From the February 1990 issue of Car and Driver.
Some experts say the last great vehicle America built was the Saturn V rocket that put man on the moon. The Apollo launch vehicle stood 40 stories tall, weighed 6 million pounds, produced 7.5 million pounds of thrust, and consumed 202,760 gallons of fuel per minute. A conspicuous consumer in the grandest sense, it burned liquid oxygen and space-age kerosene at fifteen tons per second. The first time this behemoth flew, it had never been tested all-up, yet its hundreds of thousands of parts worked perfectly.
Every astronaut who rode a Saturn V to the moon came home. NASA’s job of getting us there and back became a shining example of achievement under pressure. Years later in the automobile business, gas shortages created a similar—if more commercial—pressure to achieve. The results were gratifying, but less inspirational.
When the gas pumps coughed up dust, car companies suddenly became almost as intent as NASA. Even such stalwarts as Cadillac and Lincoln began to whittle away at the size, weight, and shapes of their road-hugging traditions. In record time, manufacturers scrambling up the steep learning curve became faster and slicker at their jobs. Vehicles—even the Lincoln Town Car—lost tens of linear inches, dozens of cubic inches, and hundreds of excess pounds.
Lincoln did not gladly impel the Town Car toward svelteness and increased sophistication. The big sedan’s last major revamp came in 1980. That Town Car came out smaller than its forebears by a large margin, yet it retained a number of familiar styling cues. Make that “styling commandments.” Lincoln kept buyers who’d been weaned on Long Island–length hoods and Rhode Island–size tails happier than Shriners on parade. The roof still wore a fez of padded vinyl. The roof pillars continued to shimmer with opera lights. And the shape remained blunt and traditional. The Town Car of the eighties, shrunken but still easily Lincoln’s largest model, continued to be one of Ford’s most successful and profitable sellers.
The Town Car for the nineties rolls out 75-percent new. Ford’s styling departments and wind tunnels—the same breezy haunts that brought us the windswept Taurus and Sable siblings—have made sure that the 75 percent that’s new about the Town Car prevails largely where you can see it. Lost in the transformation were the cleaver-cut corners, flanks, and fascias, as well as the cabin’s deeply recessed side glass. Once they were gone with the wind, the woeful 0.46 drag coefficient rounded right down to 0.36. The gain looks great on paper and the body looks far more rounded in every aspect, but the conservative forces within Lincoln could have been braver, could have remolded the Town Car in the image of a true aeromeister. Luxosedans are already zipping around with drag figures of 0.30 and less (sleekness often accompanied by less than the Lincoln’s weight). And they’ll surely be skimmed down further, long before Lincoln retrims this new Town Car. If fuel again gets tight, Town Car sales will be anything but going to town.
Our test car arrived trimmed out as a member of the Signature Series. A less decorous base Town Car and a glitzier Cartier Designer Series edition bracket the Signature Series. Lincoln contends that “the car’s styling came solely from America. Its appearance owes nothing to Europe or Japan.” Like the Cartier edition, however, the Signature Series wears plastic rocker cladding similar to that popularized by Mercedes-Benz, its look busied up with brightwork. A clean, upright grille and aerodynamic headlights further the semi-Teutonic motif. Dearborn gives away a few deeply entrenched preferences, though, with AllAmerican overhangs at the nose and tail, plus large vertical opera windows that you won’t need opera glasses to spot from the back row.
Opera lights you won’t spot from any angle. The doors on the new Town Car, praise be, do not bracket the B-pillar with two seams as before. Rather, they meet in a single seam, so the pillar is hidden and there’s no longer a place for opera lights to get a toehold. Bye-bye, bric-a-brac. And no longer will optional vinyl be allowed to get a grip on the roof. So long, glop-top. Yesteryear’s tack-ons have finally been discarded into Dearborn’s dumpster of icky, bygone addenda.
If only Michelin had talked Lincoln into dumping its commitment to whitewall tires, dominant understeer, and gooshy handling. The two companies shared tire research and suspension development. Each XW4 M +S spec tire on the Signature Series is a 215/70R-15; not very wide, considering each must support its share of the Lincoln’s 4108-pound curb weight. The 6.5-by-15-inch alloy wheels are similarly modest in width. At Lincoln’s request, Michelin has kept the tires flexible and forgiving, to preserve a cushy ride. As a result, the tires pull a lowly 0.69 g at the Town Car’s cornering limit. That’s only a hundredth of a g more than the last model (not likely Michelin’s fault, as it also bakes up the MXX supertires that stick the Nissan 300ZX Turbo to the skidpad all the way up to 0.89 g).
The new car’s curb weight looms within pounds of the Town Car we tested three years ago. That comes as a surprise, because while the rubber-mounted body on a separate frame remains, the new body has considerably greater rigidity—on the order of a frameless unit body. Lincoln says this improvement eliminates the “shake and jiggle that are generally inherent in a large body-on-frame vehicle.”
Lincoln revalved its gas-pressure shocks and replaced the rear coil springs with load-leveling air springs. Although handy when the tail is heavy, the air springs were not calibrated to be supportive handling aids. To quicken the response and reduce the list angle during cornering, Lincoln also added a rear anti-roll bar and thickened the front bar. New power steering alters assist based on vehicle speed and the steering wheel’s rate of motion. (An electronically controlled variable orifice—EVO—is designed into the steering pump; it induces controlled fluctuations in the flow of the pump’s hydraulic fluid.)
The chassis changes make the Town Car a more pleasant roadgoing package. There’s more understeer, but steering feel and straight-ahead behavior are improved. Despite claims about better aerodynamic stability, however, the Town Car has a tendency to wander in stout crosswinds.
Lincoln has made anti-lock brakes optional on the Town Car. Although the rear binders are drums, they provide enough heat resistance in concert with the front discs to show no fade in moderately hard driving (much harder than this car will typically be driven). ABS soaks up any anomalies of modulation and front/rear balance. Stopping qualifies as nearly fussless, unless you fret over longish 206-foot stops from 70 mph. That’s only three feet shorter than we could stop the old non-ABS car by applying the pedal adroitly, but now stops are at least easily straight and repeatable.
Lincoln wisely avoided using passive seatbelts to meet the government’s automatic-restraint requirements, instead retaining normal “you-latch-’em” three-point harnesses augmented by air bags for both the driver and the front passenger. The outboard rear passengers get new three-point harnesses.
Ford’s 150-horsepower, 4.9-liter V-8 hides behind a mask lowered over things mechanical by the muffle magicians in Lincoln’s sound-deadening lab. Port fuel injection, 270 pound-feet of torque at 2000 rpm, and a four-speed automatic propel the two-ton load tirelessly. In our care, they delivered a 16-mpg average. But they also produced a feel of once-removed performance, characterized by an 11.0-second passage from 0 to 60 mph, leisurely downshifts, and a top speed of 109 mph.
In the process, the parts make no murmurs that stir the heart. The big rear-drive Signature Series (a classic Detroiter living out its past) generally feels and sounds so silken and silent that you feel as if you were suspended in an anechoic chamber. Occasionally, the thump of a pothole sneaks past the artless live axle, or maybe a hiss of wind or a rasp of engine slips in.
As near-anechoic chambers go, this one features 118 cubic feet of leg-stretching livability. It’s topped off with headroom to burn and backed up with 22 cubic feet of luggage space. Lamentably, the cockpit is far from perfect. The leather seats are not a good place to sit out a long drive. The rounded cruise-control buttons on the steering wheel stick up so slightly that you almost can’t feel them, and they must be reengaged every time you key the ignition. And the garish digital dash wears a strip of petroleum byproduct, colored a wooden brown of sorts, that clearly did not start life as something that grew leaves and attracted woodpeckers.
Carrying a $30,721 base price in Signature Series trim, Lincoln’s Town Car comes with about everything but a putting green (that would be the Town House). A look at options, though, turns up more luxury widgets. A favorite: the $99 automatic-dimming rear-view mirror. Its three settings—off, on-but-dim, and on-but-really-really-dim—cut the reflectivity to a level capable of handling every halogen-high-beam eyeball arsonist who blasts up behind you. If Lincoln developed the rest of the Town Car as thoroughly, it might give the Saturn V a run for greatness.
Counterpoint
When I first drove the new Lincoln Town Car, I liked it. Months later I drove this almost-$30,000, eighteen-foot luxury machine, and I felt betrayed.
I know the reason for this change of heart. My first drive of the 1990 Town Car was back-to-back with a 1989 version. The new car handled so much better that it felt like a revolution in the Dinosaurus extinctus class. I dared to hope that an American carmaker had come around to building crisp-handling, rewarding-to-drive luxury dreadnoughts.
But after my most recent drive in normal traffic—and with the realization that most cars this size are occupied by a solitary driver much of the time—the good first impressions disappeared. As nice as it is, the Town Car isn’t a vehicle I can call a car. It’s too big. So big, in fact, that the space it occupies on the planet doesn’t seem fair. It’s more than two and a half feet longer than Nissan’s spacious Maxima, and it casts a shadow a foot longer than the largest Mercedes. Now I feel that the future needs the Town Car only for historical reference—not for transportation. —Phil Berg
Yes, the Town Car handles better than it did last year, and it now puts the Cadillac Brougham—the only other car in this battleship class—to shame. As well it should. The suspension was dialed in by engineering genius Glen Lyall, a man who drives a Lotus 7 in SCCA events. But do you think Glen drives a Town Car?
As before, the steering is numb, but at least the car now tracks down the road in a straight line. As before, the brake pedal is all mush in the first centimeters of travel, then it grabs like Krazy Glue on toilet paper. As before, squat and dive are omnipresent, only now they don’t spill your Grey Poupon all over your lap.
So what’s the attraction? Size, of course. Sitting in the driver’s seat is like sitting alone in the Astrodome. Unfortunately, sitting in the Town Car also makes you think about the hole in Minnesota where twenty tons of ore were strip-mined for the front fenders.
Is there a better way? You bet. Check out what’s parked next to the Town Car. Namely, the Scorpio (admittedly soon to become extinct but, for the same reason, heavily discounted) and the Continental. —John Phillips III
Years ago, I served aboard an aircraft carrier. Among other jobs, I got to be one of the officers on the bridge who shouts such commands as, “Right full rudder,” and “All engines ahead full.” It turns out that this training can be put to use today. Behind the wheel of a Lincoln Town Car.
With the 1990 Town Car, and wasn’t it ever thus, you do not so much turn as change direction. Likewise, you make speed changes rather than accelerate or decelerate.
For the nonenthusiast, the latest Lincoln Town Car can provide luxury transportation in the American idiom, removing the driver from all outside interference—including such annoyances as road feel.
I had the chance to drive the Town Car on my 50-mile commute on the windiest day in several months. For a car this heavy, it’s unusually responsive to crosswinds.
Summing up, I’m afraid this is another car for the Sun Belt shuffleboard set. In that assignment, it should serve with distinction. But it’s not my cup of Sominex. —William Jeanes
Specifications
Specifications
1990 Lincoln Town Car Signature Series
Vehicle Type: front-engine, rear-wheel-drive, 6-passenger, 4-door sedan
PRICE
Base/As Tested: $31,276/$34,426
anti-lock brakes, $936; Ford JBL sound system, $525; leather upholstery, $509; programmable memory seat, $502; Insta-Clear windshield, $253; alarm system, $225; Traction-Lok limited-slip differential, $101; automatic-dimming rear-view mirror, $99
ENGINE
pushrod V-8, iron block and heads, port fuel injection
Displacement: 302 in3, 4942 cm3
Power: 150 hp @ 3200 rpm
Torque: 270 lb-ft @ 2000 rpm
TRANSMISSION
4-speed automatic
CHASSIS
Suspension, F/R: control arms/rigid axle
Brakes, F/R: 11.0-in vented disc/10.0-in drum
Tires: Michelin XW4 M+S
215/70R-15
DIMENSIONS
Wheelbase: 117.4 in
Length: 220.2 in
Width: 78.1 in
Height: 56.7 in
Passenger Volume, F/R: 59/59 ft3
Trunk Volume: 22 ft3
Curb Weight: 4108 lb
C/D TEST RESULTS
60 mph: 11.0 sec
1/4-Mile: 18.0 sec @ 76 mph
100 mph: 47.4 sec
Top Gear, 30–50 mph: 5.0 sec
Top Gear, 50–70 mph: 8.1 sec
Top Speed: 109 mph
Braking, 70–0 mph: 206 ft
Roadholding, 300-ft Skidpad: 0.69 g
C/D FUEL ECONOMY
Observed: 16 mpg
EPA FUEL ECONOMY
City/Highway: 17/24 mpg
C/D TESTING EXPLAINED