A few left-wingers mocked the cars, so GM and Ford killed off profitable national security assets to avoid being made fun of.
^(except for Mustang and Focus)
Rather, it seems that the old design no longer satisfied modern standards and was retired in favor of newer models that did.
As one example: “For the 2012 model year, all Crown Victorias were produced for export; as the vehicle was not produced with stability control, it was no longer legal for sale in the United States or Canada.”
That said, it would've been possible to update those vehicles, like any other.
When you're an institutional (gov't) buyer in the US, you are often obliged by your funding source to choose a domestic supplier of equipment. GM and Ford had the market split between them, so they knew their LEO customers would have to buy whatever they had to sell. Hence, police Explorers. Police Tahoes. Police F-150s.
I disagree. The Management Class at GM killed off the last great American-made, V8-powered, rear-wheel drive cars to appease journalists and environmentalists.
After that happened, I hated environmentalists for several decades. I still despise The Management Class.
That's why trucks and SUVs have taken over the road.
Styles change, and my Grandparents loved their Fleetwoods and Town Cars and Chrysler Newports. My Dad wouldn't be caught dead in one. So, the market (outside institutional buyers) disappeared far faster than CAFE standards rose. The Chrysler LX-cars are the closest thing to those big old cars, and despite being a (very heavy) unibody, Chrysler sold millions of them profitably for the past 19 years.
Seems more likely than the alternative.
Think you’re just applying a narrative
Arlington assembly was converted to the SWB GMT-400 trucks in '96, followed by other fullsize. The plant tooling was already setup for RWD body-on-frame production, so the workers there could just...build those.
Had GM not shut down Ypsilanti in '90? ...91? (the old bomber plant), they might've been able to continue producing large sedans there, in addition to trucks in TX.
Combined MPG of 19. 224 horsepower out of a V8. The 3-cylinder turbo Nissan rogue is only short 20HP of that number.
Huge size and weight for a relatively cramped interior. A Crown Victoria is about the same weight as a Kia Telluride 3-row SUV and it is about a foot longer, despite having less interior/cargo space.
The Telluride has a naturally aspirated V6 that gets 291 HP with fuel economy at 22mpg combined in a box on wheels SUV. You can easily find 4 cylinder turbo vehicles that vastly exceed the power output of the Crown Vic’s V8.
So a modern 3-row family SUV is shorter (easier to park), carries more passengers and cargo (40% larger interior volume), gets better MPG, has 70 more hp, gets 20% better fuel economy.
In what universe would you buy a Crown Vic?
No plausible buyer of a large traditional American sedan is concerned about engine specific output.
They want plenty of torque at low, low RPMs (a properly-implemented diesel would've done well), and an engine that sounds right when revved, with the requisite # of cylinders (8).
>Huge size and weight for a relatively cramped interior. A Crown Victoria is >about the same weight as a Kia Telluride 3-row SUV and it is about a foot >longer, despite having less interior/cargo space.
Kia's online builder does not show where one selects the option for either a split bench front seat, or a shift lever on the steering column. All of that space...to waste on a center console.
>The Telluride has a naturally aspirated V6 that gets 291 HP with fuel economy >at 22mpg combined in a box on wheels SUV. You can easily find 4 cylinder turbo >vehicles that vastly exceed the power output of the Crown Vic’s V8.
Once again, stratospherically irrelevant to anyone in the market for this type of vehicle. The Ford Modular V8 series requires regular unleaded, has parts available ...everywhere...; and is with routine (and cheap) maintenance capable of going 400K without having so much as the cam-covers regasketed.
Kia's recent Theta-II series GDI turbo 4s don't leave me quite so confident in their long-term reliability, especially if you're always wringing all possible output out of them.
>In what universe would you buy a Crown Vic?
The universe where in the early 1990s, my grandparents and their friends existed, had the opportunity to buy more sophisticated (complicated) foreign vehicles, and did not.
They're enormous, hard to park, and by no means performance vehicles. But I've ridden in exactly one Lincoln Town Car, and let me tell you, it was a dream. It's not a sexy car. It's not a performance vehicle (in standard civilian models). It's ridiculous for one person. But if you need to transport four adults in absolute comfort and luxury, you couldn't do it better with anything else that was around at the time except maybe a Lexus LS or Mercedes S class.
Nobody is in the market for this type of vehicle, that's my point.
For one thing, you're on a different planet if you think the split bench is highly desired. Nobody wants a middle seat and when you can get an entire third row in a vehicle that is shorter than a Vic. What parents actually want their child sitting in between them in the front seat?
The closest thing to a family sedan or SUV where you can get a split bench is the F-150, and the only reason it has that option is because of its heritage as a work truck.
By the way, every other vehicle on sale takes regular unleaded, has parts available, has an engine that lasts hundreds of thousands of miles (especially Camrys, Accords, RAV4s). That's not a unique feature to the Crown Vic.
I chose a big Kia SUV as a comparison but, man, if you choose some of the most well-regarded top sellers that are in a more similar sedan or mid-size SUV type of market like a Toyota RAV4, Camry, or Accord, the gulf between those vehicels and the Vic gets even wider.
For example, a modern Accord is a big sedan, and you say that people who like big sedans want a lot of low-end torque...I mean, hello, have you heard of hybrids? The current Accord hybrid is a huge sedan and gets over double the MPG of a Crown Vic (41/46 MPG), and you don't get much more low-end torque than an electric motor.
Fun fact: The Mercury Marauder, the "muscle car" version of the Crown Vic, was actually SLOWER than the V6 Honda Accord when it launched. Yes, even the V6 Accord that was sold back then.
Another example: The Toyota Sienna, has so close to double the MPG of the Crown Vic (36 combined), is basically a cargo ship inside, 7 adult passengers plus a massive amount of cargo comfortably. If I have a family of 5 or 6, why am I getting a Crown Vic over that?
The universe in the 1990s was actually the universe when Toyota and Honda started eating the big 3's lunch. Today's universe is one where the Big 3's marketshare is being whittled down further by EV startups, Korean brands, next on the block will be Chinese brands. All the big 3 seem to be able to do is discontinue their cars and double down on chicken tax money printing machines.
I think in 2005 or so you could make that argument that the Crown Vic held its own for a certain use case. Sure, it was easy to work on, and parts were all over the place, and at that time it wasn't really so abnormal to barely get 20MPG in a large car. But today, the Crown Vic is like a foreign object on the road, more similar to classic cars from 50 years ago than the type of car a typical person is looking to buy today.
It'd be nice to not have to clamber over folding rear seats to get to a third row. Sitting three across in a car with adequate shoulder room would be more comfortable than the sort of gymnastics one needs to get into the third row of modern suvs. Likewise, more space at the hips would be handy for cops with a full duty belt or old people who've had hip trouble.
>For example, a modern Accord is a big sedan
No, not really.
>mean, hello, have you heard of hybrids? The current Accord hybrid is a huge sedan
No, it really isn't. A Bentley Mulsanne is a huge sedan. A W222 Mercedes is a huge sedan.
>and gets over double the MPG of a Crown Vic (41/46 MPG), and you don't get much >more low-end torque than an electric motor.
...and hybrids have almost no market traction amongst the people who buy domestic cars. The complexity of the hybrid powertrain is a turnoff, despite obvious advantages.
>Another example: The Toyota Sienna, has so close to double the MPG of the Crown >Vic (36 combined), is basically a cargo ship inside, 7 adult passengers plus a >massive amount of cargo comfortably. If I have a family of 5 or 6, why am I >getting a Crown Vic over that?
Three or four kids? Minivan. Three or four adult children, or friends? Sedan with a proper roofline. Watching people fold themselves in half to crawl inside a minivan to get to the back seats is just painful.
>But today, the Crown Vic is like a foreign object on the road, more similar to classic cars from 50 years ago than the type of car a typical person is looking to buy today.
Classic cars...the ones that people collect? The ones that are worth more in the future? Funny, that.
Hybrids aren’t even complex…they’re actually extremely simple and Toyota’s platform is proven rock solid.
If you think people aren’t buying them you should look at the wait times on the RAV4 Prime.
If the Crown Vic was the backbone of taxi fleets it’s easy to argue that the Prius and other Toyota hybrids are the new backbone of taxis and Ubers.
Classic cars…the ones that are unreliable death traps and notorious money pits.
Everyone I ever knew who owned a traditional American sedan knew exactly how much horsepower their car was rated at. They knew exactly the displacement of their engine, and what the part number for it was. Was it an LS2 V8 that put out 260 HP (10 HP less than the LT, but much more torque.)
Today's LS4 and LS5 V8 engines produce much more horsepower and get better fuel economy.
I might as well compare a Tesla pickup to a VW bug from the 1960's and say that pickups produce less tailpipe emissions than small cars do.
What's more likely is these were cars were boats built on ancient body-on-frame platforms into 1990's, which were killed in sales by Japanese sedans perceived as more efficient reliable (Honda Civic, Accord or Toyota Camry/Corolla). Not to mention the body-on-frame sedans were not up to increasingly stringent crash tests, which required crumple zones. The B-Body platform Impala you refer to is a variant of a platform that was introduced in the 1920s!
Look at how much US market share GM bled in the 80s going into the 90s. The products were not competitive.
The big three American manufacturers were viewed as unable to compete in the sedan space which is why they pivoted to the truck and SUV market, which continues through today (not coincidentally trucks and SUV benefit from CAFE standard loopholes along with the protectionist chicken tax, a 25% import tax on light trucks [0])
These companies are also run by humans, and are so in many ways prisoners to fashion as we all are to an extent, and are vulnerable to public obloquy, even from a public that's... dumb.
>What's more likely is these were cars were boats built on ancient body-on-frame >platforms into 1990's,
The ancient platforms you are talking about, were designed in the late 1970s.
>which were killed in sales by Japanese sedans perceived as more efficient >reliable (Honda Civic, Accord or Toyota Camry/Corolla).
Discussions of reliability aside, nobody in their wildest fever-dreams were cross-shopping a Buick Roadmaster and a Civic.
>Not to mention the body-on-frame sedans were not up to increasingly stringent >crash tests, which required crumple zones.
There is no real obstacle in making a body on frame sedan with crumple zones. Modern body-on-frame trucks have them.
>The B-Body platform Impala you refer to is a variant of a platform that was >introduced in the 1920s!
You're reading something, probably Wikipedia, and drawing incorrect conclusions.