June 24, 2005
Lincoln 2005 Town Car Signature Review (Lots of discounts and rebates - now I see why)
The last two times I rented a car from Avis here in Seattle, I got a Buick LeSabre, and then a Mercury Grand Marquis.
Well this time I got this car:
A Signature what?
Well here are two more clues:
Still not enough of a clue?
Yep that’s right. I showed up and the Avis agent told me they were short on cars, so I was getting a lucky treat of a Lincoln Town Car!
According to CarsDirect, the MSRP of this behemoth is $42,875.
The BMW 525i has a MSRP that is about $41,800 according to CarsDirect. Of course, with a BMW 5 series though, you wouldn’t get keys like this:
$43 grand MSRP and you get the same keys and early 1990’s style remote as a $13k Ford? Heck, it even says Ford on the back of the remote.
Is it any wonder the actual selling price of this Lincoln Town Car Signature is just $35,372 on carsdirect.com? That’s almost $9,000 off the MSRP. Cripes!
Well maybe it’s the drive train that justifies this price - after all, it’s got a V8, whereas the BMW I’m comparing it to only has an I6. Oh… but… this V8 is mated to a 4-speed automatic. 4-speed.
Needless to save, driving this car was incredibly painful - it would never ‘go’ at the speed you would want it to go. That in conjunction with the amazingly light power steering - sheesh.
It seems to me that this car, much like the Grand Marquis (which I skidded in a slightly wet parking lot) and the Buick LeSabre, would be pretty dangerous. Incredibly light steering, huge lengths, wacky shifting - how can anyone control this car safely?
It’s even more scary when you think of the stereotypes of the typical customers of these particular vehicles - and their age related conditions.
Well, to be a fair review, I do have list some positives: The interior was surprisingly nice, unlike the buick I drove a few months back which had buttons that you could never get to without being made out of elastic. The power seats were uber configurable. And… it was roomy.
Ok, I have to get back to griping: the AC was really weak. The compartments suboptimal - all that space in the car, yet so few pockets and boxes.
Finally, here is the part of the car that offended me the most:
What do these two buttons do? Eject the pax? Open the gas cap? Release an oil slick? Open the trunk?
No it’s not because the photo is bad - there really are no labels! And why are they next to each other? Is this why people always have the gas cap door open?
And actually… why even have a gas cap button?
The other day I read about some sniping between GM and the UAW. GM management claimed that the UAW asked for too much, and that for GM to survive some pension stuff would have to be cut. UAW responded that maybe if GM produced cars that people wanted, that would solve the problem.
Even though this was a Ford, and even though I believe the benefits situation puts GM and Ford in tough spots… Today, I’ll have to side with the UAW.
EDITED: For typos. I wrote this on a plane.
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10 Comments to “Lincoln 2005 Town Car Signature Review (Lots of discounts and rebates - now I see why)”
June 25th, 2005 at 6:26 pm
American Cars
June 26th, 2005 at 7:56 am
I have a feeling that they only keep these cars in production for a very limited market — the elderly. Who generally won’t complain about such things as push-button gas caps because they would feel embarrassed about not understanding them. They’ve had enough of that from the flashing 12:00 on their Betamax.
June 27th, 2005 at 10:13 am
This is the American crap that caused the auto market to be nearly destroyed in the 70s and 80s by Toyota and Nissan.
I guess they aren’t up on their history…
//k
June 28th, 2005 at 9:34 pm
You don’t get it. A lincoln towncar is all about getting driven around, not driving it yourself. It’s a mini limo.
Also there is a lot happening in the American car market that is good. For example the new Mustang is a run away hit.
July 13th, 2005 at 4:03 am
I recently rented a Chevy Impala from Avis. I understand where you’re coming from. It had a nice powerful engine, but you could never tell if it was doing anything. You got no road feel at all through the steering or the pedals, so you had no gut feeling for how fast you were going. ……………… We normally drive my wife’s leased company car, a BMW 520i. This is the lowest-end 5-series you can get, but it performs. I almost never have to use the “sport” mode on the auto transmission. And when I do, boy howdy. …………………… Interestingly enough, I rented a BMW 530D from Avis in Ireland a while back. I was driving on the wrong side of the road, on roads I’d never seen before, with sometimes questionable or even non-existent maps, in places where the traffic patterns could be amazingly confusing even to locals, and not once did I ever feel that I was asking the car to do more than half of what it could give me. Now I understand why virtually the entire motoring press around the world considers this the best car ever built. ………………….. The Ford GT is a really cool car, but I can’t say anything for how it drives — at hundreds of thousands of dollars, very few are ever going to see one, much less touch or even drive one. But other than a very few limited examples like the Ford GT, there’s absolutely nothing worthwhile being produced by American car/truck manufacturers. ……………………. If you want something decent, you’ve got to go with a German or Japanese model — even if it’s built in the US, what’s important is the initial design and engineering that is done by the people who understand these things. Once that’s done, it doesn’t really matter too much where the thing is actually assembled.
March 8th, 2006 at 1:42 am
Good day seller,
I’m David Roy, I will like to purchase your
above mentioned advert. Kindly mail me back with
the condition and the last asking price,
Do you have any picture for it? if yes, kindly mail me back
. Thanks and bye till i read back
from you.
David.
March 9th, 2006 at 1:53 pm
Sorry. This was a review - not an ad.
March 31st, 2007 at 2:38 pm
unbelievably stupid comments.
April 14th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
Best driving and riding motor coach on the road. I’ts truly underated for the amount of carraige for the price. I have four, ranging in a 10 year span. One has over 300,000 miles and still performs almost as new with ride and comfort. Extremely dependable. My BMW is costly, unreliable and just a name. The lincoln is an icon of America. Leave it alone. It is what it is………luxury!
June 22nd, 2007 at 4:52 pm
I as an Australian who loves American Cars, I feel compelled to drop you all a line we have still TODAY got the LTD and Fairlaine also the Falcon Australia is about to dump there large luxury Car the LTD dew to poor sales AND HIGH FUEL COSTS.
I bought a Lincoln town car in Melbourne imported from the USA, it cost $10.000 Aus dollars to convert to RHD it was a 1994 Lincoln Signature series fantastic car pity Australia could not import them Right Hand Drive, pure luxury, some thing Australia did not have… we did not get Colour TV till 1975 we did not get Automatic washing machines until mid 80s.
Australia seems to lag behind the USA 20 years. In the 70s when we saw on TV big American cars we were seeing Datsuns imported from Japan we did have the LTD it was big 19 feet long 351 V8 about $4000 Aus dollars at the time, you will see it if you look on Google under Ford Australia.
Still id love to have a 2006 Lincoln I would be the luckiest guy in Western Australia, keep up the good work Ford America!
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