Future of the Crown Vic
6/25/04, 01:17 AM
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Does anyone know what's going on with this car? What's ford's plan?
I was worried that the fwd v6 500 was gonna replace the crown vic, but that wouldn't make sense, ford wouldn't wanna give up its massive share in the police cruiser department. Does anyone know of any plans for a redesign or an all out replacement?
Here's an article on dodge's plans to introduce a magnum wagon police car.
http://www.detnews.com/2004/autosinsider/0.../b01-194755.htm
I don't get the wagon thing though... ford always used to have the crown vic wagon back in the 80s, and the cops never went for that.
I grew up in a crown vic wagon practically, and the first car i ever drove was a grand marquis wagon. I have some kind of attachment to these old fashioned sounding nameplates.
Another thing, someone had a good idea, i forget where i saw it. But they suggested a hybrid crown vic. Just pop in something like that 270hp hybrid v6 going into the rx400h. Those millions of cop cars and cabs spend a lot of time idling and a lot of time in stop and go traffic. i think these fleets would stand to gain a lot, probably the most likely candidates to get their money's worth out of hybrid tech at this point, what with the crazy mileage those things put on.
So that's what i want, a modest makeover, or a full overhaul, but stickin with the body on frame, rwd v8 deal good for the cops, and nice beefy looks, but not as over the top as the chrysler 300. Then a v6 model with a nice big electric motor or two for the cabbies and city cruisers. And how bout something with the 5.4L or that v10 or something for an interceptor, doing double duty as a new mercury marauder. There, that should satisfy both my conflicting desires for big, overindulgently powerful cars and for the survival of future generations.
I was worried that the fwd v6 500 was gonna replace the crown vic, but that wouldn't make sense, ford wouldn't wanna give up its massive share in the police cruiser department. Does anyone know of any plans for a redesign or an all out replacement?
Here's an article on dodge's plans to introduce a magnum wagon police car.
http://www.detnews.com/2004/autosinsider/0.../b01-194755.htm
I don't get the wagon thing though... ford always used to have the crown vic wagon back in the 80s, and the cops never went for that.
I grew up in a crown vic wagon practically, and the first car i ever drove was a grand marquis wagon. I have some kind of attachment to these old fashioned sounding nameplates.
Another thing, someone had a good idea, i forget where i saw it. But they suggested a hybrid crown vic. Just pop in something like that 270hp hybrid v6 going into the rx400h. Those millions of cop cars and cabs spend a lot of time idling and a lot of time in stop and go traffic. i think these fleets would stand to gain a lot, probably the most likely candidates to get their money's worth out of hybrid tech at this point, what with the crazy mileage those things put on.
So that's what i want, a modest makeover, or a full overhaul, but stickin with the body on frame, rwd v8 deal good for the cops, and nice beefy looks, but not as over the top as the chrysler 300. Then a v6 model with a nice big electric motor or two for the cabbies and city cruisers. And how bout something with the 5.4L or that v10 or something for an interceptor, doing double duty as a new mercury marauder. There, that should satisfy both my conflicting desires for big, overindulgently powerful cars and for the survival of future generations.
6/25/04, 02:54 AM
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Best screen name on the boards.
The Crown Victoria/Grand Marquis are an extremely close second as far as my favorite Ford products go. I'd be very upset to see them go. Already a shame the Marauder is gone...
The Crown Victoria/Grand Marquis are an extremely close second as far as my favorite Ford products go. I'd be very upset to see them go. Already a shame the Marauder is gone...
6/25/04, 01:03 PM
#4
The Magnum/Charger cop cars will beat the crown vics in every category except price.
I really think Ford has to do something about these cars, their chassis is older than the Mustang's
Rumour has them going on a stretched S197 platform, another has them continuing on the Panther. In either case, I really think they should pick up the 427 Styling cues, and maybe a name change.. how about bringing back Fairlane or Galaxie?
I really think Ford has to do something about these cars, their chassis is older than the Mustang's
Rumour has them going on a stretched S197 platform, another has them continuing on the Panther. In either case, I really think they should pick up the 427 Styling cues, and maybe a name change.. how about bringing back Fairlane or Galaxie?
6/25/04, 01:49 PM
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Originally posted by Kotzenjunge@June 25, 2004, 2:57 AM
Best screen name on the boards.
Best screen name on the boards.
But noooo... don't change the name! Crown Victoria somehow sounds very masculine and powerful to me, more so than fairlane anyways... i guess it would clash with ford's all "F" name thing, which i think is a little silly.
Didn't chevy do that a while ago, with the capri, cavalier, corsica, camaro and so forth?
6/25/04, 02:11 PM
#6
Chevy has always had a little fixation on cars that started with "C"
The Camaro was going to be called the Panther, but they preferred a name with C
Crown Victoria is a name most people associate with cop cars and taxis, I think they should make a clean break and give a new image to the car.
The Camaro was going to be called the Panther, but they preferred a name with C
Crown Victoria is a name most people associate with cop cars and taxis, I think they should make a clean break and give a new image to the car.
7/29/04, 11:35 AM
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yeah I agree, get the Aussie Falcon sedans, wagons and utes over there and the long wheel base Fairlanes and LTDs, cars are to good to be stuck not being sold anywhere else in the world, the base model Falcons would be good for the Taxi/cops, the wagons for the soccer mums/travellers, the fairlane/LTDs for the business man executive, the Falcon XR6 and XR8 for your boy racers, the FP6 Typhoon for your richer man street racer or the Falcon GTP, the utes would be good for the tradesman or for your beach crowd, surely there is a market for those type of vehicles in ther USA
7/29/04, 02:01 PM
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Originally posted by boss351@July 29, 2004, 11:38 AM
yeah I agree, get the Aussie Falcon sedans, wagons and utes over there and the long wheel base Fairlanes and LTDs, cars are to good to be stuck not being sold anywhere else in the world, the base model Falcons would be good for the Taxi/cops, the wagons for the soccer mums/travellers, the fairlane/LTDs for the business man executive, the Falcon XR6 and XR8 for your boy racers, the FP6 Typhoon for your richer man street racer or the Falcon GTP, the utes would be good for the tradesman or for your beach crowd, surely there is a market for those type of vehicles in ther USA
yeah I agree, get the Aussie Falcon sedans, wagons and utes over there and the long wheel base Fairlanes and LTDs, cars are to good to be stuck not being sold anywhere else in the world, the base model Falcons would be good for the Taxi/cops, the wagons for the soccer mums/travellers, the fairlane/LTDs for the business man executive, the Falcon XR6 and XR8 for your boy racers, the FP6 Typhoon for your richer man street racer or the Falcon GTP, the utes would be good for the tradesman or for your beach crowd, surely there is a market for those type of vehicles in ther USA
Ford Falcon Ownz!!
7/30/04, 04:31 PM
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Hybrids are too expensive to mass produce for a car such as the Crown Vic. Plus, the weight of the electric motor and batteries would seriously slow down cop cars. Good for me, bad for my brother-in-law.
For instance, the Prius is a great car (not great-looking), but is still slow as a dog, as technologically advanced as it may be. To make it faster, it would seriously add a lot more money to that considerably low MSRP. So, an engine powerful enough to propel the land yacht crown vic would be quite pricey and not very practical. Even old people sometimes like to floor it.
For instance, the Prius is a great car (not great-looking), but is still slow as a dog, as technologically advanced as it may be. To make it faster, it would seriously add a lot more money to that considerably low MSRP. So, an engine powerful enough to propel the land yacht crown vic would be quite pricey and not very practical. Even old people sometimes like to floor it.
7/30/04, 11:19 PM
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I think a mild hybrid set up would really benefit something like the crown vic. I'm talking about what GM is doing to their pick ups. The motor doesn't have to big huge, cause the car always has the gas engine on when its moving. The electric motor would act as both an alternator and a starter, and it would assist the gas engine with whatever it has left over. This would mean the engine would automatically shut off at idle, which is something taxis and cop cars do a lot more than regular people.
So i'm talking about just a regular 4.6L crown vic with a little electric motor and a slightly oversized battery, and without a starter or an alternator. Whatever little weight gains there are could be overcome by the added low end torque of the motor.
They say that GMs mild hybrid pick ups only get about a 15% increase in gas mileage, but i doubt the EPA numbers take into account that these fleet vehicles spend about half the day idling, whether it be work truck, cab, or cop car.
As far as the cost goes, how often does someone bash a new technology cause it costs too much? Somebody was just talking about how the panther cars bring in so much profit because all the development was done and paid for back in the 70s. If you were to spend millions of dollars developing a car and then only produce a dozen of em, the car would cost a lot of money. But once a technology or a product becomes widespread, you get economies of scale and the price comes down. And surely a country that spends $2,000,000,000 each on planes that can drop big bombs on people on the other side of the globe without being seen could spare a couple million to subsidize a technology that would help its own people breathe a bit easier, as well as stretch the petroleum supply a bit farther.
On a side note, how many of you realize that plastic is a petroleum product, and when we run out of oil, not only will we not be able to drive gas powered cars, we won't have any more plastic except for what we recycle. Just imagine a day in your life without plastic...
......come back zinc, come back!
So i'm talking about just a regular 4.6L crown vic with a little electric motor and a slightly oversized battery, and without a starter or an alternator. Whatever little weight gains there are could be overcome by the added low end torque of the motor.
They say that GMs mild hybrid pick ups only get about a 15% increase in gas mileage, but i doubt the EPA numbers take into account that these fleet vehicles spend about half the day idling, whether it be work truck, cab, or cop car.
As far as the cost goes, how often does someone bash a new technology cause it costs too much? Somebody was just talking about how the panther cars bring in so much profit because all the development was done and paid for back in the 70s. If you were to spend millions of dollars developing a car and then only produce a dozen of em, the car would cost a lot of money. But once a technology or a product becomes widespread, you get economies of scale and the price comes down. And surely a country that spends $2,000,000,000 each on planes that can drop big bombs on people on the other side of the globe without being seen could spare a couple million to subsidize a technology that would help its own people breathe a bit easier, as well as stretch the petroleum supply a bit farther.
On a side note, how many of you realize that plastic is a petroleum product, and when we run out of oil, not only will we not be able to drive gas powered cars, we won't have any more plastic except for what we recycle. Just imagine a day in your life without plastic...
......come back zinc, come back!
8/1/04, 07:12 PM
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How soon are we going to run out of oil? Honestly...
We have huge reserves in the Gulf of Mexico, not to mention untapped lands in Alaska that the left are fighting to never touch because of CARIBOU. IF we ever are in danger of running out of oil, we'll just open up the reserves.
And I don't think plastic is a petroleum product anymore... well, at least not in the majority of plastic production. It's mostly synthetic.
We have huge reserves in the Gulf of Mexico, not to mention untapped lands in Alaska that the left are fighting to never touch because of CARIBOU. IF we ever are in danger of running out of oil, we'll just open up the reserves.
And I don't think plastic is a petroleum product anymore... well, at least not in the majority of plastic production. It's mostly synthetic.
8/2/04, 12:22 AM
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I dunno man, to me, unnecessary inefficiency is just ridiculous. Who wouldn't benefit from a car that could do the same with less gas? The few billionaires that have already made it well beyond any normal person's idea of what a person needs.
Why would you be opposed to lower gas bills, easier breathing in our cities (just read a report that at least 1700 deaths in toronto last year were due to air pollution, and thousands more hospitalizations, that's a lot of money), and a lesser dependance on parts of the world which are somewhat unstable, politically speaking.
Sure there may be enough gasoline to last at least a couple dozen years. But there's no denying that it is a limited resource, no one is making any more of it. There's a set amount, and were drinking it real fast. You've gotta admit that we're gonna have to change our ways some time. Why not now? Why not accept a more efficient technology to power our big sedans and trucks and stuff, that way people who like to stick with the tradition of cars that make a lot of noise and smoke will be able to keep riding around a little longer.
We're starting to see a few examples of hybrid cars that only improve on the performance of the standard cars, while at the same time, using less gas. What's to lose?!
I think everyone just associates the term hybrid with the first few weak examples like the insight and first gen prius. A locomotive is a hybrid!
I sincerely hope that we learn how to travel through time, so that the people who have to deal with the problems we're setting up for them will be able to come back here and smack us all in the back of the head real good.
Sorry for the rant.
All i'm saying is that saying that we aren't gonna run out of oil for a while isn't a very good argument against recapturing braking energy and automatically shutting off your engine at a stop light.
Why would you be opposed to lower gas bills, easier breathing in our cities (just read a report that at least 1700 deaths in toronto last year were due to air pollution, and thousands more hospitalizations, that's a lot of money), and a lesser dependance on parts of the world which are somewhat unstable, politically speaking.
Sure there may be enough gasoline to last at least a couple dozen years. But there's no denying that it is a limited resource, no one is making any more of it. There's a set amount, and were drinking it real fast. You've gotta admit that we're gonna have to change our ways some time. Why not now? Why not accept a more efficient technology to power our big sedans and trucks and stuff, that way people who like to stick with the tradition of cars that make a lot of noise and smoke will be able to keep riding around a little longer.
We're starting to see a few examples of hybrid cars that only improve on the performance of the standard cars, while at the same time, using less gas. What's to lose?!
I think everyone just associates the term hybrid with the first few weak examples like the insight and first gen prius. A locomotive is a hybrid!
I sincerely hope that we learn how to travel through time, so that the people who have to deal with the problems we're setting up for them will be able to come back here and smack us all in the back of the head real good.
Sorry for the rant.
All i'm saying is that saying that we aren't gonna run out of oil for a while isn't a very good argument against recapturing braking energy and automatically shutting off your engine at a stop light.
8/2/04, 12:07 PM
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It's all about cost!!
The technology IS here for hybrids to work and be efficient, and I'm all for it. But, hybrids cost more. I think the base price on the Civic Hybrid is just under $20k! For a Civic! And it DOES sacrifice performance. Its 0-60 time is 10+ seconds. The Escape Hybrid is also going to be a premium price, over $26k the last I heard. That's a good $6k over base Escape price. And I'm sure the RX330 (or RX300, whichever) Hybrid will also cost a few more grand. It's a wonderful technology, and who doesn't want to save on gas while doing something that makes, ahem, trees happy? Simply put, the technology and resources to mass-produce many vehicles across the automotive spectrum does not currently exist. Plans may be in the works for this to happen several years from now, but I don't expect to see a hybrid version for most mass-produced cars for another 15 years. We are headed in the right direction, though.
The technology IS here for hybrids to work and be efficient, and I'm all for it. But, hybrids cost more. I think the base price on the Civic Hybrid is just under $20k! For a Civic! And it DOES sacrifice performance. Its 0-60 time is 10+ seconds. The Escape Hybrid is also going to be a premium price, over $26k the last I heard. That's a good $6k over base Escape price. And I'm sure the RX330 (or RX300, whichever) Hybrid will also cost a few more grand. It's a wonderful technology, and who doesn't want to save on gas while doing something that makes, ahem, trees happy? Simply put, the technology and resources to mass-produce many vehicles across the automotive spectrum does not currently exist. Plans may be in the works for this to happen several years from now, but I don't expect to see a hybrid version for most mass-produced cars for another 15 years. We are headed in the right direction, though.
8/2/04, 01:33 PM
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okay, so if hybrid tech isn't in the near future of the crown vic, can we at least get something like ms. latifah's ride? or maybe that hurricane engine?
hahaha, so yeah, environmentally friendly, or crazy fast sleeper, give me one or the other.
The wonders of my inner conflict!
:jedi:
we are gonna be seeing hybrid versions of the altima, camry and accord within four years or so, i've read they're all gonna have performance on par with the v6 versions.
it is coming along...
hahaha, so yeah, environmentally friendly, or crazy fast sleeper, give me one or the other.
The wonders of my inner conflict!
:jedi:
we are gonna be seeing hybrid versions of the altima, camry and accord within four years or so, i've read they're all gonna have performance on par with the v6 versions.
it is coming along...
8/2/04, 08:19 PM
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Hybrids are overrated. They get crappy milage on highways. Yeah there great for stop-n-go traffic but their high-way milage differs.
Also as the saying goes. The more complexities the more that can break.
Also as the saying goes. The more complexities the more that can break.
