Welcome to part two – let’s skip the preliminaries and get right to the meat of the subject, starting with the ‘70s. When we’re talking “last ever made,” sometimes things are not quite what they seem. Especially when dealing with carmakers, such as Citroën in the mid-‘70s, who were in the midst of considerable difficulties.
These pictures were taken at the old Quai de Javel works in Paris on 24 April 1975. The car, a Citroën DS 23 IE with a 5-speed manual and “bleu Delta” paint, was probably not the last DS ever made, nor is the number on the windshield accurate, according to many DS fanatics.
It seems a few more saloons were made over the next few months, and the wagons seem to have continued into 1976 (perhaps). Coachbuilder Chapron, who made the DS cabriolet and their own line of specials, delivered the last DS drop-top in 1978, though there are rumours that some cars were made even after that date. Some say the total number of DSs made between 1955 and 1975 is closer to 1,145,000 – series production is not an exact science, sometimes.
This one is perhaps a little more clear-cut. The very last Cadillac Eldorado convertible is duly feted as it rolls off the line and into the history books. As with all the final Eldos, this one was a Bicentennial Edition triple-white, built on 21 April 1976. GM offered it to the Smithsonian, who said “Nah, we’re good.” So it went into GM’s private stash. The other 199 Bicentennial Eldorados were sold during the summer of 1976 at crazy prices – the MRSP was US$ 11,049, but some dealers jacked it up to the US$ 20,000 mark. When Cadillac re-introduced a drop-top in the range in 1983, some of the folks who had bought ’76 Eldorados slapped GM with a class action suit for “false advertising,” which was thrown out of court. Caveat emptor.
OK, this is not the last Beetle ever made, but it’s a pretty nice photo. And there’s all the info on it one might require, except the precise location, which is Uitenhage – Africa’s largest car manufacturing plant, located in the Eastern Cape province. However, this was not the last Beetle made on the continent: Nigerian production, using CKD kits from Brazil, continued until 1989. And of course the old VW Typ 1 was made in Mexico until 2003…
There are a few parallels between the Beetle above and the Saab 96: both were derived from their makers’ first model and both ended their production life abroad. In the case of the Saab, the place was the Valmet factory in Uusikaupunki, Finland. Not a million miles from Sweden, but still. This picture was taken on 8 January 1980, according to the Saabplanet website. Saab shifted the 96 / 95 assembly line to Valmet in 1969 to focus on the new 99. It is said that the 65,000-odd Suomi-made Saabs were even better than the Swedish-built ones, in terms of fit and Finnish (ha ha).
Abingdon, Oxfordshire, is the birthplace of the MG marque. But on this day in October 1980, the axe fell on one of MG’s best-sellers, the legendary B, after 19 years of service and with no successor in sight. Quintessentially British roadsters were no longer a priority for the moribund conglomerate that was making them. British Leyland terminated the Midget in 1979, the MG B in 1980 and the Triumph TR7 in 1981, abandoning a niche they had dominated for decades, in favour of putting MG badges on the Metro and Triumph ones on Honda saloons. Though factually and grammatically correct, that last sentence has so many things wrong with it.
The reverberations of Peugeot’s takeover of Chrysler Europe were considerable – and almost sank Peugeot themselves. Here is one of the big tremors of this troubled time: the closure of the ex-Rootes plant at Linwood, near Glasgow, in May 1981. On top of the last car, a Talbot Sunbeam, was a cardboard coffin. The Linwood plant, which had opened in 1963 and was a major source of employment in that part of Scotland, left a big gap when it was shut down. Over 60% of Linwood’s workforce were still unemployed 12 months after this photo was taken.
A few months later on the other side of the planet, Mitsubishi, who had bought Chrysler’s Australian operation, were terminating the Valiant CM, after that nameplate had taken root and gone native, not unlike the Ford Falcon, in the antipodean market.
But unlike the Falcon, which outlived its American cousin by several decades, the Aussie Valiant’s life was cut short pretty soon after it disappeared in its country of origin. After leaving the Tonsley Park plant, this 565,338th and final Valiant was preserved by a Sydney Chrysler dealer and not registered until it was sold at auction in 2003, with only 26 km on the clock, to a Chrysler collector from Victoria.
Some of these pictures can seem pretty depressing, depending on the context and the history of the model that is being commemorated. In this instance, however, we can see how a retirement can be a cause for celebration for a job well done. This July 1982 picture is a proper send-off, not a wake. The Cortina was a certified hit for Dagenham for two decades and five generations, being Ford UK’s bread-and-butter RWD saloon and the top seller on its home market for most of its tenure. Even in its final model year, it was still clinging on to the #2 spot. The Sierra that followed it also sold well, but never had the same magnetic appeal. Ford for the win!
From Dagenham, we go to Kōln, keeping it in the blue oval family. The Capri was launched in January 1969, but production had started in late 1968, both in England and West Germany. The second generation Capri (1974-78) was the first Ford to feature a hatchback. The last generation lasted all the way to 19 December 1986, when this photo was taken. Ford made close to 1.9 million Capris; most were sold in Europe and North America, but some Mk 1 models were assembled in Australia and South Africa.
The Capri’s arch-rival on the European market was the Opel Manta, made from 1970 to 1988. This picture was taken at the GM plant in Antwerp, where most of the 2nd generation (1975-88) Mantas were built – including this final one, surrounded by a 1st gen Manta A and an Irmscher rally-spec 400. Unlike Ford, GM already had a successor planned to take over from the Manta, in the form of the FWD Calibra. But with a 14-year production run, the Manta B was the longest-lived Opel model ever made.
A slight jump back in time here, as we gaze at the last AMC ever made (according to this web page, anyway), a 1988 Eagle wagon that came out of the Brompton, Ontario factory on 15 December 1987 and arrived at the Oklahoma City AMC dealer by New Year’s Eve. The guy who bought it, Alan Strang, drove all the way from California to collect it on 19 January 1988.
If I understand correctly, the 2300-odd 1988 Eagle wagons that were made were not technically called AMC, but just plain Eagle. Chrysler had taken over and just couldn’t wait a few months until they stopped production – they needed the AMC name dead as soon as possible. Doesn’t make much difference, but it does look a bit petty.
The Citroën 2CV had a whopping 42-year run, debuting in October 1948. The flat-twin tin snail buried the Renault 4CV, the Fiat 500, the Morris Minor and countless other rivals, including Citroën’s own replacement for it, the Dyane. But nothing lasts forever – in 1988, the Levallois factory stopped production, which was moved to Mangualde, Portugal.
The last 2CV was made on 27 July 1990, quite literally with fanfare. Over 3.8 million saloons had been made and it spawned an additional 5 million derivatives (2CV van, Ami 6 / 8, Dyane, Méhari, FAF, etc.) made in over a dozen countries. This car was sold new to a private owner in Alsace and is still in good condition.
As the winds of change were blowing across Europe in the late ‘80s, the DDR caught a nasty cold. The collapse of the Berlin Wall led to German reunification, but also to a difficult readjustment process in East Germany. The car industry, more or less stuck in the ‘60s, was a prime example and the Trabant, a real symbol of a calcified economy, was necessarily on borrowed time.
Of course, that meant that a lot of folks would lose their jobs, but the former Auto Union works at Zwickau, by then called Sachsenring Automobilwerke GmbH, were especially vulnerable, due to the plummeting sales of their wares. Despite its new Volkswagen-derived 1.1 litre 4-stroke engine, on 10 April 1991, the Trabi was put out of its misery in the form of a pink Universal wagon. Sachsenring still exists as a part manufacturer for VW, but the historic Zwickau plant is a shadow of its former self.
The same happened over at Automobilwerke Eisenach, the ex-BMW works that produced the Wartburg. The AWE folks had been a little more ahead of the game than their counterparts in Zwickau. In 1988, the Wartburg switched from a longitudinal 1-litre 3-cyl. two-stroker to a VW-sourced 1.3 litre 4-cyl. mounted transversally. The car was essentially all new underneath, and it had cost AWZ a pretty pfennig, but it was all for naught: despite a mild facelift, the Wartburg’s ‘60s designed body still looked too old-fashioned. April 1991 also signaled the end of the line for Eisenach. The firm was liquidated and the factory demolished, though a new Opel plant opened in the city in 1992.
Try as I might, I cannot come up with a segue to jump from Wartburg to the Rolls-Royce Phantom VI. So here we are, abruptly thrust from the gloom of the DDR to the glamour of the last separate chassis Roller. This is an unusual final car in many ways, of course. It’s a four-door cabriolet, which is uncommon. It was designed by Pietro Frua, but he never managed to get it finished in his lifetime, so the half-done Phantom lingered for many years, from one coachbuilder to the next. The work was finally finalized in mid-1992 – the chassis was over 20 years old, by then.
Frua designed and built another (and pretty similar, especially the rear, which also used Citroën SM taillights) Phantom VI special, a two-door convertible, but that one he managed to see through to completion in 1973. The four-door changed hands even as it was being made, which did not help. Since nobody at Rolls-Royce spoke Italian and Frua understood very little English, things took a lot of time. The 374th and last “standard” Rolls-Royce Phantom VI chassis was bodied by Mulliner-Park Ward (as a laundaulette, I believe) and delivered to Brunei (where else?) in January 1992, so this 1971/1992 Frua special is really the last of the breed to have hit the pavement.
Let’s keep the British coachbuilt limo thing going as we glance at the Daimler DS420. Only 22 Daimler limos were bodied in 1992 (and 14 chassis made), the final year of production. Here, we have the penultimate car, bought by Buckingham Palace for the Queen Mother’s use. Like all DS420s, this car has a 4.2 litre 6-cyl. “XK” engine – a 40-plus year old design, at that point.
And here’s the last one made in November 1992. This Daimler is kept by the Jaguar Heritage Trust, who rent it out for special occasions. It was only registered for road use in 1994, but it still works for a living, as any limousine worth its salt should.
The last classic Mini came off the line at Longbridge on 4 October 2000 and was driven off by ‘60s icon Lulu (not pictured… I think). It must have been an emotional moment for many folks in Britain and the world – few cars had such a positive image as the old Mini. After all, 5.4 million loyal customers can’t all be wrong…
Here’s the red Cooper as part of the British Motor Museum in Gaydon, Warwickshire. The same museum also has the first production Mini.
Lansing, Michigan, 29 April 2004: Oldsmobile takes a bow with the last Alero. This was not unexpected – GM had put the marque on death row back in late 2000, and many saw it circling the drain since the late ‘80s. Oldsmobile’s agony was perhaps longer than it should have been, in retrospect. Not unlike Plymouth’s. The Big Three were in a bad place, at the start of the new millennium. There would be more victims soon after – Mercury, Saturn, Pontiac and Hummer, as well as the sale of Opel and Isuzu, the sad nixing of Saab and the closure of Ford and GM’s Australian operations. Too many “last evers” to contemplate – but some have been the subject of CC posts already…
But I wanted to end this series on a quirky note. And what could be quirkier than the last VW T2 “Kombi,” made on 18 December 2013 at São Bernardo do Campo, Brazil? Sure, the Beetle was the original VW, but this was the last direct derivative of the Beetle to kick the bucket.
The Typ 2 had changed quite a bit since its inception in 1949. The Brazilian version was based on the 2nd generation that had debuted in late 1967. VW’s air-cooled flat-4s breathed their last in 2005, so the Brazilian T2 was adapted to use the Gol’s water-cooled 1.4 straight-4, which entailed a fairly disastrous rhinoplasty. Still, it bought the old van a few additional years of production life.
That’s it for this little trip down memory lane. Of course, this was just a little peek at this extremely wide subject. There are so many more pictures of “last-evers” potentially that I ‘m sure a few more posts could be made. If you happen to have a photo of one, feel free to share in the Comments below.
Related posts:
CC Twofer: 1970 Citroën DS 21 & 1974 Citroën DS 23 – The Goddess Is In The Details, by T87
Car Lot Classic: 1976 Cadillac Eldorado – RENT!!!, by PN
CC Global: 1970 Saab 96 in Stockholm, by Robert Kim
Curbside Classic: 1978 MGB – Determined To Survive, by Eric703
Automotive History – The Valiant in Australia, Part Two, by JohnH875
Curbside Classic: 1986 AMC Eagle Wagon – Ahead Of Its Time, And Behind The Times, by Eric703
Curbside Classic: 1969 Citroen 2CV – The Most Original Car Ever, by PN
Carshow Classic: 1984 Trabant 601-S – The Other People’s Car From The Other Germany, by Roger Carr
Curbside Classic: 1988-1991 Wartburg 353 1.3 – The East German Audi, In More Ways Than One, by PN
Curbside Classic: Daimler DS420 Limousine – Forgotten Lesser Royalty, by Robert Kim
Curbside Classic: Austin Mini – Yesterday’s Mini; Today’s Micro, by PN
Curbside Classic: 2001 Oldsmobile Alero GLS – Going Out in Style, by Brendan Saur
Automotive History Capsule: The Last Oldsmobiles – Falling With Style, by Dan Cluley
The End Of The Road For The Last Classic VW Bus: Brazilian VW Kombi Production Wraps Up, by PN
Mitsubishi actually continued building Valiants and 82 models still exist, on the build/compliance plate under the bonnet it says Mitsubishi not Chrysler, bloody good cars the old Valiants, Aussies might not think much of em but Kiwis loved em.
The newest Valiant I ever saw which was for sale locally in the mid 00’s was for NZ$8000 was a black or very dark brown 83 station wagon which possibly an ex-hearse, it had a lift up hatchback tailgate instead of the usual fold down tailgate.
Not so rear are 83 Cortina Mk5 wagons which were sold along Telstar sedans, until Sierra wagons arrived.
I forget that wagons were the CUV,SUV of the 80’s here, the minivan only made a small impact here, I’m guessing because only two small models were widely available the Mitsubishi Chariot and Honda Civic Shuttle.
Oh Kiwi, Aussies loved the Val, it’s just that opinion of them was much affected (in part) by pure old racism.
This is a country that had the White Australia Policy on its books until 1973, but a country that had, from need, allowed mass immigration from post-war Southern Europe (no Asian or skin-tone trouble there, y’see). And for reasons unknown to me, the Chrysler products became very popular with all the Greek and Italians. So they became known as cars for “them”, people we called “wogs” and worse: wog chariots, wogmobiles, we said. Good god.
This immigration wave from the late ’40’s to the late ’60’s was from the poor areas of south Europe, and these folk came and worked all the hard, shitty jobs and sacrificed everything to succeed for their kids (not to mention for their new proudly-adopted country). The Vals were mechanically the best of any local cars, the toughest, and then the biggest, and these people bought well, and quite sensibly – so-called “Aussies” bought often inferior rubbish from Holden and Ford, and suffered accordingly. Perhaps not coincidentally, these people also bought edible food to this stiff old Empire outpost, replacing silly Yorkshire puds and roast muttons with all the good stuff of the Med (and boy, was I ever jealous of their school lunches!). Changed the place utterly for the better, permanently.
But at the time as this all unfolded, the cars became stigmatized: ya just wouldn’t buy one, maaate, what are youse, a bloody wogboy? And so, the idea Aussies didn’t much like the Val emerged, that plus the fact it was a perennial 3rd place-getter in the sales race, which was actually a product of pricing, then car-size (and fuel-crisis) issues.
Smart Aussies (I reckon, oddly enough, more conservative ones) often got the immense value and intrinsic mechancical superiority of the car and bought it for those reasons. Not including the nebulous issue of looks, they were entirely right!
I love Vals and always will, in a way I had no choice, as they were made by the same great Corporation that made my heroes, Road Runners, Chargers etc.
My first 2 cars were Valiants, my next car was a HR Holden that was an embarrasment to drive, it could hardly get out of its own way, and I never forget driving a mates HR Prem. with a Powerglide, it was a beautiful car in terms of solid construction and interior quality, but when you floored it nothing happened ! it wasn’t like that in a Val, when you floored a Valiant you were on your way somewhere fast.
justy, your right about the wog car aspect, and this was drilled into us in every school (yard).
But there was more to their lack of popularity, in terms of body constuction (rust resistance aside) and interior quality, they wern’t as good as the competion and this would have been apparent in the showroom. This would come to haunt them in the 1970s as the expense of the huge range of models caused quality to become worse.
The Valiants I owned were well past their use by date and they felt like it.
Equivalent Holdens and Falcons didn’t feel as tired even though in mechanical reality, they wern’t any better.
I still love em though and would love to have a VH Charger with a 265 and a 3 on the floor before I die.
I jumped the gun last time, so will add the picture of the final International Scout rolling from the line in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Yes, the name of that final Eagle wagon was odd. It could be argued that it was both the brand name and the model name – an Eagle Eagle?
Beat me to it.
The last Holden-manufactured Holden car: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-capsule/curbside-expatriot-2017-chevrolet-ss-shes-the-last-of-the-four-door-rwd-manual-v8s/
What?!? No final Chevrolet Vega?!? 😆
Automotive jello, hard to nail down.
The wagon body continued for a number of years as a Monza with the Iron Duke. But it was a Vega in all practicality.
I remember that last oldsmobile. GM gave everyone who worked in that plant a hood ornament. I still have it stashed away somewhere.
Great series of photographs and stories!
The lawsuit against GM regarding the “last” Eldorado convertible was brought by a Baltimore attorney who himself had bought one of those ‘76 convertibles, and had paid a whopping $5,000 over list price for it. Despite his claims that GM had willfully committed fraud by marketing these as the last of their breed, the case was dismissed in US District Court.
But that was not the end of the road for this particular attorney and his Eldorado. Abour a decade later, he was involved in some sort of shady real estate development case, where he attempted to pay a utility contractor for services by giving him a 1976 Eldorado convertible. Hmm… I guess he was saving that car for a special purpose!
On the other end of the size scale here, I like the picture of the last 2CV… especially the band, which is an interesting touch. But I’m curious… just what is that band? By yhe uniforms, they look military, or otherwise official. Just curious if anyone knows.
I stayed in Wenigerode Germany when there were many Trabants still on the road. They polluted like a dumpster fire, with blue black oil smoke chugging out their tails. Located in a little valley in the Harz Mountains, the coal smoke and the Trabants turned the historic pretty little mountain town into a stink.
I understand why they are loved, but it isn’t because they were good cars.
Weren’t they a two stroke engine design, like the KE-100 Kawasaki dirt bike I had?
Yep, they did until 1990.
In 1990, Trabant 601 was heavily updated with modern water-cooled four-cylinder petrol engine (a version of VW EA 111 engine produced under licence). The renamed Trabant 1.1 continued until 1991 with around 38,000 produced before the production ended for good.
This was a poignant one for me. As a child I grew up on a steady diet of
my dad’s full-sized Fords in the 60s.
The Panther was the last of the Mohicans, the one car that had a clear lineage
straight back to the Model T. BOF construction, Front-engine,RWD, solid rear axle?
Applies to both. For decades, it was “the Ford”. Even FoMoCo advertised that way,
as many of us recall. Most ads didn’t emphasize Galaxie or such, it was always
“Ford” or “Big Ford”.
One little aside story-In Aug 2012 I had to make a trip to my home town in western
Canada due to my mother’s passing . While gassing up my rental Mitsu Lancer before
dropping it off to fly back home overseas,I heard the familiar yelp of a siren, and the roar of a
V8 at full song. It was Crown Vic on an emergency call. I haven’t been back home since,
but it like I was treated to one last sight & sound of my youth , by a Panther platform
in the twilight of it career. Symbolic for both of us. I live in Asia so I’ve never heard
a remotely similar sound since.
The next time I go home, they’ll be driving those potato-shaped Explorer-based things like all other NA police agencies.
There are still a lot of Crown Vic police cars on active duty in California. Though the potato-shaped Explorer things are catching up. However, the Charger … the latter-day Crown Vic, even if not BOF … seems to be making a resurgence here.
“even if not BOF”
Let us not forget that all of those 413 and 440 powered Mopar cop cars were not BOF either, at least not after 1959.
I have no trouble seeing the 300 and Charger’s lineage back to the Chrysler 70 of 1924, Mercedes parts be damned.
If you were to lift up the mat in the boot (trunk) in the last Australian Valiant you can read 2 words written in seam sealer by an unknown assembly line worker, it simply says LAST BARSTARD.
You can see photos of it on the sv1ambo flickr page, don’t want to steal his picture, and I don’t know how to post links
That photo is here.
Regarding the Australian Valiant, was it common there to have the HVAC controls on the far right? How does your passenger fiddle with them and make the car too hot or cold while you’re busy driving? Was this an LHD to RHD conversion artifact?
I owned a quite a few of these cars and never thought about your observation, it wasn’t a LHD / RHD thing, as the earlier US derived cars had them in the middle above the radio.
The Australian Valiants were not converted from LHD to RHD. They were engineered, designed, and built from scratch as RHD units—right from the first RV-1 models of 1962.
Not quite, the first AP5s had LHD configured wipers, easy way to tell early from late production
A very good question. It wasn’t a LHD to RHD conversion aftifsct. It was simply a case of stupid design thinking.
The Holden Kingswood HQ had them on the RHS too.
For some reason a few Italian cars (eh the Lancia Fulvia sedan) had the (factory) radio (when fitted) at the extreme far side of the dash opposite to the steering wheel, almost where the glovebox would be.
The mind boggles….
Likewise, during the 1960s and 1970s a number of US cars had the climate controls to the left of the steering wheel, inaccessible to the passenger; in fact, most full-size GM cars appear to have had this arrangement through the 1976 model year.
Full-size Fords had a really strange setup for 1969 and 1970 (I may be off a year in either direction, so forgive me): The radio was to the left of the steering wheel, and the climate controls were mounted to the right, in the middle of the instrument panel – opposite of GM’s typical arrangement. For 1971, Ford reversed the placement and was similar to GM’s layout, with the radio in the middle, and the climate controls to the left of the steering wheel. From what I can tell, the climate controls moved back to the middle (along with the radio) in 1973, where they remained.
Not as familiar with Chrysler, so maybe someone else can fill us in.
UK market Chrysler/Talbot Horizon had the heater control on the RH of the steering wheel. It’s not as if there much else in the middle to squeeze them out.
The Quai Javel, Paris then when Citroen resided there :
Quai Javel > now called Quai Andre Citroen, has turned into a park where those river cruise ships more for their passengers to visit Paris.
For us the repair and overhaul season for these ships will start soon and our people will be travelling all over Europe’s rivers to service these ships.
We always attend ships there and we get permission to drive through the park and install our service trucks next to the ship in the heart of Paris.
The Rootes factory at Linwood Scotland was one of those sixties’ socalist ideas of manufacturing a society by totally ignoring the economical factors necessary to run a business : Cost management.
Most parts that were needed for the cars produced at Linwood were manufactured hundreds of miles away in the Midlands, the Motown of the Uk.
So Rootes could never be really cost effective producing cars in the North.
Add to that though the engineering of the Hillman Imp was partly brilliant for a small car, the lay out was completely form the past with its rear engine, The Mini and the Renault 4 had simply taken over and Rootes products were quite old fashioned aqnd expensive.
The abondoned Rootes factory at Linwood.
Imp history here. https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-european/auction-site-classic-1966-hillman-imp-a-car-too-far-from-home-in-too-many-ways-2/
Thanks for the tip Roger, great article on a car which was already overtaken at its launch, I really love the map showing the distance between the Midlands and Linwood.
Another final edition, closer to home (literally) for me.
I visited Adelaide and the former Tonsley Plant in 2016. There is an attempt to make a neighborhood to surround Tonsley, like Lightsview and other successful communities, as well as a retraining center within the old factory…it still seemed a little sparse…
Here’s the retail attempt:
And the retraining center (note the roof being assembled by trainees in the shop beyond)
Lovely post again, Proff T.
The sight of the last Australian Valiant there gives rise to old grievances for me.
The orphan straight six engine in that car was far and away the best engine made in this country at the time, and for many years thereafter. (It was an unwanted US truck motor originally). Holden should have swallowed pride and bought the line. At a time in which even a lightweight 4.2 litre V8 Commodore took over 18 secs to do the 1/4 mile, the 4.3 Val six would throw it and its extra 700 lbs the same distance in the low 16’s, and then give 23 mpg without much effort, vs 17 in the Commode.
So in a bizarre and somewhat fanciful way, that last Val represents yet another GM deadly sin!
On an extremely minor note, a great galumphing DS wearing the chic blue paint colour of some ultra-mod 604 or CX is, conceptually, your grandmother wearing tights (only) at a wedding – just no. Perhaps it helped prove that the grand old dame really had met her end (The DS, not your grandmother, and not YOUR grandmother either ofcourse. Mine, on the other hand..)
Aww, I was sure the ‘final’ 2007 Taurus would be part of this since I first saw the first part of this last week! The Taurus was my favorite car at the time and I was disappointed but following the story closely.
It was in late 2006 when I was a freshman in high school and I remember ABC’s World News Tonight did a segment that ran the same day highlighting the original’s innovations, and also touching on the cost-cutting and neglect the car got over its 20 year run in favor of the profitable SUVs. I was a part of the TCCA forums then and ABC got in contact with a few members and got rolling footage of their cars and a bit of commentary from the club’s president.
The final car was built in the Georgia plant and was a (silver or tan) 2007 Taurus SEL that went straight to S. Truett Cathy, founder of Chick-Fil-A (his original restaurant (the name escapes me at the moment) was located within walking distance of the plan and he arranged to buy the last car off the line… I wonder what happened to that Taurus after he died a few years ago…