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The following article is from Jalopnik.com, published on September 15, 2011:
The Last Ford Crown Victoria Ever Built
Today, the Ford Crown Victoria, a slope-nosed metal box with an unquenchable thirst for gas built with manufacturing methods Henry Ford would have recognized, died after 32 years of production. Here's why its passing marks the sad end of a great American era.
The vibrant white Crown Victoria that rolled off its Canadian assembly line this afternoon marks the last of a V8-powered breed, an endangered species of vehicles that modern America was built by and for. It's not that the "Panther" platform underpinning the Vic, the Lincoln Town Car and other models was ever ground breaking — it was derided as slow and small from the moment it launched in 1979.
Yet no other American car has ever proven as durable, which is why Ford built 9.6 million of them. Taxi and police fleets routinely put 200,000 miles on Crown Vics and Town Cars. Having its body built separate from its frame meant Crown Vics could survive collisions that would total lesser unit-body vehicles. And police departments grew to rely on them not just for their roominess and durability; hitting a curb at high speed in a Crown Vic wouldn't end a pursuit by bending a drive shaft the way it could in a front-wheel-drive car. It even does well off-road.
By the 1990s, older Crown Vics became sought after by hot rodders; there's often still no cheaper way to get a V8 car turning its rear wheels, just like the 1932 Ford V8s that sparked hot-rodding culture in America. All engines make noise, and a modern turbocharged four-cylinder can surpass the Crown Vic's power, but a V8 makes a feeling, a tremor that transmits through steel and plastic and time.
The official cause of the Crown Vic's death is neglect. The Panther platform made a mint for Ford over the years, but the line was already a corporate stepchild by the late 1980s. The last major coin dropped by Ford on those models came in 2003 with the souped-up Mercury Marauder, which only exists because the executive in charge was a member of the Ford family. Today they're collector’s items, a status rare among Ford sedans from the past two decades.
It wasn't a lack of money or know-how or popular demand that doomed the Crown Vic and the Town Car; making old tech new is how Ford has made the F-Series pickup America's most popular vehicle, and taxi companies have been hoarding the last Panthers they could buy. Rather, it was a lack of will by Ford, a bet on technology and global engineering rather than simplicity and affordability.
The Crown Vic isn't the last American rear-wheel-drive V8 sedan, but thanks to a combination of regulations and avarice, it may be the last one that's accessible — not just to everyday buyers, but to people who love it enough to make it their own. Just as Henry Ford imagined his cars should be.
The capital of Canada is Ottawa, in the province of Ontario. There are offically ten provinces and three territories in Canada, which is the second largest country in the world in terms of land area.While politically and legally an independant nation, the titular head of state for Canada is still Queen Elizabeth.On the east end of Canada, you have Montreal as the bastion of activity. Montreal is famous for two things, VICE magazine and the Montreal Jazz Festival. One is the bible of hipster life (disposable, of course) and the other is a world-famous event that draws more than two million people every summer. Quebec is a French speaking province that has almost seceded from Canada on several occasions, by the way..When you think of Canada, you think of . . . snow, right?But not on the West Coast. In Vancouver, it rains. And you'll find more of the population speaking Mandarin than French (but also Punjabi, Tagalog, Korean, Farsi, German, and much more).Like the other big cities in Canada, Vancouver is vividly multicultural and Vancouverites are very, very serious about their coffee.Your standard Vancouverite can be found attired head-to-toe in Lululemon gear, mainlining Cafe Artigiano Americanos (spot the irony for ten points).But here's a Vancouver secret only the coolest kids know: the best sandwiches in the city aren't found downtown. Actually, they're hidden in Edgemont Village at the foot of Grouse Mountain on the North Shore."It's actually worth coming to Canada for these sandwiches alone." -- Michelle Superle, VancouverText by Steve Smith.
