Today, however, the last Crown Victoria will be rolling off the Ford Motor Co. assembly line near St. Thomas, Ontario, and they will gradually begin disappearing from the roadways Read more: http://www.timesleader.com/business..._ponder_options_08-30-2011.html#ixzz1WcbVF8pa
I never understood this decision by Ford. The Crown Vic has a 70% share of the police market and God only knows how much of the taxicab business. BTW-I hate getting pulled over by a Charger ........
Yeah, it was pretty stupid. Must be about CARB numbers or safety standards or something. They could've easily refreshed the grille, head and taillights, changed the trim up a bit and got another ten years out of that platform. Put a Coyote 5.0 in it and the Charger would've been just another second class also-ran like the Impala. They owned the law enforcement and taxi market, freakin' gave that market to Dodge.
Ford probably wants to push the Taurus on us. I don't see many of them road. Gotta pay for new production overhead costs some how; "KILL THE VIC".
But I don't see how killing the Crown Vic could possibly save production costs. The tooling for those cars has been around for over 20 years. All they had to do was maintain what they had.
Don't see many of the new Explorers, either. Only one or two in my whole county that I see. Ford is making the same mistake Chrysler did back in the 80's......go all FWD. And just like Chrysler back then, they're not selling. I know the economy is rough, but everybody that I know that has bought a new SUV has went GM or Dodge, for the RWD platform. Trailblazers and Durangos are everywhere around here. Now I will say that the smaller Escape SUV sells better than the other FWD SUV's. Mom bought one and loves it, it's her first SUV. The Boss at FORD needs to wake up. He's ruining the company, IMHO. A mix of products more than just one type would be better. I have a few friends in law enforcement that like the Charger, as well as the Crown Vic. A few Departments had started using Explorers, they switched to Trailblazers when the Explorer went FWD. Some of the State guys use Tahoe's and Expedition's. The ones that I know of that tried the Impala's hated them. They said they were too light, and broke down easily. I figure the Taurus would be the same way. It takes a tough vehicle to withstand the abuse Cops put on a vehicle in service. I don't think a unibody car would stand up to it very long.....
I really liked driving those cars. During my years at the dealership, I could pick whatever I wanted for a demo, and most of the time it was a Grand Marquis with an occassional Cougar or Town car. I have to say though, that retail sales of Crown Vics & Grand Marquis were almost non-existant. The next gen Mustang (2014 model in 2013) is supposed to be based on an Australian RWD platform, and there have been rumors about a RWD sedan to accompany it, which would be great. Sometimes decent sales numbers don't necessarily translate into profits. At one time, even though it was a top seller, Ford lost money on each Escort it sold. The purpose was to keep the CAFE average mpg high and allow more sales of high-profit (low mpg) SUV's. I was told that during last years of the previous model Taurus, it was a low-profit car as well, because so many were fleet units and rental cars. Still sad to see it go. They were rock-solid, dependable cars. Warranty issues were a fraction of those encountered with the FWD cars.
It all comes down to the CAW not making concessions. St.Thomas Assembly has built some of the highest quality Ford cars for the last few years, Ford just spent millions on the paint department, not even 5 years ago. I have many friends that are retired, and more that still work (worked) there, it's a sad day around here. You'll see it back, but it'll be built in Mexico!!
It would help (pursuade) more people, looking to buy a full size Ford, to buy a Taurus, because the CV is no longer available. Supply and demand drives everything.
I used to drive these when I jockey at a rental company. Lots of fun to drive and it was fun to see people get out of my way when I drove the dark colored models. Wonder how long the turbo charged variant of the Taurus interceptor will last before needing expensive repairs.
Demand is still high for these cars, Police departments have been stock piling 50-100 crown Vic's for the last 2 years. The plant doesn't actually close until Sept 16. I'll have to drive out there this weekend, and take some pictures.
They're actually still doing production for another couple weeks (14th Sept.) and going extra hours to get the backlog done. As far as the reasons for killing the car and the plant.... The CAW made all of the concessions Ford wanted and then some - St Thomas workers got nowhere near what other closing auto plants workers were offered. But all Canadian sites voted on the contract as one unit so the concerns of the plant with the smallest workforce didn't carry weight. Remember this was also when GM and Chrysler were getting concessions and bailouts to stay afloat. Ford just didn't want to keep the plant or the footprint (even though its one of only two or three they actually fully own). They were down to one shift in an outdated plant with lots of senior employees and a facility that wouldn't meet existing requirements for a new auto mfg facility. Not an ideal state to maximize driving costs out of their business. They can't however, build the platform anywhere else (contractually) so they pushed for the Taurus platform and will likely lose the market segment they owned.
Don't know the accuracy of the claim, but read somewhere that the Panther platform (Crown Vics, Grand Marqs) are the last front engined, rear-wheel drive, full frame cars in production on earth. I'm glad there's still V-8's and rear wheel drives in our future..... but i'm going to miss full frames. But not to worry......Vics are going to be around for a good long while Some of us will do our best to make sure of it I've also heard Ford is going to (or already is) producing a replacement for law enforcement/fleet duty called the Interceptor,....just Interceptor,....not based on a Vic or Panther platform. Most the photos of cars decked out for law enforcement are Tauruses, but Ford has been talking up the Interceptor
