If anything watch this for the actors’ Oscar-worthy performances.
CC Outtake: 1987 Mercury Grand Marquis Video – Captain Of The S.S. Land Yacht
– Posted on July 18, 2013
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Curbside Classics Archives
If anything watch this for the actors’ Oscar-worthy performances.
That was awesome!
But you did you see the sequel?
1987 Mercury Grand Marquis – Hot Swingers In Action
Fiero alert @3:03. This was fun to watch.
I wonder though….what else would the MGM’s headrests be covered with besides cloth? Advertising that is like touting tires made of real rubber.
Total CC-In-Effect: I just ran out the door to go grab lunch about an hour ago and saw a newer Charger pulling a pretty good sized boat to the lake. I was just thinking about how long it’s been since I’d seen a car pulling anything due to this “Compensator Truck” trend that has taken root in NC.
I remember vinyl headrests still being fairly common in the 80s.
Testdrivejunkie has an extensive selection of these dealer training videos on his web site of the same name. It’s easy to lose several hours of your day there (ask me how I know…)
Its not compensation, is that many cars have become to weak or fancy to really tow anything.
Okay, but why the F250 SuperDuty Dually Diesel when an F150 would be plenty adequate? I wouldn’t be surprised if they canceled the F150/C1500/etc. eventually.
I do get what you mean, we have the same infection down here in Miami, the Brodozer all blacked out diesel 250/2500 thing with obligatory “tap out” window decal and train horn only driven by complete and total assholes.
Huh, LS stands for Luxury Seats. I always wondered about that lol
actually the only car that I have had from ford was an 89 grand marquis,drove it for 5 years&ended up putting 120k miles on it including 5 cross country trips from California to Greensboro(north carlina)to visit my parents after I finished school sold it my best friend for 600 bucks with over 280k miles on clock.most reliable car to this day&never had any major issues.the kind of quality you can not find no more.great times.
Now that’s a car! I’ll take the wagon please, with that trailering package so I can pull up to 5,000 lbs. I don’t know the last time I saw a car pull anything over 300 pounds. Throw in the antique Sony Handycam and you have a deal.
Sweet video.
First traffic cop to see those morons here would blown that clowns day here unbelted passengers are $150 each and the clown driving is so close to the wheel to provide rear legroom I had to laugh he can barely turn the wheel. What a piece of junk.
Krikey, that was unexpected, Not.
Why so grumpy?
Lovers quarrel at the sheep ranch?
Horsemeat go bad?
Did you loose your last tooth?
Come on, tell us how you really feel.
I love it!
Give it a rest KiwiBryce! These Ford Panther Platforms are on record as being one of the most reliable vehicles ever built. These things pound the streets of major cities in Canada/America/Mexico for hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of km/miles . . . . and keep coming back for more. Commercial, livery, police or private use. No pieces of junk here. Perhaps you’re upset that NZ never HAD an automobile industry . . . . pity . . .
NZ has industry…..sheeps,and this kiwi guy seems to know more about sheeps than cars.
Don,t forget the Trekka I,ve got 1 of only 50 that came to Australia
In 1987 seat belt laws were not in effect in many states in the US and at the beginning many were secondary offenses so they could not pull you over for just that, they could only add it to your other offense. Even now the driver will only get a ticket for himself and any passengers under certain ages, other adults will get their own ticket. Some states still don’t have back seat laws unless they person meets the child restraint requirement. We do have one state left in the US that does not have a seat belt law of some sort, New Hampshire.
That is still one of the Joys of driving a Panther, making other people on the road safer. Pull up behind someone w/o their belt on and the next thing you know they are reaching over for it and buckling up, before pulling to the right to let me by.
Note per wikipedia FWIW my state Washington and Hawaii have the highest seat belt usage in the US as 97.6%. Paul’s state Oregon is in 3rd place at 97% and Californication is in 4th at 96.2%. Maybe it’s because we are the closest states to the greatest nation on earth and some of that goodness has floated across the Pacific Ocean.
We wore them ciompusorily from the 70s with mandatory fitmment front and rear from 71 following Ozzies ADR rules
Eric,
We do have a seatbelt law here in NH. Those under 18 must be buckled up. The rest of us can free-ball it all we want.
We are also allowed to plaster our heads into the pavement because we don’t have to wear helmets on motorcycles.
And, I believe we are one of the only states that has outlawed those newish vehicle/plate identification scanners to record locations of the general public. Those seem to making headlines alot lately.
Now if we could just stop letting the Mass people move up here and ruin things we’d be a better state 🙂
Hey now! Give us a break on the I-95 tolls and we promise to stay away. 🙂
By all means come up and spend your money, just make sure you go back home…haha.
Heck, I pay Mass income tax so you can at least pay a toll once in a while. Plus I’m sure you know that the 95 toll is very easy to get around if you don’t mind driving an extra 10 minutes for your trip.
Oh yeah, and a tip I learned the hard way…our liquor stores on the highway, usually set up before the toll booths…don’t have ATM’s, so if you don’t have cash for the toll don’t bother stopping at the liquor store for money. Really is a WTF type of situation…
I’d say that sort of falls under the child restraint laws, though 17 is pushing it for a “child”.
Every time I find one of these old commercials of the V8 Brougham era and it mentions the upgrades that the towing package brought I find myself wishing EVERY one built came with the towing package.
You know how many “square” Panthers I’ve seen on the road with the towing package? Not a single one that wasn’t a Town Car – and even with the Town Car, only a small handful.
FWIW this commercial would have been even better with the cast replaced by the cast of Gilligan’s Island.
I totally agree. The actors actually reminded me of Gilligan’s Island a little. The father is The Skipper, the mother Mrs. Howell, and the camera man son is Gilligan.
And is the daughter Mary-Ann or Ginger?
Always Mary Ann, Eric, always Mary Ann. Ginger is far too high maintenance.
Well of course those of us around here who like low maintenance cars also like our women low maintenance but the girl in the video seemed to be a bit on the high maintenance side, or at least a little snooty.
How do you know if they have the tow package or not? A hitch was not a part of the package, nothing included in the package would be visible from outside of the car. Sure if someone ordered the car and opted for the towing prep package they would likely fit it with and use a hitch, though some likely purchased it for the goodies that it included like better springs, shocks, sway bars, HD rear control arms alternator, battery, radiator/fan, and trans cooler. It was the cheapest and in some cases the only way to upgrade those items from the factory, w/o having to choose a police package and forgoing luxuries like power windows, velour or leather interior ect.
Dual exhaust, Eric. That is the clue to “box” Crown Vics and Grand Marquis having the tow package. Re-watch the video its right there.
And although I love all American V8 RWD family/near luxury/luxury sedans I generally wished every one had a stiffer suspension, HD cooling, and the higher horsepower from dual exhausts. In fact if I was made president for a day I would decree that every car, van, and truck sold in America with a V style engine (either 6 or 8 cly) have dual exhaust. Why? Cause it looks and sounds better.
Yes twice pipes is a clue that they could have the tow package but only on 87-91 cars, the earlier cars with the class III tow package did not include dual exhaust, even those early cars with the 351 and a 6,000lb rating.
The interesting thing about the Box Panthers is that the brochures don’t indicate a higher HP rating with the duals like they do on the aero cars.
Eric, you know your Panthers pretty well so let me ask then… I was on a Ford dealers lot a few years ago and there was an 1984 Lincoln Town Car sitting there. Real senior citizen special, low miles, pretty good shape, few small quarter panel rust spots. It was clearly an 84 and had the prominent taillights that protruded reward. According to the dealer it had the tow package and it clearly had dual exhaust.
Given that it was an 84 model, did the Town Car have different “rules” than the Crown Vic and Grand Marquis about dual exhaust prior to 1987?
(FYI the car ended up being purchased by a local teen and being turned into a “low rider” special. Its life was sadly short after that.)
I can’t say for certain about that particular year but yes the TC’s often had different set ups than the lesser Panthers in the same year. The lesser Panthers are also more of my forte than the TC’s.
On a 20 plus year old car you never know what a PO has done, and many people will tell you what they think you want to hear to make a sale. The only way to tell for certain if it really has the factory tow package is to crawl under it and start looking for the parts that no one would retrofit like the PS cooler or the factory trailer prep wiring with separate fuses and relays under the hood to keep the trailer’s lighting from causing problems with the car’s wiring. Of course whether those items were included with the tow package varied from year to year. Back then the trailer prep wiring consisted of a plug hanging under the back and a pigtail with 6″ of wire included in the trunk or glove box for you to connect to your desired plug.
If you look at my Aero Vic you might think it has the tow or HPP package because it has twice pipes, not that it is easy to see unless you get down low due to the way one of them is positioned. But you’d be wrong since I added those duals when the exhaust needed replacement.
If the Rear Axle code on the door sticker is ‘K’, then its a 3.55 [3.23?] rear end, Ford’ Trac-Loc.
No, it’s not a ‘posi’, that is GM’s brand name for locking differentials. Mopar’s is called ‘sure-grip’.
From my admittedly small sample size, on the B-body it seems that the trailering package is much more common on the wagons than the sedans. Maybe that’s how it was on the Ford stuff as well?
I wasn’t of car buying age back then. Was the tow package usually something that needed to be special ordered?
It does seem more common on wagons. It was a regular option, but of course that doesn’t mean that dealers would keep them in stock and this was the era where “taking delivery from dealer stock” was becoming the norm.
Hoo boy, I couldn’t get past a minute, that was torture!
The highlight for me was seeing my old silver Ranger pickup go by at 19 seconds, I wonder what I was delivering that day?
I’d forgotten all about cassette players and had no idea they were still around this late.
Hey, my ’99 Volvo S70AWD had CD and a cassette!
My 05 Bonneville also has a cd and cassette…might be one of the last offered by anyone
Outside the US cassettes were long gone.
I think the Lexus SC430 still had a tape deck up till about 2011 in the US. I think there are still a few new cars in Japan sold with tape decks.
My ’97 Nissan Laurel has cassette player, 10-stack CD, TV and A/V inputs for my iPod. All factory. The TV doesn’t get picture here, but even so I’ve spent more time playing with the TV than the cassette player…!
My ’08 Acura TL has XM, Bluetooth, a CD player with DVD-Audio, an aux-in jack…and a cassette player.
The car has more ground clearance than some of today’s 4WD SUVs.
The front bumper looks odd because it’s so high off the ground.
“So late?” Cassettes peaked in the 80’s, it was the “mix tape” era. CD’s were just coming out, but expensive. Home Computers were a luxury in ’87, no iPods, MP3’s or Droids.
Wasn’t til mid 90’s where one would say ‘still has a cassette player?’
According to this article the last car with ether a standard or optional tape deck was 2010 model year Lexuses
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/automobiles/06AUDIO.html?_r=0
The death of the CD player is next. I cannot tell you when the last time I used a CD in a car was. i used my iPod for my XB and my Ranger but when I got my Kia Forte I moved to flash drives(just as much music but at $10 cheap enough that if it dies or gets crooked then it don’t matter verses an iPod
Yeah, I was wondering the same thing? In 1987? It was casette or LP, thats pretty much it.
CD players cost $10,000 and took up entire rooms they needed engineers to run them, except in NZ of course, where they invented CD’s, they had discmans back in 1920.
Couldnt tell ya I was in OZ where the cassette player fills with red dust and doesnt work anymore
And all those UK Commonwealth cars ran on twisted rubber bands and were about as stylish as a soiled tampon (Jaguars excluded). Oh, wait – we forgot . . . they have great ground clearance on the single lane dirt roads that head to the sheep dip . . .
Cassette tape decks were still pretty common standard equipment in new cars until the early 2000s. By then they were CD/Cassette Tape combos. My mom purchased a new Toyota Highlander in 2004 that had a cassette player. It was the top-line Limited too, and still had one.
NO they werent which part of behind the times did you not understand CD players were standard on Camrys in 1990.
Yet cassettes were standard on Lexus until 3 years ago. In the US a cassette was optional on a 90 Camry and you couldn’t get a CD at any price.
I know a CD player was standard on the ’90 Allante and was available on the ’89 Bonneville. I’d assume it was available on other GM cars of the time as well.
Probably not super popular in the 80s though.
My ’91 Volvo 940SE, bought new by my dad in November of ’90, had a six-disc CD player installed in the trunk. Although it was dealer-installed, it was a factory accessory. Still worked great when I sold it in 2004.
Extensive Google research concludes the first factory CD player was in the 1985 Mercedes lineup.
Really, never seen one, I remember Ford had one of the first ones under the dash of the Town Car. It hung under the dash like the early 8 tracks.
In the U.S. in 1987, cassettes were by far the dominant format for albums, and cassette players were very common in cars. The market probably broke out something like 65% cassettes, 25% vinyl LPs, and 10% compact discs. I was 16 years old at the time, and among my age group, it was probably more like 90% cassettes, between 5 and 10% vinyl, and between 0 and 5% CD. My generation had almost completely abandoned vinyl, and few of us had adopted CDs yet, which were still seen as almost a luxury item. Cassettes were it.
Cassettes had overtaken vinyl LPs in popularity around 1983. Vinyl dropped pretty steadily in popularity after that, and was done as a mass market item by 1990, surviving after that only as a specialty item accounting for no more than a few percent of the market. Cassettes were not passed by CDs as the most popular format until around 1992. While fading in popularity, cassettes didn’t disappear from stores until about ten years after that. My wife and I had a 1995 Ford Escort, which we bought new and owned until 2007, which came with a cassette player.
I think compact discs first went on the market in 1982, but didn’t really become that widely available until 1985 or so; Dire Straits’ “Brothers In Arms” was noted as the first album to sell in significant numbers on CD in the U.S. It was around 1987 that CDs reached critical mass and really began to take off (the Beatles’ catalog was first released on CD in ’87), but even then a lot of people still didn’t have CD players, and a CD player in a car would have been an unusual sight. I think I first became aware of CDs in 1985 or 1986, and I got my first CD player as a Christmas present in 1989.
My sense is that in cars built before the first few years of the 1990s, cassette players would have been far more common than CD players; in cars built in the early to mid 1990s, both would have been common; in cars built in the late 1990s, CD players would have been more popular, but cassette players would have still been available; and that after 2000, CD players were becoming the only choice available, with cassette players increasingly uncommon.
I remember when CD’s were new and a friend and mine went to the stereo store in the “big city” to see one since they were only stocked at high end stores and there wasn’t such a store in our college town. It was $1000, this would have been in 83 or maybe 84. Plus at that time there weren’t very many CDs available period and you couldn’t pick them up at Kmart or other discount retailers, only at “record” stores.
You are correct, Bryce doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
There were three things that held back CD-only fitments to cars/trucks in the early 90s. 1. Manufacturers worried about buyers who had cassette collections. 2. The early CD players skipped pretty badly in cars. People forget about that. 3. CD players were still pretty expensive.
The solution for reason #1 was to offer cassette+CD combo units. Cars with older demos kept the combo units available until fairly recently.
Many in the US have ditched CDs in favor of MP3s but my audiophile friends swear they sound like crap compared to a CD.
I’d expect the Camrys Bryce is referring to are JDM, so it makes sense that some had them in gadget-hungry Japan in 1990.
On cassettes being gone in 1987 – I’d disagree. There were plenty of cassette-only cars (with radio of course) for 10 more years minimum.
Just returned a Crown Vic to Dollar rent a car today. Drove just like I imagine that Merc did. Crown Vics are only fleet now, but how much money did Ford make off these things?
I also recently rented a Crown Vic. They’re starting to get a bit more scarce in rental fleets, rent one soon while you can.
I would imagine that when the Grand Marquis, Towncar and CV last rolled off the factory floor in 2011, Ford probably made a hefty profit off each one due to the cost of the tooling and designs having been recouped years ago. The underpinnings of the Panther date back to the 1970’s and even though the underpinnings were slightly changed in 2003, there is still more disco era under the sheetmetal then internet age. But sometimes that means a great deal more then the latest new thing
Sorry but no there was nothing under a 2003 and up Panther that interchanged with this era Panther except the U-joints, differential (not axle) and some internal transmission parts.
Since 1979 there were 4 distinctly different frame designs, 5 different braking systems. 3 front suspension designs and 3 rear suspensions and 5 different rear axles.
In the 03 and up the only thing that was carried over was the rear control arms, watts linkages,springs, shocks and sway bar, but the axle housing was new.
They still had to pay labor costs and other operating expenses to make fleet cars, with slim profit margins.
So many post “Ford probably made a hefty profit on Panthers”, but never ever back it up with facts or figures, just assumptions. if they were true cash cows, they’d still be making them.
They were true cash cows with healthy profits being sold to fleets. If that was not the case then they would have stopped making them long before they did. They did get 3 or 4 stays of execution, depending on how you look at it, due to high demand from those fleet purchasers, before the plug was finally pulled because they couldn’t meet the 2012 US standards as they were. Originally the last cars were to be 2008’s
They wouldn’t have granted those stays of execution if they weren’t making good money. Fleets don’t get as steep as of a discount on these cars as everyone believes they do. The last I saw a P71 commanded a 24-26K price tag, compared to the 22-23K for a police Charger. The last I saw a livery TC was priced at 38-40K. So yeah they were serious cash cows particularly the TCs.
Ford did run the line at one shift capacity for the entire 2011 model year run with only Fleet LX, police and Taxi Crown Vics, livery and a hand full of retail Town Cars. At the end of Aug after their normal model year transition time they kept the line running for a little while longer to crank out some 2012 model year Crown Vics for the Gulf Council Ford dealers where they went for top dollar. The Gulf Council dealers were quite pissed that no one informed them of the short window allowed to order 2011 MY cars so Ford appeased them with some 2012s.
I’ve never seen a dealer promo or training video that isn’t entertaining.
As the son of a John Deere salesman who occasionally had to hang out with Dad at work, I concur. I was such a gear head my dad would give me a bag of the free popcorn they handed out to everyone and sit me in front of an old TV and an ancient top loading VCR. He would then load the dealer training films that Deere sent out every time a product was introduced or significantly updated.
My personal faves? A salesman picking up a lawn mower by the rear fender to demonstrate how thick the steel was compared to a similar vintage Craftsman and then the demonstration of running the mower deck into a steel pole to show that the Deere deck didn’t dent.
Good times, good times…
That was fun to watch, I actually never knew the Grand Marquis offered so many features. I’d rather be in that back seat on a trip than in the new Crown Vic with huge headrests you can’t see beyond.
Watching this makes me think GM let the Caprice wither on the vine. I look at the interior details of these and they look pretty integrated and modern but GM was still stuck in the 60’s (though I like that!) with the usual chrome window switches and controls. I can’t recall any B-body wagon offering leather seating. I think the 305 got fuel injection the following year in ’88. No alloy wheels until the ’91. I’m not sure if all of that is due to the fact that they expected it to stop selling any moment or having to do with Roger Smith. They’re fantastic cars, I have a Caprice coupe and ’83 Ninety Eight myself but my impression is all they did was push the A-cars and later, the W’s when they debuted.
I guess the GM equivalent of this Mercury would’ve been Pontiac (does the Parisienne count? Not sure if that was offered a wagon), the ’85 Delta 88 or the late 80’s Custom Cruisers. Still, I can’t help but think GM lost interest in their big cars after the mid 80s. I can’t see them going to the effort of making a promotional video like this one. Loved this post though, always interested in the last of the big cars!
Yes, a Parisienne Safari wagon was available from 1983 to 1986. The same car was offered in 1987-89, renamed Safari. Woody and non-woody versions were available to the end of production.
I always thought it a bit odd that GM had two models called Safari in 1987-89: The GMC minivan and the Pontiac.
Well remember that Chevy had the Lumina sedan/coup and the Lumina minivan(called Lumina APV) both vehicles looked nothing like each other so who knows what GM was trying to do?
Chevy was trying to Lumina a sub-marque of Chevrolet at the time, like Oldsmobile did with Cutlass. It obviously didn’t work out, and both were confusing.
Chevrolet pushed the Lumina badge in the middle east but not for American Chevys the get em from OZ
It wasn’t so much a sub-brand, but an attempt to leverage the name and save on advertising, the Lumina sedan and coupe replaced the 2 & 4 door Celebrity, the APV replaced the Celebrity wagon, more or less, though the Celebrity wagon was still available for a short while, the Lumina APV was Chevrolet’s first FWD mini-van, rather that create another nameplate for it, like Pontiac and Oldsmobile did, they chose to market it as part of the Lumina line up.
Wasn’t the 6000 Wagon with the wood trip also called a 6000 Safari?
While Ford expected boat enthusiasts to go for the Panther, GM expected VERY old people to go for the B-body.
1990 Caprice dealer promo:
1991 Caprice Sales training:
There was a Parisienne Wagon offered. There was also a Pontiac Safari offered(Safari was a Pontiac denotation for Station Wagon) I do not know how long the Parisienne wagon was offered but the Safari full size wagon was offered till the end of the 1980’s
Heres a pic of a Parisienne wagon
You could get leather on the Buick Electra Estate wagon, that would be the closest GM equivalent to the Grand Marquis, and I don’t know what you are talking about regarding interior details, I would rather have an interior “stuck in the 60’s compared to one stuck in 1979 like the Grand Ma.
Leather was also available on the 1991 and up short lived Custom Cruiser.
Here’s the leather in an ’85 Electra Estate:
Didn’t know that about the Safari and the Buick leather interior, very interesting. I’ve seen that ’90 promo vid too, I see what you mean about the older demographic it’s marketing to.
Under Roger Smith’s GM, the B-body should have been gone around 1985, and the new FWD H-body would have taken it’s spot. But GM’s FWD cars were not making the money they hoped, fuel prices dropped and suddenly GM’s old trusty RWD platforms were making serious money. So GM kept them around, but I agree little investment was made in modernizing them. I have owned a late 80’s B-body and Panther, and the Panther had a far more advanced drivetrain. GM was stuck running the terrible electronic carbs unti 1988 (on sedans) and 1990 on wagons. The TBI 305 onlt came in 1989, and wagons wouldn’t get this engine until the 1991 restyle. The old 307 4BBL was archiac compared to a 302 MPFI and power was noticibly less in the real world. I always prefered the driving manners of the GM cars to the Ford Panthers. Whereas GM B-bodies were genreally considered better (by most) in the early part of the decade than the Fords, by the end of the decade I think Ford had surpassed them. When it came to Interiors, the late 80’s Fords weren’t much better than the GM’s (other than the front seats), but Ford did modernize the dash when the airbags went. Even though the B-bodies had there short comings, I generally prefered them to the Ford Panthers. However, both leave much to be desired with there stock soft suspensions. With HD suspensions they are SO much better to drive. I can also do without the “brougham” packages with hideous vinyl roofs and over the top terrible seats.
That was pretty delightful in a Brady Bunch sort of way. It’s not often you heard “suspension pick up points” in a Grand Marquis ad.
Definitely one of the best of these types of films I’ve seen. I really like the SEFI animation as well as those high tech graphics at the beginning.
I had that car! Grey with light grey coach roof, grey cloth interior. Mine was the LS, like the example car, and even more loaded. I believe LS included the C pillar extension that gave it a more formal roof line. Mine had the automatic climate control, the top line stereo and wire wheel covers instead of the turbine wheels. Bought it used with very low miles, and traded it on a 1995 Chrysler Concorde – nice, but downright cramped by comparison.
Mock it if you will, but it was a very comfortable and reliable car. LM had some of the exterior and interior bits sorted out nicely by 1987, and it was about the best looking of the ’79-’90 square body Panther Grand Marquis. People that mocked these cars missed out on the comfortable and practical transportation they provided.
I had no idea these could be tow rated to 5,000 lbs. Panthers for at least the last dozen years have been limited to a rather pathetic 2,500 lbs or so.
I think ’87 was the last year for the coupe. I’m surprised it didn’t get mention along with the wagon.
Interesting style of promotion. Seems to be mocking the car when you see it now. It may not have been the best way of introducing young and growing families to a full sizer.
Sort of like “This is not your father’s Oldsmobile.” Which, of course, turned out to be the problem!
Blame it on CAFE since Ford didn’t want to risk offering the rear end gears to make it possible. On the standard cars they went from the 3.08 used in early aero cars to 2.73s. The tow package cars got 3.23 gears.
I thought the announcer said 3.55
I was referring to the gears fitted with the tow package that was offered on the first few years of the aero cars.
“I think ’87 was the last year for the coupe. I’m surprised it didn’t get mention along with the wagon.”
’87 was the last year for the coupe.
I think at one point in the video there is a reference to “two- and four-door sedans”, with the two-door sedan presumably being what most people would call a coupe. But I don’t think the coupe was ever mentioned otherwise, whereas the wagon is, and is even shown at one point. There obviously wsn’t much marketing effort being placed behind the coupe at this point in time.
Did anybody notice that the hitch was gone when the Dad came back from falling into the water? HAHA, maybe it stayed with the trailer?!
I had a 87 GM for several years while in college. It was a fine car, great ride, lots of power, and very reliable. The only thing that killed the car for me was the AOD transmission. There was always too much “dead” space in the gas pedal for me. If you ever needed to pass someone you would really have to press the pedal nearly to the floor to get it to shift. My 89 Mark VII was the same way.
I had one of these too. 1987 MGM LS, navy blue with blue velour interior. Mine had a cassette and premium sound, woo hoo.
Super comfy, more or less floated over potholes and rough roads (may I call you jiggly?) Forget handling, this was point and squirt navigation. What a boat. It was my first big American car, but not my last.
1987 was the last year for the boxiest styling on the box Panthers. Last year for vent windows too, I believe.
To me, the front bumper on these always looked too high (even when it wasn’t towing a boat).
87 was also the last year for a 2door Panther as well?
The vent windows were still around after 1987, my 1988 had them. I think they were last offered in 1989.
1987 was the last year for the 2-door models.
Ahahah, that was pretty funny !! I like the Colony Park best than the sedan, it’s a little less stodgy. BTW, i remember cassette players as standard in cars until mid-2000s, my dad bought a brand new Alfa 156 in 2005 and he had to pay a premium for the CD player
That’s funny! I was 16 in 1987 and my dad bought a brand new LTD Crown Victoria wagon.
That pair of teenagers in the rear seat could have been me and my sister, except for the sailboat, the video camera, the fact that we lived an hour from the coast, and our wagon had the LX vinyl interior.
But my mom is blonde!
My grandparents had this exact car, same year, I believe. It was white with a blue roof and nicely appointed (no trailer hitch, but it *did* come with a CB radio!).
I never really liked driving it that much – it was wallowy, and the seating position in Fords of that era was very high, which meant my head was brushing the roof liner most of the time.
Made for a nice date car, though, and indeed, it’s what we drove away in after our wedding.
This brochure of the Crown Vic brings flashbacks to my mind. My paternal grandparents were Grand Marquis fans, and pulled their Airstream with them regularly (dating back to their ’72 G.M.). My paternal grandparents were LTD/Crown Victoria drivers, and were more likely to pull small cattle trailers with them.
Great video, makes me nostalgic.
As related elsewhere, my first car was a two-tone blue 1987 LTD Crown Victoria sedan with a mish-mash of options (a/c, towing package/duals, tilt and cruise, but AM-FM radio only, crank windows, full bench seat with no power adjustments). I spent significant parts of my childhood in my grandfather’s last two cars, a sky blue 1986 Grand Marquis that was otherwise the subject car’s twin, and a 1988 white Grand Marquis. Also, several moms in those days had Country Squire or Colony Park wagons; it was before everyone seemed to switch to the mini-van and SUV c. 1992 or so. I prefer this generation on the Mercury (looks more like it’s halfway to being a Lincoln) and the next “semi-aero” ’88-’91 version on the Ford.
Although overall I prefer the General Motors competition at the time, the Panther in my opinion was notably superior to the two General Motors C-Bodies I’ve owned (an ’87 Cadillac Brougham and ’77 Buick Electra 225) in two areas—1) less intrusive engine noise–by far the quietest car I’ve owned, and 2) somewhat better laid out controls—I’ve never liked the dashboard windshield wiper switch on the G.M. models or the cruise control…the ford had those great buttons on the steering wheel. I also think the velour and cloth in the Panthers was nicer than its G.M. counterpart. The Crown Vic’s cloth was significantly nicer than the cloth in my Electra. Some have said the Panthers had a floatier ride than the RWD C and B bodies…I can’t say I noticed that but the smoothest riding car I’ve been in remains my former ’87 Brougham and I attribute that to its having a longer wheelbase than the Electra or the Crown Vic.
However, I felt that the Panther did not corner as well as the GM models, and was not as structurally tight. I distinctly remember how the hood visibly jiggled at highway speeds in a way that never happened on the C-bodies I’ve driven.
I have driven both as well, and largely agree with you. The GM cars feel heavier and more substantial. The Panthers were more nimble.
I don’t really remember whether my Ford was more nimble or not than my Brougham and Electra 225; but I never really drove it in a spirited enough manner to be sure. I do for sure remember how quiet it was. The 302 never roared like my GM engines did when it downshifted; the sound was really dampened out. They really must have used extra insulation in the Fords. I agree the General Motors cars felt heavier and more substantial; the Brougham particularly so because the 307 was so underpowered adding to the “my-God-this-thing-is-huge” feeling as it struggled up steep hills in second (my Electra with its 350 V8 feels significantly more agile but is probably the most softly sprung at this point of all 3…the shocks are pretty new so I suspect that might be the age of the springs).
If I’m not mistaken, at least from the late 60s on, the GM vs. Ford modus operandi on the big cars was that GM had more power and was sometimes more technologically innovative while the Fords went for greater driver isolation and better interior quality. I’ve heard that said when comparing the last pre-downsized Cadillacs and Lincolns that the 500 powered SDVs and Fleetwoods had higher tech, more torque, and better acceleration but that the big Connies were quieter, more isolated, and nicer inside. That seems to have carried over at least to some extent into these transitional years.
Still want to drive a ’71-’76 Cadillac and ’73-’79 Lincoln to compare to the downsized RWD models of 1977-1991.
I did drive “all 4” and do not really disagree with your assessment. I hated the 71-76 Cadillacs, they were not really very tight structurally. You could feel them twist and shudder a bit on bad pavement. Sort of like how the early Panther was not as tight as the 77+ B body. The Lincoln of the 70s was a real isolation chamber, in the best sense. With a 460 and CruiseOMatic, you lose the herky-jerk of the AOD/5.0 drivetrain. Also, the Lincoln just felt really heavy and substantial. As to the 70s cars, it is no contest with me, I am a Lincoln guy all the way. With the newer versions, the decision gets much closer, and each of them has its advantages.