Free Republic

There's no rational decision flowchart that lands you here. No one, least of all Daniel Warner, thinks putting a 27-liter tank engine in a Ford Crown Victoria makes a lick of sense. Petty details like logic and reason won't stop him, though. "It's not an intelligent choice of engine if you want to have 2500 hp and race. This is more just, I wanted to do this out of pure passion," Werner told Road & Track in June 2020. Back then it was just a goal. The car was far from operational. A year later, it's still got some distance...

That icon of police transportation, a vehicle so sturdy and beloved and ubiquitous that it became virtual wallpaper on TV cop shows and local streets – the Ford Crown Victoria – is dead. The upshot is this: For many police agencies, it’s time to buy a new car. Ford stopped making the Crown Vic four years ago, saying sales to the public had fallen to the point that the car is no longer viable, even if demand from police agencies remained strong. Fuel efficiency (or in the Crown Vic’s case, inefficiency) played a role.

The last Ford Crown Victoria rolled off a Canadian assembly line Thursday, marking the end of the big, heavy Ford cars that have been popular with taxi fleets and police departments for decades. Since 1979, almost 10 million Crown Victoria, Mercury Grand Marquis and Lincoln Town Cars — so-called Panther Platform vehicles — have been sold. Demand for better fuel economy and performance has choked off sales over the years. The Crown Victoria and Town Car get just 24 miles per gallon on the highway, a figure matched by some large three-row SUVs today. … The Crown Victoria and its...