive town car, the town car engine used a 4.6-liter V8 that generated only 239 horsepower. , which is a relic in today's world of smaller engines and fuel economy and turbocharging regulations and then there was the driving experience - today's luxury car buyers want some sport and performance with their luxury car, but the town car was made for an older type of luxury car buyer who just wanted a comfortable, smooth, simple and well-rounded car. full-size luxury sedan When the town car disappeared after the 2011 model year, it was the end of an era and the large American body-on-frame, rear-drive, full-size V8 luxury sedans that were once so common simply weren't anymore. exist.

But today I'm going to take you back in time and take you on a tour of the last traditional American full-size luxury sedan and show you all of its quirks and features. I'll take it out on the road and drive it and then give it a dig score and for more of my thoughts on the town car click the link below to visit autotrader.com oversteer where I've also rounded up a list of the best preserved large vintage

american

luxury sedans currently for sale on autotrader. Now I'm going to start with the quirks and features of the car's exterior; in fact, not even with the car itself, but with the key fob and I mentioned it only because it is the exact same key fob that I have on my Ford GT.

My 150,200,000 supercars share their keychain with the traditional old-school Lincoln Town Car, but they all came out of Ford around the same time, so that's not the case. really amazing now what I like most about the key fob is the fact that you can see it has four buttons, you have to lock, unlock, the panic button and then the trunk release button. I love the fact that the trunk opener has a little lit arrow on it. He is pointing at the back of the car just to make sure there is no confusion, he opens the trunk and not the hood.

The next thing I like is that on the front you can see that the grill has a nice Lincoln emblem and then right above the grill. you have the hood ornament, which is the exact same Lincoln emblem again, but of course they have to because a real old school luxury Lincoln has a big, long hood with a Lincoln ornament on the end, the Drivers of this car would not want it. otherwise now we move on to the trunk and if you want to open the trunk you press that little trunk release button on the key fob and then it opens completely automatically, it doesn't just pop up so you can do it. the lift, now it opens on its own, that's cool, but the coolest part is the fact that if you press that button again when it's open, it closes automatically like a real old school luxury car and a cool item worth worth noting is the fact that if you have the trunk open and you don't close it with the electric operator.

If you close it yourself, it will gently close to lock completely, so you don't slam it shut. Now when the trunk is open you can clearly see that it is absolutely huge, this is an old school luxury car so it has a big old school luxury car trunk where you can put around 40 bags of golf if that's what you want, but there's also an on-off switch here now that disables the Air Suspension that this car has to give the most comfortable ride possible, but if you try to jack it up to change the tire and you have the air suspension, it will level out and can really mess up with the jack. so you can turn it off by pressing that little switch and then you can change your tire then another interesting item worth mentioning with this car before we get in I want to talk about the exterior styling now I already told you all the ways this car is past trendy, the engine, body on frame, rear wheel drive, but also the exterior styling is very old fashioned, it looks like an old school full size car, it has this rounded look behind the C pillar, behind the rear windows , which is a design element that no one uses anymore, has this rounded look at the rear next to the tail lights, again a very uncommon design element on modern cars, it also has very large overhangs both at the front and at the rear, while most car manufacturers are trying to trim them to make the car look and feel as sporty as possible.

This is not just old school electricity and construction, but also style and design. Now, then getting inside the towncar there are quite a few interesting features. and Features I'm going to start with the door handles. Now most cars close the door. They have integrated the door handle into the door panel, but not in this vehicle, as part of the traditional luxury sedan experience, you have your own unique door. Pulling out what's protruding from the wood and door panel and using it to close the door may not seem like a big deal, but it's a traditional feature of vintage luxury cars that continues in towncars and very few other modern vehicles.

Now, speaking of the door panel, there are a few interesting elements with the door panel that are worth mentioning, starting with the two buttons at the base of the door panel that are not labeled, it is not immediately obvious which ones they are, the larger of those two buttons with the key slot that opens the trunk and that is the key slot because you can put the master key in there, turn it and then you give the card to a valet and the valet's key has no access to turn it and open the trunk. another button opens the fuel door, you press it and the fuel door opens next to the door panel.

Another unusual item. This car has the same locks as all Ford models of this era, but Lincoln classed it up a bit. Black like they are on Ford, they are silver on Lincoln to add to your luxury car experience. The same goes for all window switches. They're Ford's usual window switches, but they have little silver strips around the edges to give an air of luxury that you don't get on a simple Ford. Next, a nice luxury feature this car has is the power adjustable pedals. It has become a fairly common feature of luxury cars, but it was less common when this car came out.

It has this little change. to the left of the steering wheel you can press it and then that adjusts the pedal location and that means that even short drivers don't have to sit too close to the steering wheel and therefore the airbag can move the pedals further out, which provides a safer driving experience and then we move on to some of my favorite features of the Lincoln Town Car and those would be the senior features. Now I mentioned that this is an old-fashioned, full-size traditional luxury sedan and that means that primarily the buyers of this car were older people who liked the old school luxury sedans of the '60s, '70s, and '80s, so Lincoln knew this and as a result they gave the car some very specific features aimed at seniors. with the buttons on the steering wheel on a lot of cars you have the typical volume switches, the cruise control on this car, they are just huge and the owner told me there was a steering wheel on the previous models that had smaller buttons and Lincoln changed the o5 model year steering wheel to make the buttons larger, probably after receiving complaints from some of their older customers who wanted larger buttons that were easier to press, although that's not the only fun element from older people in this car.

How about the indicator group? For starters the speedometer is front and center, not only that but the font size on the speedometer is very large so it clearly indicates how fast you are going in case your eyesight isn't as good as before . just in case you can't see Lincoln has added a second extra speedometer, this one with a digital readout to the left of the speedometer giving you an extra way to see how fast you're going in case you can't read the traditional center speedometer and talking from the traditional center speedometer because Lincoln made room for that digital, there is no tachometer in the gauge cluster, I guess Lincoln figured that older people who want a smooth driving experience in this car don't.

They really care about how fast the engine turns, they just want to see how fast they go in big print. Now it's worth noting that within that gauge cluster there is also a second screen to the right and it shows various elements of the vehicle such as. your travel miles your average speed your average fuel economy your fuel distance to empty and you can cycle through all of those different items by pressing this select button on the right of the steering wheel, which in itself is quite large again, there are no little buttons that want to be able to find everything and press it very easily in this car, then we move towards the center, we have the center control console which includes the radio, the climate controls and the clock, which is this fine analog clock that says

lincoln

on the half now for Like, it has these two silver wings coming out of the watch, so I was wondering what those are.

Turns out they are the hour and minute adjusters. It looks like the clock is flanked by these cool wings that give it character, but in reality they are just the largest hour and minute adjusters in the entire history of car clocks, now below the clock you have the stereo controls, nothing unusual compared to other cars of thisera, and then it has the climate controls again, nothing particularly unusual except that there is a button marked If you press that, it will show the current outside temperature instead of the current climate control temperature, I guess, so you can set the control of the climate depending on the outside temperature.

Now, under the center control console, we have one of my favorite features in the car. and that would be if you have this little plastic door off center, it's towards the passenger side and it says power point on the door. Now this isn't where you get a Microsoft slideshow, but you open it up and there's a little bit of power, 12 volt charging. Period, it's strange, usually I would say outlet or 12 volts, but in this car they call it outlet. Next is another screen on the roof of the car, next to the rearview mirror, that tells you which direction you are going. and it does something weird, it actually spells out the direction you're going, so instead of saying nw or sw, it actually says northwest, southwest, I don't know, I've never seen that on any other car, I guess Lincoln felt like you gave a more luxurious experience by detailing the direction you are heading.

It's also worth noting that there is a mode button there, if you press it it will change modes, but there is only one mode to change and it will tell you the current oil life. so you have two options of northwest mode or oil life now the next one inIn the middle here under the seat we have a couple of interesting elements. One is the fact that it is actually a seat in itself. You fold the center console back and then there's an extra seat here that has its own seat belt and its own buckle, but assuming you're not trying to transport six people in your vehicle, you can use various items here for other things, for example.

For example, the front of that seat folds forward and reveals cupholders, which is nice and useful, and obviously the top of the seat folds down. down and it reveals a center console and what I like about this center console is that it has a magic lid that you can open it from the passenger side or you can close it and then open it from the driver's side and it opens again so you can open it. from either side and access the same central storage area, which is kind of Lincoln town car magic. Next we move on to the glove box and the first thing you will find there is the original window sticker and you can see the original sticker.

The price of this car was 47,355 and it only had three options, one was the paint color, this pearlescent paint called cashmere, which was 595 dollars, it also had all season tires that were an additional 125 and it had 17 inch chrome wheels which cost an additional 895, giving the The price of that 47-355 is not bad for a traditional luxury full-size American car experience. Additionally, in the glove box of this car you will find the owner's manual and the original owner's manual bag. I looked at the owner's manual and there was nothing in particular. It's interesting there, but in the maintenance guide you'll see that the cover has a tree.

I'm not sure how it relates to maintaining your links, but that's the chart they chose and the strange thing about the maintenance guide is that you open. You get to the section on choosing a tire and many car manufacturers will give you a specific brand of tire that they recommend for this car, they give you all brands of tires. There are like 12 different tire brands here, they don't recommend any, they just recommend choosing. I guess you choose a tire brand, we recommend them all. Next, we move on to the back of the city's karma. There are some interesting quirks, although not that many, but one of them is the fact that it says Lincoln on the tailgate sill.

Now that surprises me because I get into a lot of luxury cars, some very expensive luxury cars that just have the brand name on the front door cells and nothing on the back doors. My guess is that Lincoln did this because they know a lot of these. They were used as chauffeured cars and livery cars in New York City and elsewhere and they wanted the passengers who were being driven to be very aware of the fact that they were entering a Lincoln, so Lincoln stuck that inscription of Lincoln on the rear door sill as well as the front, other interesting elements back here, one is the fact that the back seat is so padded and soft, there is obviously a lot of room back here, this is a big car, but many Luxury sedans have room, not many luxury sedans have a back seat that is so comfortable and soft that you just sink into it, which is a common feature of luxury seats in the 70s, 80s and 90s, padded seats, but It's gone, the 2005 towncar still had it and it feels great in the back.

Here it would have felt great to drive one of these in New York City after a hard day in the world of finance. Now, speaking of rear legroom, it's worth noting that this towncar is an exclusive limited model which was the top trim level of the town car, if you had the short wheelbase version, there was also a long wheelbase version that had a little bit of stretch back here and the chauffeur driven vehicles from the limousine companies were commonly the l model because they gave the rear seat passengers a little more room. The owner told me that it's very difficult to find those L models now because all the limousine companies bought them and drove them great distances, but if you wanted more room in the back seat that was available now, the only other interesting element here is the fact The center armrest can be lowered from the center and you have a couple of cup holders there, nothing particularly interesting or special, but it's there.

The back seat of this car isn't particularly unusual, complicated or strange, but it is simple and comfortable, just like the rest. of this car we finally move under the hood, but just getting under the hood is a little interesting in this car, you pull the release mechanism located on the driver's foot, open the hood and then the hood latch shoots out of the grill and It sticks out about four inches and looks like the blade of a knife. It looks like someone stabbed the grill and left the knife blade sticking out of it, but you pull it open the hood and then you can see the engine like I said this.

Old-school 4.6-liter V8 that only made 239 horsepower is a power-to-liter ratio unthinkable today, but in the past that's how it happened. The next interesting element on this car is the cornering light. Now look at this, you're driving. At night you have your headlights on and you put on the turn signal, the turn signal is not the only light that comes on, there is also a white light that comes on on the side corresponding to the turn signal that you put on the left or right. the right and is Designed to provide additional lighting to illuminate your path in whichever direction you turn, it is actually a very good idea and a nice feature.

Some modern luxury cars have a similar feature that turns on a light when you turn the steering wheel at low speeds. but the town car also has it and it is not something that is seen in all cars, so this is a tour of the peculiarities and characteristics of the 2005

lincoln

town car, now it is time to take it out on the road and see how it drives driving the Now in the towncar the first thing you notice when you get in the town car is that you just sit down, you sit in the seat and you just sit down, you crouch down, it's like this nice soft padded seat, they don't make sedans like this anymore , You know?

Nowadays any sedan that is a luxury car has to also be a sports car and it also has to be a family car and blah blah blah people just drive SUVs anyway but this was old school of luxury and that meant you don't have the latest technology that you don't know about, you know, a front-wheel drive turbo engine to save fuel, you get this old school car and you just sit back and cruise, the owner lives here in Los Angeles and he says : "You know this is a Nice Car for Los Angeles because you just sit back and relax and you're not stressed and that's a great way to describe the feel of this car.

It's not modern, it's not high tech, but what It's just comfortable and smooth. What you want to do is sit here and just drive around in a simple full size luxury sedan going between the retirement village and the golf course. These were just great and what mainly most of them. What people like about them today is that they were simply durable. Hell you know they had a big old school engine, there are a ton of supporting parts for it, they weren't high stress engines with twin turbos and all this is an easy platform to work on, they were made for decades, it was just a stuff. it was a durable car, there is a reason the main version the Crown Victoria was used as a taxi in New York City for 30 years and these were used in New York City as livery cars for years, they could tolerate that level of abuse. heavy roads, stop and go, people getting in and out, they weren't the prettiest cars, but they were simple, they were easy, they were usable, this is a great car for people who get into modern cars and like technology, to My no.

I need some of that, I don't want any nonsense, I just want something I can drive and relax and I like technology, I like new features, I like adaptive equipment, lane keeping assist, but you can see the point. Right acceleration, put the throttle down, it's not the fastest car in the world, no, no, it's not moving incredibly fast, it's not, but that's not really the point of this car before and again, I mean, you know, wow, it's just. It just wasn't that much power, but I got the feeling that no one who bought this car cared, I bet they didn't get any complaints about the engine power, it just wasn't on most buyers' radar, excellent ride quality , obviously at the expense of handling and sportiness and that kind of stuff, you could get one of these for 50 grand, which was half the money of an s class and it wasn't dramatically less comfortable, yeah, it didn't have the technology and it didn't have the stability and the speed and it didn't have the brand blah blah we knew all that but if you just wanted pure luxury comfort sit here and relax you know this was a bargain back in the day so that's the last.

Lincoln Town Car the end of an era in American luxury sedans. This car wasn't sporty, it wasn't high tech, it wasn't fast, fun or modern, but that's the beauty of it. It was an old American luxury sedan, simple and comfortable. and it was the last of its kind and now it's time to give it an excellent score starting with the weekend categories and the styling of the town car is a little below average, it's not only boring but very dated and it gets a 4 out of 10 in acceleration. It's slow when it gets a 1 out of 10. The handling is floaty and soft and not very sporty and it gets a 3 out of 10.

The fun factor is very very low, this car is about comfort and decidedly not about fun and it gets a 1 out of 10. The cool factor is also low. I suspect someday they'll be great as supplies dwindle, but for now they're not that exciting and it gets a 3 out of 10 for a total weekend score of 12 out of 50. it's the daily categories and features, this car is basic intentionally that's what people like and it gets a 3 out of 10. The comfort is wonderful, this car is comfortable, relaxing and smooth and it gets an 8 out of 10. The quality is good.

The interior isn't as pretty but they are famous for their indestructibility and get a 7 out of 10. The practicality is average for the class and get a 5 out of 10. Finally, there is a value and these aren't appealing to many people, but yes you like me. Soft and comfortable, old-fashioned cars were excellent used bargains and are easy to find in good condition, as many were owned by older people who didn't drive them much. It gets a 7 out of 10 for an overall daily score of 30 out of 50. Add it up and Doug's score is 42 out of 100, putting the town car here against other luxury sedans.

It's not the best, but in terms of comfortable traditional American luxury sedans, it's certainly last, and it was fun. travel back in time