If the new Town Car is any indication of Lincoln-Mercury's intent to change minds about what a luxury car should
be, then they are well on their way toward attracting a new group of buyers. Lincoln-Mercury wants to keep all of
its current customers -- they give the Town Car one of the highest loyalty and repurchase rates in the industry.
But, at the same time, the division wants to use the new Town Car to attract buyers away from other domestic and
Japanese luxury brands.
Lincoln-Mercury plans to do this with fresh styling and a greatly improved driving experience achieved through
better handling, better brakes and a more controlled ride quality.
The Lincoln Town Car is 85 percent new for 1998. While the designers, engineers and product planners have
maintained the interior space and trunk space of the previous, boxlike Town Car, they have thrown away the rectilinear
design, the square corners and some of the formality of the car. In its place is a new shape that owes something to
the Jaguar, something to the Bentley, and quite a bit to Ford's New Edge design philosophy.
The car was designed at Ford's California facility and it shows. It's round, but it's not a jellybean; it's formal without being frumpy; it's trim, yet still substantial. It's the first all-new Town Car in eight years. And it's about time. As always, Cadillac's deVille is the arch rival for the Town Car, but nowadays there are a number of smaller European and Japanese cars in the $40,000 luxury sedan bracket: Acura 3.5 RL, BMW 528, and Mercedes-Benz E-class.
There are four versions of Town Car to choose from: the $38,500 Executive series sold primarily as a fleet car,
the $40,150 Signature Series and the creme de la creme $42,500 Cartier series. When adjusted for equipment, these
prices average $975 less than the price of the 1997 Town Car.
While each of the three basic series is progressively more loaded, the car is essentially an American-idiom luxury
car with all that that implies: rear-wheel drive, V8 engine, smooth, quiet ride, seating for six, trunk room for four
sets of golf clubs, and lots of comfort and power amenities. From its jewel-like headlamps and traditional grille
back to its chrome license plate surround and massive corner-mounted taillamps, the Town Car has been carefully
rethought for the trip into the 21st Century, but it's only fractionally smaller than the old barge. It's 3.7 inches
shorter, and more than two inches of that is taken from the front overhang.
The most exciting news is the Signature Touring Sedan, which we drove. The Touring package comes with the more
powerful 220-horsepower V8 engine with dual exhaust, larger 235/60R-16 tires on unique 16-inch alloy wheels, a special
torque converter, a 3.55:1 rear-axle ratio for quicker acceleration, and revised springs, shock absorbers and stabilizer
bars designed for a more sporting ride and handling feel. With more than 20 special parts designed to improve
performance, the Touring package is worth every cent of its $500 cost. The Signature Touring Sedan comes in seven
unique colors. Inside are perforated leather seating surfaces and a special black birdseye woodgrain finish on the instrument panel and doors.
Just about everything inside the car is new and improved, from the door panels to the instrument panels to the
radio face to the switches and controls. The electronic instrument cluster of old has been eliminated. In its place
is a new, smaller cluster featuring a centered speedometer flanked by fuel and temperature gauges.
Two small electronic windows on either side of the speedometer serve as the message center and compass. The
system includes a redundant speedometer display, but no tachometer.
