Time for a new series that will appear occasionally here at CC: Is It Bigger Than A Town Car! As a new owner of one of Wixom’s plush luxury cruisers, I notice that when most people hear I own one, they say “Oh, what a land yacht!” Well, this car is actually only about three feet longer than my Volvo V50, and about 11″ wider. Not double the size, which is what most of my non-automotive friends initially think. This week, in honor of Van Week, let’s look at the Sienna. And yes, I know it’s a minivan, but after this post you may think otherwise.
When the current-gen Sienna came out, I thought they looked pretty decent in print ads and on TV. But the first time I saw one on the road I thought Dang! What a lardass! “Oh Tom, you’re not being fair. With modern safety features, the new Sienna MUST be bigger.” OK, message noted. Let’s agree to disagree.
Now, in this shot the Lincoln does look much longer, but part of it is perspective. Indeed, the 2013 Sienna is shorter, at 200.2″ to the Cartier’s 215.3″, but for a MINIvan, that is suspiciously large. Just a bit over one foot? Really! And the Lincoln is only one-tenth of an inch wider. But where the Sienna’s blubberiness is readily apparent is in curb weight, where the porky Toyota tips (breaks?) the scales at 4,310 lbs. At 4,015, my Lincoln is about one football player lighter.
In the close-up shots, you can clearly see the Lincoln’s tail is longer than the van, but I did my best to line the noses up on the same imaginary line–even got out of the car to adjust it. Now, I knew the Sienna was bigger than the last couple generations, but I still kind of expected to see the Lincoln eclipse it–except for height of course.
Yep, minivans are getting bigger–to accommodate portlier children, perhaps? My parents’ 1992 Grand Caravan ES was 192.8″ long, 72″ wide. It actually had the very same wheelbase as this Toyota–119.3–but park one next to a new Sienna and it looks like the newer model has spent a little too much time at Old Country Buffet!
Inside it is attractive but a bit bland (on a Toyota? No!). I have always wondered why so many minivans have cloth seating. I mean, they are generally kid haulers, and with motion sickness, candy overdose etc. it would seem that vinyl would be a better bet. Or maybe cloth front buckets, and the second- and third-row seats in vinyl?
Clearly, the Lincoln has the Sienna beat in plush interior surroundings. No Cartier clock on the Toy, for openers!
The Sienna’s weight gain is reflected in its fuel economy. I have been driving the Lincoln for about a month now, and have been averaging about 20-21 mpg when I drive it. Not much different, and my car has a V8. Where’s the Toyota efficiency, man?
OK, it’s a different world now. Stricter regulations, stricter CAFE, etc., ad infinitum. I know. I get it. But I still am suprised to see the Sienna become much less of a minivan than the original. Back in my banking days, a loan officer I knew had a first-gen Sienna, and it was a nice size, comfortable, and Jay liked it quite a bit. No trouble with it, either. But like so many modern cars, each successive generation of Sienna has had more weight and less glass area than the last.
I for one, do not like this trend. This poor Sienna just happened to be a convenient target; I’m sure it’s a very nice, quiet, versatile vehicle. I actually like many of the new Toyotas, as seen in my Toyota Sunday post a few months back–particularly the Scion FR-S and new Avalon. But when a minivan weighs more than a Lincoln Town Car, you have to wonder where exactly the “mini” went. At least I do.
Yes, minivans aren’t mini anymore. To me, the most surprising number is the weight. Even my 99 Town & Country (the base LX, even) weighed nearly 4500 pounds. When we wonder why the transmissions always go out, think of how the poor thing is pulling the equivalent to a 70s Chrysler New Yorker everywhere, and this is before you fill it with 6 or 7 people.
Another surprising number (it is VAN week, after all) was that my 94 Club Wagon Chateau barely weighed over 5000 pounds. Not many would guess that the weight difference between a loaded full size van and a minivan was only 5-600 pounds.
As for your Townie, whenever i tell people about my son’s 89 Grand Marquis or my 93 Crown Vic, everyone wants to go “whoa, those things are HUGE!” The problem is that a modern minivan is about the same size and weighs more.
I don’t really think it is fair to totally blame the weight on the T&C for the demise of its tranny. The sad fact is that Chrysler still cannot make a front wheel drive transmission that will not break simply from just staring at it.
@Leon, to be honest most of the manufacturers are using the same FWD transmission for vehicles that use the same engine. For example, if a FWD sedan and a FWD minivan share an engine, you can bet they have the same transmission. So then the question becomes, which standard of weight and stress was it engineered to?
This would be true but the trans in Mr. Cavanaugh’s T&C is the Ultradrive 41TE trans born in 1989. It was put in everything from V6 Dodge Shadows to the 2010 T&C. Anything with FWD and a V6 got that engine in it. The Dodge Shadow/ Plymouth Sundance were very light cars and it failed in them.
This leads me to believe that weight is not the issue on the Ultradrive trans but that it could not handle a V6 engine at all and that torque(another laughable thing when it comes to describing the V6 in those cars) killed the transmission
The big problem with the ultra drive was the fact that they skimped on the friction material thickness so there just wasn’t any service life.
Another common reason for Ultradrive failure, at least later on, was drive in lube places were doing tranny flushes and putting Dexron II in it. The manual states Dexron can be used in an emergency but it will kill it in no time.
The early Ultradrives were so bad that at the dealership I worked for we got them by the 5 ton truck load. The techs got so good at swapping them out they made money even on warranty time. Within two years the Ultradrive was somewhat better but even the later ones were over taxed in an AWD Grand Caravan.
The Ultradrive debacle wasn’t a big deal on the vans, which were always the cheapest on the market. It did a lot to kill sales of the LH and the more expensive stuff.
It is fair to compare your LTC to any common passenger vehicle. It is common among my kids to refer to a friend’s “car” even if it is a Ford Escape. The CUVs, SUVs, minivans and big cab pickups are very much the “cars” of today.
I wish I would have grabbed a picture at my local Costco recently. An older gent was at the gas pumps with a ’77-’79 Buick Electra – very nice base model with no vinyl top. The car looked amazingly small among all the other vehicles – even the few sedans which were generally much taller. And, I’m not talking about Suburbans. Toyota Highlanders, Chrysler T&C, Jeep Libertys, Jeep Grand Cherokees, Lexus crossovers etc. were well represented,
The only thing that really stands out anymore about older cars is the width. Following an early ’80s Caprice the other day, the car still seemed wider than most vehicles on the road. Once in a blue moon a true classic like a ’59 Chevy will come at you at night, and you’ll swear it is two motorcycles due to the distance between headlights.
And, I’d agree with JP. I saw a very nice ’88–90 Crown Vic in a parking lot recently and could not get over how SMALL it looked. And to think we had problems with a few self described “green activists” back in the day that would slice up the vinyl roof on new Crown Vics sitting in dealer lots. They are probably driving Sequoias today!
> The only thing that really stands out anymore about older cars is the width.
And the low beltlines and lots of glass in the greenhouse.
Cars, minivans and trucks are growing to ridiculous sizes. IMO too damn big. What is the sense of a pickup truck with a bed so tall you need a ladder just to reach into it? I am nearly 6′ 5″ tall (and I weigh just around 200lbs not 300! lol) and I can’t even see into the bed of the new generation of trucks. I do not understand, but luckily I don’t have too.
I’ll hang on to my old cars and truck for as long as I can.
the new Toyota Tundra is literally like 8 feet tall!!!
Mini vans are no longer mini and many midsize cars have reached the size of the full size cars of yore. I love when I get to a stoplight and see a W-body (considered a full size in the minds of many) next to a newer Altima or Accord. They are all damn near the same size but in the minds of many the W-body is HUGE.
Narrowness of modern designs is my true gripe. I’ll never accept the “Super Epsilon” (new Impala and XTS) as a full size car when it is barely wider than the new Malibu.
that’s because Super Epsilon II cars, Lacrosse, Impala, XTS are only a lengthened version of the Epsilon II chassis used on Insignia, Regal, Malibu…
essentially they are the same cars, with different looking bodies.
So they are like the EEK Imperials and Fifth Avenues of the early ’90s–a stretched version of the more bread-and-butter models (Dynasty and New Yorker Salon, in this case).
And the EEK wasn’t right either. Full size cars should be as wide inside as a Town Car or a DTS.
I agree. It’s width that makes a car feel large and more substantial. I had a new Impala for a rental in Calgary last week. Way too narrow. The Avalon is a much better car.
I like this series:) I’ve had my MN12 Cougar called a land yacht by friends before, yet it’s even smaller than the Town Car, has the same drivetrain, has IRS and weighs in at 36-3700lbs. It’s practically a featherweight among modern “pony” cars and any car in the midsize segment, newer than 2008 or so, that I park next to literally dwarfs it(especially in height).
Yeah yeah, safety. Riiiight… And people get obese because they are cushioned for impact and float in water… Safety!
Well, after all, the Lincoln Town Car has seating capacity for maximum of 5 people while the porky Toyota Sienna has seating for 7 up to 8. The Lincoln gets 19 mpg Combined 16 City 24 Highway,
while the porkier Toyota Sienna gets better mileage at 21 mpg
Combined 18 City 25 Highway.
So, the Toyota is porkier but carries more people and gets better gasoline mileage. Cars are designed for different purposes. A Town Car is designed for comfort while a Toyota Sienna is designed for utility. Bad comparison here.
Ah, but I get 20-21 with mine. And my Townie is a six-passenger automobile. Six seats, six seatbelts.
Technically, yes. Nothing personal, But just don’t ask me to sit up there next to you 🙂
OK; not you. But Danny DeVito may well be quite comfortable 🙂
I fit 7 in my 1997 Continental with a front bench seat once. We were in college, and the other 2 up front with me were smaller females, so that helps…
Lincoln could have done a Town Car wagon, put in a modern V6 and six speed transmission and it would have made a decent people mover. How many times do most people put 7 in a minivan? A few years ago on vacation I wanted to rent a Town Car to give my kids a feel of the old days. Ended up with a Sienna. White with grey interior no options, next to bottom trim line. Roomy and competent in a Whirlpool side-by-side sort of way.
I guess you could say I saw two as very comparable if they were both on my rental list for the exact same purpose!
“Lincoln could have done a Town Car wagon, put in a modern V6 and six speed transmission”
.
*Cough*..I’ll just leave this here
DAMN, you beat me to it!
Wikipedia says MKT sales peaked at 7,400 a year. I had no idea that car had been such a bust. I see tons of them, but almost all of them are in the “TOWN CAR” livery-only trim.
Well, I was making reference to making an updated Panther RWD wagon, I realize this FWD AWD D4 platform is out there. My point, the Town Car was an old school people mover and the Sienna a new one serving similar functions.
Oh, you mean something like this? Then there could of been the more upscale Lincoln Mark Wagonbrougham Landau de Elegante’
Ahhhh, that Town Car with an oval Taurus wagon back hurts my brain!
Here’s a ’97 TC wagon made out of what appears to be gen1/2 Taurus estate parts. Works a (tiny) bit better than the TC with the oval Taurus back. Possibly.
That’s a Crown Vic
.
It was on Hemmings a couple of years ago, here’s the link
http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2011/02/09/hemmings-find-of-the-day-1997-ford-crown-victoria-station-wagon/
Yeah I know, my mind was typing “CV”, my fingers were typing “TC”… D’oh!
Woah, who made those station wagons?
I’m blown away by how good (ie. well made) the Town Car/Taurus looks. It would look factory had they dressed up the tail lights.
The Crown Victoria station wagon doesn’t look half bad either but you can tell where they merged it. I really can’t on the TC one.
The two door one is also interesting…
Lincoln does make a Town Car wagon with a 300hp V6 and 6-speed transmission…
Perception is everything nowadays. Today’s Corolla is bigger then the Camry of 20 years ago. Accord is considered a full size car now and the Toyota minivan is no longer mini but a serious bloat wagon.
Even traditional luxobarges like your Townie, are not really that big compared to today’s cars. The length of the 2011(regular and not the L version) Town car is 215.4in
By contrast the Length of the 2011 Taurus is 202.9 inches which in the grand scheme of things is not really that much difference because the taurus is bigger inside(due to better ergonomics and no trans hump) and the Taurus trunk is huge
The width of both the 2011 Taurus and TC are less then 3 inches difference.
The Towncar is a bigger gas hog and is much slower then the 2011 Taurus. The TC has a V8 rated at 239 HP with a 4 speed auto and a fuel econ of 16 City and 24 HW. The 2011 Taurus has a 3.5 V6(the non SHO engine) with 263HP with a 6 speed auto and 18 City and 28 HW gas econ numbers.
So it seems like todays barge is tomorrows row boat
This.
It’s funny, the Accord grew from a subcompact to a compact to mid-size to what it is today, and what did Honda do? They created a smaller model, which in turn grew to such proportions that they then introduced a new smaller model. I’ve always considered Honda’s Accord/Civic/Fit/whatever comes next when the Fit gets bigger to be the archetype of this phenomenon.
Yup. They all got bigger but we are overthinking all this. I would take the TC every time. It will tow 4000 lbs. It gets 21mpg and the fanboys claim up to 26 after doing some fanboy magic. They quit torture testing the engine at 500k when the timing belt (or chain or whatever) hadn’t broken. It’s plebeian kin the CV is still the cop car of choice in Houston and departments are trying to figure out how to replace it. It’s middle class sib the MGM is probably the most frequent cream puff on the market. It may be the best buy out there. By 2002, all the bugs were gone and the 2001 and prior years the upgrades are cheap.
I may be anachronistic but to me that makes a great car. If I’m going for a van I think I want to be able to speak similarly of it.
The only magic needed to make a Panther pull down 26 MPG or better on the freeway is finding 100% pure, unadulterated gasoline, and not E10.
I’m perfectly content with people thinking panthers are land yachts and gas hogs. that’s why you can buy them cheap. I think the perception stems from the old style styling in the longer lower wider idiom as opposed to today’s taller shorter bulkier look. the panthers were DESIGNED to look longer than they actually were. and the modern crashmobiles weigh much more for their size which hurts their mileage. I’m OK with all this, it’s great to pay less for a better, simpler car.
That Cartier is a thing of beauty. I truly hope that Lincoln will return to making such beautiful truly-American cars. Thank you for a wonderful article with great photos.
I remember when I was in college I saw an 2008 or so Honda Odyssey parked right next to a late 90s Toyota 4Runner. The Odyssey was the same height, much wider, and most likely weighed more, without looking it up right now. The 4Runner looked tiny in comparison to the Odyssey.
Eh, de gustibus non est disputandum. And panthers just aren’t to my taste, if only because they’re the kind of car my dad would have lusted after (although, to be fair, he had some fun in the Mustang GTs i drove back to NJ at Christmas in 82 and 86). For the time being I’ll stick with my 09 Mazda6, because I like having a sedan that works with me rather than fighting against me when I want to change directions.
[Insert praise of Panther and similar platforms here]
[Insert disparaging remark on the size of today’s minivans, pickup trucks, crossovers, and their drivers here]
Did I do it right, guys?
If you think the American minivans are big, you should go to Japan and see some of theirs. Yes, they’ve got American-size and smaller, but they’ve also got some models as big as our full-size platforms (E-Series, Express, etc.) but FWD and built three inches off the ground.
As for the pickup trucks, well, there’s absolutely no one keeping you from buying a 4×2 model, lowering it slightly, and still maintaining the same ground clearance as a 20-year-old model. Yes, it’s too bad it’s not like that from the factory, but it’s time to put your big-boy pants on and deal with it. I’m sorry if I sound too snippy, but it’s just so easy for people to complain about something because they think it’s not possible to change it.
I should add: I completely agree with what people have been saying about the Town Car and most 60’s, 70’s and 80’s models consciously emphasizing width, low height and long hoods and trunks, and how they look bigger than they really are because of it.
“well, there’s absolutely no one keeping you from buying a 4×2 model, lowering it slightly, and still maintaining the same ground clearance as a 20-year-old model.
I’d rather just buy the 20 year old version.
Or get a Dakota/little Tundra.
It seems like minivans, even more than any other consumer-grade vehicle, are driven very much by marketing clinics and my impression is that “more space” is a recurring refrain in minivan clinics.
As to why, I suspect a major reason is not so much that Americans are getting fatter, but that if you have kids, the child seat rules mean that each child basically needs their own individual Mercury space capsule. I am thankfully child-free, but people I’ve known with younger children have been endlessly frustrated by the rules, which among other things change all the time and periodically render your expensive child seats useless. (The last I heard, kids had to be in child seats through age 10 regardless of height or weight, which was the subject of much mirthless laughter from parents of my acquaintance whose kids were already closing in on 5’11 by that age.)
So, the traditional practice of stuffing three small children into the back seat of a typical sedan is pretty much illegal. Putting your kids in the reverse-facing jump seats in old-school station wagons would probably get you a child protective services complaint.
I can vaguely remember ever even sitting in a booster seat. My first memories of riding in any vehicle were the inward-facing jump seats on Dad’s ’75 F-250 SuperCab. My sister on the passenger side, myself on the driver’s side. The monstrous width of the pickup meant that our four-year-old legs were impossible to kick each other with, but we could still make a card table out of the 50-gallon cooler. No, that’s not a typo; my parents will still pack two waters and a pop for every passenger, plus a box of Ritz and a block of cheese for any “trip,” regardless of length. Meanwhile, here I am going six hours with just a bottle of water, stopping only once to get gas.
Back on topic: part of it has to do with the fact that, despite their perfectly good little legs, most parents are convinced that their children must ride in a stroller or, later, one of those big plastic wagons until their fifth birthday. Those things take up an awful lot of space in any car; especially since, like everything else, they have to keep getting bigger and bigger to offer more safety and protection.
Grumble grumble kids these days! Grumble grumble back in my day! Grumble grumble get off my lawn! Etc., etc.
I am so glad I just barely predated all of those ridiculous child seat laws as a youngster. In elementary school all our neighborhood families used to car pool and whoever’s Mom or Dad was driving guaranteed shotgun for their kid, who gleefully lorded the superior position over everyone in the back seat. Oh what irresponsibility!!!
And people wonder why younger generations hate cars… there’s the smoking gun.
I totally agree, we bind children in their little pods isolating them from any interaction with the car. By the time they are old enough to be free of the pod they have no interest in the conveyance they see as nothing more then a device for getting them to their scheduled activities. Safety is important I don’t have the answer, but the next time you hear about millennia’s lack of interest in the auto, this is a good starting point
Another interesting comparison, the new Fiat 500L, and my car, a 2003 Mazda Protege 5.
Both are roughly the same length (170 inches, give or take), about a couple of inches difference in width, but the Fiat is considerably taller.
This has the effect of making the car appear much more substantial than it actually is (read, larger), and my car is not all that tall, its low and long in appearance, so looks smaller than it really is.
Also, the Fiat rides a tad taller in so far as the ground clearance is concerned, and I think weighs a bit more than my Mazda, which is just over 2700#.
The first time I saw this generation of Sienna, the first thing that came to my mind was, “There isn’t anything mini about this van!” I was a minimalist dad and I only had a mini-van once for like three months. On any other car I had I never had a problem putting in car seats or packing our stuff. The real secret is not to have much stuff, but when I see the contraptions that see people loading into their cars, I have to shake my head. This is especially true when the kids is above three and can darned well walk. People just are accustomed to going everywhere when a crapload of stuff and hence their people (and stuff) movers are bigger.
Vans like this Sienna make me want to wretch and hurl but I know why they exist. Toyota has beaten Detroit at its own game, making cars middle America just love. We live in an era of little taste. People eat at McDonald’s for pete’s sake. They wouldn’t know a cool car if somebody gave it too them. In my eyes, this Lincoln is fantastic and if I were to live in a place like Edmonton, that’s what I would buy. It’s an ideal prairie boat and for what you’d pay for a clean one, who gives two hoots how much gas it burns.
Last summer we rented a minivan for a family trip, and Hertz gave us a choice between a Dodge Grand Caravan and one of these Siennas. Going outside to look at them it took me all of 10 seconds to choose the Sienna. I can’t imagine anyone at a dealer lot, even a Dodge fan like I am, would choose a Dodge over a Sienna.
Yeah they’re big – really big. Inside they dwarf the dimensions of our ’00 Grand Voyager, but that’s good. For a family of five it allows quite a bit of room to spread out.
Also I was pretty astonished to find out just how heavy they were. I expected a little bit of “go” considering they have something in the range of 280 horsepower, but it didn’t feel any more enthusiastic than the 3.8 in our Grand Voyager, and definitely not comparable to the 4.7 in my Dakota (which on paper has similar HP). When I found out the curb weight dwarfed my 4×4 Dakota, it all made sense. These are a LOT of car.
For a highway cruiser it was pretty great. Set the cruise to 92 on a barren stretch of interstate with two adults, three kids, and a ton (seriously) of cargo – it happily delivered around 21 mpg with the AC blasting.
Of course, so does our ’00, and my Dakota will toe it’s foot in the 20’s when the wind isn’t too much and I keep it below 75.
These really are BIG vans, even to drive. Driving it reminded me more of my old 8 foot box F-150 than it did of our minivan, or even my Dodge.
I’m kind of confused here, are you comparing a new Sienna to an older Dodge Caravan or a new one?, because if you were to compare current models you’d find the Caravan is larger then the Sienna in every single dimension and volume. If the Sienna appeared larger to you it simply was an optical illusion the Caravan is bigger
Only someone from a northern state could ask why minivan’s don’t have vinyl. Spend a summer in Texas as a kid in shorts and with your grandma’s vinyl upholstered LTD and you never ask that again. Yeeeoowww!
Another reason kids today are so soft. In our day, we learned how to get along just fine with vinyl patterns burned into the backs of our legs. Made men out of us.
Sweet Lincoln, Tom! Makes me want one. All those acres of leather and the clock! Nothing like an analog clock. (I’m serious, they look so much better than any digital one.)
That fuel economy is actually pretty good for such a car. That’s about what I get on the freeway with my 4cyl and it doesn’t make as nice of a sound.
I agree that cars have grown in dimensions, but you’d kind of expect the “mini” van to be bigger simply because its a van. But for the purpose of busting the stereotype of the Lincoln being bigger than everything around, it’s true, it isn’t that much larger and frankly, it’s a much better car since it’ll most likely outlast most of the cars made today.
So I’ll take one gladly any day!
I can see a business sprouting up in the same vein as Wagonmaster, but for the Panthers.