In early January 2001, I returned to college after winter break as a passenger, my Malibu having decided that it would retire on the last day of the year 2000. So the Malibu started its long winter’s nap (15 years and counting at this point) and I found myself car-less for the first time since age 16. Thankfully I had friends who could get me where I needed to go and the college bus service to get to and from class. I also had some money saved up, partly thanks to a prescient Christmas gift from my parents. So I started diligently scanning the classifieds with a budget roughly defined as “under $2000”.
I looked at ads both in Raleigh, where I lived, and in my hometown of Greensboro; trouble with that was, as Greensboro was 90 minutes away, I was dependent on my Dad going to check out any prospective cars for me. My first prospect was a ’91 Fleetwood Brougham, silver over burgundy leather with an older owner who was downsizing, but Dad flat-out refused to go look at it on the grounds that “you don’t need a Cadillac” with no further discussion tolerated. He never did like Cadillacs.
Parental objections notwithstanding, I kept looking, and spotted an ad for a 1991 Ford LTD Crown Victoria LX, Silver, 118K miles, for $1800, in the small neighboring town of Oak Ridge, NC. Seemed like a steal, so I dispatched Dad to go take a look. He came back with a thumbs up, saying that the only flaws he found were a little sun fading on upper surfaces, a number of small cuts in the vinyl roof (hail damage according to the owner), and a bad window regulator on the driver’s door. Everything else worked, even the A/C, and it was priced under book value. Deposits were placed, our mechanic gave it a hearty approval, money changed hands, and I took the train from Raleigh back to Greensboro to take delivery.
Mom picked me up at the train station in the new old Ford, and I was very pleasantly surprised on seeing my purchase (the ad only contained one photo, a small low-resolution affair). 1991 was the final year for the box Panthers, but it wore the rounded-off corners that had been introduced for ’88, and had the one year only clear turn signal lenses that are a 1991 “tell”. It had the classic turbine-style alloys, light titanium paint in very good shape, a gray vinyl half-roof with the signature “headband” that harkened back to the original 1950’s Crown Victoria (many will object but I think the vinyl worked with the shape of the car), and a velour-trimmed interior in a color that could only be called bordello red.
Some accused the taillamps of being “Oldsmobile-style” but I thought they fit the design quite well, and I quite liked the bladed rear fender tops that gave the car just a subtle suggestion of tailfins. Power was supplied by the old reliable 5.0 liter pushrod V8, putting power to the ground through the AOD 4-speed automatic. It wasn’t exactly fast–the 302 made an unimpressive 150 HP in 1991 non-HO trim, though the 270 lb-ft of torque was more encouraging. But it had adequate power for passing and on-ramps, and besides, this car wasn’t about smoky burnouts nor pretending you were Johnny Law (too much brougham, you’d want a steel-topped P71 with the police-spec 351 V8 for that). What it was about was cruising in comfort, and at that it excelled.
There is a well known-adage that “you can sell a young man’s car to an old man, but can’t sell an old man’s car to a young man.” Not always true, it seems, though that adage probably did not consider college kids with budgets one-tenth the price of a new car. Nonetheless, this wasn’t quite a typical purchase for a 20 year old college student, so I got a few quizzical looks from my friends. One friend declared it to be a “pimpmobile”, though my roommate replied that a car isn’t a true pimpmobile unless driven by a pimp. Point taken. But it sat six in (relative) comfort, and for a sub-$2000 car, it needed very little.
I developed a to-do list–fix the window regulator (it’s really maddening to try to use a drive-through with an inoperative driver’s side window!), replace the factory radio and speakers with something a little more modern, remove the accessory plasti-chrome window shades (harder than it looked). Maybe true dual exhaust or Mustang heads/intake eventually to try to get a little more power out of that 302. But that was about it. It wasn’t everybody’s style then, and it certainly isn’t now, but when I walked out to the car in the morning, or at the end of a long day of classes, I liked what I saw.
Not my actual interior, but it’s the right color and pretty much identical.
The Crown Vic and I had bonded for a few months when I needed to travel to northern New Jersey, about 8 hours away, to meet a friend and attend a conference. The Vic seemed up to the task, and on the drive there and back, it performed flawlessly, from the rolling hills of southern Virginia to the near-gridlock of the New Jersey Turnpike. In fact, I missed my exit off the turnpike because I had caught a glimpse of the NYC skyline and was distracted by a blast of late afternoon sunlight reflecting off the towers of the World Trade Center–a sight that would no longer be possible in the vastly changed world of just a few months later.
The car ran equally well on the trip back home; I arrived back in Raleigh and almost immediately ventured back out with friends to get some dinner. When I pulled back into the apartment parking lot, though, as I shut the car off, one of my roommates remarked “is that smoke?” Sure enough, a noticeable amount of smoke was coming from under the hood, and I could tell it wasn’t steam. I popped the hood release (kind of dumb in retrospect) and was immediately greeted by the sight of flames. Not good! One roommate raced up the stairs to get a fire extinguisher and I called the fire department, unsure of how fast the flames might spread, and we all backed away to watch the progress. My roommate came back with a large pitcher of water, not having been able to find the fire extinguisher, but a well-placed dousing through the partially popped hood actually put the fire out. Lucky for me that it didn’t spread any faster or the whole car might have gone up in smoke. Raising the hood to survey the damage, we saw this:
Didn’t seem all that bad. I had it towed to the local Ford dealership to see what they could make of it, but when they called me back a few days later, the news was not. A failure in the alternator had started the fire–evidently not an uncommon problem on Fords of this vintage, and one that had been responsible for more than a few house fires when a car parked inside an attached garage set alight. Surprised it was never recalled. But the bad part was that it had also melted part of the main wiring harness where it connected to the alternator. Not only was the wiring harness toast (literally), but that part was no longer produced by Ford, so I’d either have to search far and wide to find a NOS part sitting in a box, or pull one out of a junkyard example. Capital Ford wanted nothing to do with it and advised the insurance adjuster to total the car, which they duly did. And that was that, after not even six months of ownership.
There was one silver lining to all this–after the adjuster had gone to look at the car, his assessment of the value came back at $2800. That was a full $1000 more than I had paid for it! Not a bad deal at all–$1000 profit over six months’ ownership. I inquired about buying the car back from them and having the work done on my own dime, since the damage was mechanical only. They would have sold me back the car, with a salvage title of course, for somewhere around $300, and written me a check for the $2500 difference. More than enough to have the work done, maybe even do some upgrades, and still pocket some money in the deal. No-brainer, right? Wrong.
I lived in a typical college-area apartment, one where the parking lot was patrolled vigilantly by a shady towing company, and a car without tags would have been towed in about five nanoseconds. As the majority of my friends were students, they all lived in apartments or on campus too. I had nowhere to leave the car while trying to source a new wiring harness, and who knows how long that would have taken. My parents were already storing one inoperative car for me and drew the line at adding a second one, plus the cost of towing it back to Greensboro would have eaten a chunk of my budget. I really hated the thought of a car with a near-perfect body, nice interior, and mostly good mechanicals going to the junkyard when all it needed was a relatively minor repair, but there was nothing I could do.
Would that they were always this clean…
So I sadly bade goodbye to my first Panther. A short but mostly sweet relationship, and one that left me $1000 richer to make up for my sadness. This opened up my choices a bit and caused me to go in a different direction with my next purchase.
Seems silly to junk a car for need of an alternator and a few bux worth of wiring but I guess insurance companies know what they’re doing or think they know, me I woulda fixed it.
It is silly to junk a car that can be easily fixed. Period.
Problem is, if the car is not worth a lot it will get scrapped anyway. In some cases something stupid worth ~$100 is enough.
And then, there’s NSW. Where a simple scratch can end in a statutory write off.
Funny enough my Ford Kuga four cylinder 2.0 litre TDCI has exactly 150hp and almost the same torque figure as this 5 litre V8. Engines have certainly come a long way in 25 years.
The weight may not be too different as well – the only substantial straight line performance difference would be in my 6 speed manual compared to the 4 speed auto, plus aerodynamics which is bad in both cases.
Great write up Chris M.. Spent many a kilometre behind the wheel of those now vintage Crown Vics. They’re pretty thin on the ground up here nowadays. The odd time you see one, but it’s a rarity. Age and tin worm caught up with them.
Too bad about the electrical fire. An otherwise great looking car got binned. And you are correct, it actually would have been a fairly straight forward repair. Hit the auto wrecking yard, pull off an alternator, and a piece of harness and a few hours work and you’re back in business. If the damage to the harness was only what was is shown in the photo, a simple splice and patch would have sufficed. But as you say, it wasn’t happening.
See below, no need to hit the wrecking yard and get marginal components when a quality reman came with the repair harness and instructions to replace it no matter what to keep the warranty valid.
Sometimes it is better to be kind to yourself over these things – it often comes down to storage and shipping costs just not making it viable on a limited budget. Who knows maybe this automobile had a second life and someone made the fix. Great car though – a ‘proper’ American car to my European eyes.
I thought the last year of production box Panthers were the most attractive of the whole 1979 to 1991 run.
first car I ever rode in in america. Yellow cab, bald tyres, pouring rain. I was bricking it.
They’re a nice looking car – I wouldn’t mind one myself – but when I see one all I think of is Matlock!!
I would say it is more than probable that someone took the car off the yard’s hands (especially back then). There is always someone with more time or parking or an engine sitting in their garage who can actually install it.
Great story, I took my ’87 Crown Vic on a number of trips in college as my first car and frankly spent much more than I should have keeping it on the road. The spark plugs were hell to change and it leaked oil like the Exxon Valdiz but it may be the quietest car I’ve owned and one of the best quality interiors as well.
I love it when the insurance comes through. I had a ’93 Fleetwood Brougham (oddly enough, in silver with burgundy leather interior) with 200K which I hoped to unload due to electrical gremlins and storage issues. Someone rear ended me at a light. Hot dog! They totaled the thing at $2800 and cut me a check. I took it to Maaco where the miniscule damage was repaired for $325, sold the car for $1500 or so, and spent some of it on the Olds Ninety Eight.
Thought you were going to say the fire was caused by the cruise control, another “problem area” for Fords.
I just bought my 09 Crown Vic police interceptor in November. It had 97,000 miles and the interior is clean, but not “showroom”. But best of all, it was a bargain. Obviously not as good looking as your car, with it’s white body, black wheels, and tan interior. But like yours, not all that fast (6 cylinder Mustangs are more powerful) but roomy and reliable….so far. I’ve thought of performance upgrades, but my mechanic is not fond of “messing with” Fords.
Tan interior is really rare, at least around here, on the later cars.
A quick dress up is a set of 05-14 Mustang wheels. They are usually dirt cheap on Craiglist and they should have the bands for the tire pressure sensors already installed. So you just unsnap them from the old wheel and snap them into the new ones. The big plus is that you can typically sell the police 17″ wheels, caps and lug nuts for more than the going rate for Mustang wheels. The wheels for my winter tires are the 17″ Bullitt style that I payed $50 for all 4 including caps. For the last one I sold a set of the 17″ split spoke set me back $140 with tires that had 40%+.
I did notice, after I bought the car, that some late model Mustangs had 17 wheels (mine are 17s) and I have considered them as an upgrade. Tires on mine are Goodyear Eagle RS-As, they don’t get good reviews on Tire Rack, but these have a lot of tread left.
Like most of the Police Interceptors, mine has “taxicab like” fabric covered front seats and vinyl rear seat. Front seat fabric is a black and tan check, and except for the black rubber floor covering, the rest of the interior is tan. I’m guessing taxis are the same.
They did offer a rear seat in fabric that matched the fronts. It is not that common but some agencies do order it. The State Patrol cars in my state have the cloth rear seat and then they put a clear vinyl cover on it. My ex County car even though it was unmarked w/o cage and active rear doors came with the vinyl seat instead of the cloth.
The RS-A is a dramatically different tire depending on the size and whether it is the OE style on standard cars, aftermarket, or the police spec version. That said I wouldn’t buy them but I’d certainly run them out.
So after I made the post above I hit craiglist searching for Mustang wheels. Today’s find was some 2012 V6 17×7.5″ with 215/65 Michelin Energy Saver A/S. 2 of them have 95% tread and the other two are at 50%. Price with center caps and sensors – $100. They are an inch taller than the 235/55 used on the V8 Mustang and later P71. Being LRR tires you know that was the things they did to get a 31MPG rating out of the V6 cars.
Currently I’m running 235/55 17 Goodyear Ultra Grip Ice on the $50 set of Bullitt wheels. Those tires came from the wrecking yard for $200 with wheels and sensors.
Once spring rolls around I’ll do a couple of back to back MPG runs to see how big the difference is, correcting for the tire diameter.
Chris,
Being from North Carolina, you know Andy Griffith always did like full-size Fords, right?
FoMoCo was the main sponsor of both “The Andy Griffith Show” and “Matlock” during their respective runs. And Ben Matlock was so frugal that he always drove those gray Crown Vics. Do you remember the episode of “Matlock” in which Don Knotts’ character bought a defective DeLorean and was accused of murder?
Sad that you didn’t resurrect the car. You don’t say the exact year that this happened but by the early 90’s remanufactured alternators from a quality source included a new pig tail and Ford sold just the pigtail. Later on they stopped supplying alternators with the plug in main power connector and either supplied an adapter to the plug in or a pigtail with the ring terminals.
Any decent shop would have had you back on the road in less than a day and for under $300, or even $200 depending on the prevailing rates in your area at the time and just how much mark up they wanted on the alternator.
wanted to, the pieces didn’t come together. I had nowhere to keep it while I was sourcing the parts, nowhere to do the work myself, and the place that insurance sent it to (one of the Ford dealers in Raleigh) said that they wouldn’t do the work and wouldn’t have anything more to do with it. Their opinion was that the harness was damaged and NLA, and of course being a dealer they wouldn’t use aftermarket parts.
2001 was the year it happened.
In 2001 and independent shop would have know exactly what to do and would have had you back on the road in a day.
In that case, I’m a fool for not getting a second opinion. At the time I figured that a full-service dealership would be the last word on whether or not it could be easily fixed.
In retrospect I guess my 20 year old, college student self was a classic example of “book smart, street dumb”.
Easy conclusion to come to. It took me two bad dealership experiences in my unworldly days to get it in my head that they are not the quintessential automotive authorities they are made out to be. In the first case when my first beloved Pontiac developed a smoking problem I took it to the dealership where the original owner had purchased it in 1971. They quickly diagnosed the 455 with low compression in two opposing cylinders which I thought was odd because that is rare and I’d just done a routine compression test on it a month earlier and everything was all good. I tore the engine down with the intention of rebuilding it and could find absolutely nothing wrong with it. Cylinders, pistons, rings, valves, heads and gaskets were clean and hardly showed any wear at all. In retrospect I think it was actually probably something in the PCV system as all that was still original and dirty. Like you, I didn’t have the resources to finish the job and that was the end of that car. I was able to sell the engine in pieces though and it got reassembled to live on in another vintage Pontiac. The second time was a trunk sealing and refurbishing job on my ’67 Mercury at a Ford dealership. The less said about that the better as I ended up doing the whole job over myself. When I questioned the quality of the work done the reply was basically ‘Sorry bud, we don’t guarantee bodywork’.
I’m not much of a Panther fan but the 88-91 cars with the Turbine wheels were really sharp looking rides.
Always have an eagle eye out for these as they are getting scarce, even in salvage yards now. Found a very nice one in a local yard a couple years ago and stripped two pick up truck loads off of it. Now I should have enough spares to last the rest of the life of my CV (maybe my life), although the wife seems a little perturbed at having half a Ford in the basement. It’s a shame what you see in those places. A few months ago I found a ’78 Cordoba with only 50,000 miles in mint condition with the exception of a scrape down the passenger door and quarter panel. I would have saved it if I’d caught it before the 360 was gone. Oh well, at least somebody’s getting some use out of it. It’s picked almost to the shell now.
I recall seeing one of these Crown Vics (the pretty two-tone dark and light blue) catch fire in traffic in LA’s Chinatown (“Why is it always in Chinatown?”) – I think in the late 80’s. The little lady driving it got out and within what seemed like a minute or two the entire car was engulfed in flames. Car fires seemed to be very common back in the days before modern fuel injection and electronics. Remember all the VW’s burning by the roadside?
This was one of my favorite Crown Vics – very handsome car. Glad you got some nice drives out of it.
Great article (well, maybe except for the fiery conclusion).
Your dad’s advice seems eerily familiar to me. “You don’t need a _______” was a phrase I heard quite often when looking for my first car as a teenager. Mostly this was directed towards full, size traditional cars like the Crown Vic, which I loved and my father loathed.
He had been an import car buyer since the early 1960s, and was appalled that I longed for the very cars that he strove to avoid. But I desperately wanted a big American car, despite being totally out line with the typical cars that young people drove.
I finally did buy a Crown Vic, but I had to wait until my 30s to do so. And my father still doesn’t get it.
It wasn’t full-size American cars in general, in this case at least. Dad has tended to drive smaller cars, but not exclusively, and many of them have been American. (At the time, however, he was driving an ’84 Accord). His antipathy was specifically directed toward Cadillacs–not sure if that was based on some sort of personal experience (he’s never owned one that I know of) or if it was more focused on the sort of person that buys an older luxury car. If that was the case he probably didn’t approve of one of my subsequent purchases either…
Too much electronics and wiring. Once something happens to them your car could be toast. Ah, the days of one wire from the ignition for start and one for run.
As far as not the type of car young people drove. I can recall all the big four door sedans in my high school parking lot in 1970 from 1958-1967. One constant never changes and that is young people will drive what they can afford when the parents don’t hand them a new car as some do.
My inlaws bought a new 85 Crown Vic 2 door, it had this yucky fuzzy gray upholstery material, coupled with the white exterior just screamed “senior citizen”. It was fairly pleasant to drive if you didn’t mind the very quick upshift on the automatic tranny and not too much power. I did enjoy driving it now and then.
When the car was about 15 years old, my mother in law, now a widow, asked me to check her car out. Her mechanic told her she needed a new car and she was inclined to believe him. Ii think it was at around 120,000 miles at the time. We went out for a drive and I gave it a once over and found nothing wrong, or even of slight concern. When I handed the keys back to her, my reply was that “you need a new mechanic, not a new car!” She drove that thing for several years before giving up her license. I bet it is still out there somewhere, as it was in excellent condition.
I had a ’91 CV that looked just like this, only with a gray interior and cheesy wire wheel hubcaps.
Up to 50k miles, the car had been garaged and impeccably maintained by its first senior citizen owner. I tried to continue that regimen, but between 50 and 80k miles, the transmission failed twice, I replaced three window regulator motors, and the gas tank developed a massive leak.
I would be inclined to say that Panther’s reputation for reliability is undeserved, but I also had an ’87 MGM that was fantastically reliable. Maybe I just got a bad one.
Damn, that’s a shame about the fire! Really nice, clean car – and I agree these later Box Panthers are the best/best-looking of them all. I came very close to buying a similar ’89 Crown Vic back in 2001 or 2002, except it was all blue and a little more beat up. They were dirt cheap back then, and the only reason I passed was because the heater core wasn’t functional, I didn’t have a garage and it was very cold outside at the time.
It seems pretty weird to me that the car seen here was as old, in 2001, as a 2005 Crown Victoria is right now.
I enjoyed your story, and that was a really nice car. I got the refresher course in the last few years with the son’s 89 MGM. Fortunately, we had no problems with the alternator or the cruise control switch. We did, however, have to replace both an Autolamp switch and an ignition switch which half cooked themselves.
My daughter is pining after an older car. I am torn on another one of these. I am fairly fresh on their issues, but they are that tough combination of modern and old – not as simple as a 70s Valiant and not as modern and carefree as a middle-aged Civic.
I really liked these last models with the redesigned dash. They were also fairly strong as far as the 5.slow went. I did a little research into waking one of these up, and found that it was fairly involved, including the need to change heads and the firing order.
I looked into that too and if you’re trying to convert it to an H.O. engine yes that is quite involved. My Ford guru friend also told me if I did go that route I’d be disappointed with the little extra pay off in power after having done all that work. The best advise I got was a larger diameter dual exhaust system, better catalytic converters and higher ratio rear gears which are readily available from Summit Racing Equipment and other outlets. There are also chips and electronic mods available for the standard 302 which I haven’t gotten to delve into yet but should be easier to swallow cost wise as I can do a little at a time.
Many thanks for this nice story. As for the CV, very beautiful and well maintained. In my opinion, it shows a lot more class and style than those baroque sheetmetal wich comprise 99% of today’s automobiles. I’m especially fond of “normal people” cars like this over any ultraluxe-sports with 400hp and generally zero charisma.
Great story, although the ending (for the Ford anyway) is quite sad. Having several friends that have worked in auto salvage yards, I can honestly say that thousands of cars here in the U.S. are junked prematurely. I have personally seen many cars that are sent to the junkyard because of a simple repair that is needed. Many times the salvage yards will fix them and resell them, but there are just so many cars that they can’t handle them all and sometimes make more money in selling the used parts. Unless the body has excessive rust or it was damaged beyond repair, most repairs can be made with little money involved. We tend to “throw away” our cars because most feel it is simply not worth fixing.
I’ve heard this same scenario many times with the alternator. I had a ’90 Grand Marquis in which the alternator caught on fire while I was driving it. I also had a ’91 Grand Marquis in which the alternator caught on fire (while not running) while i was visiting a friend in the hospital. When I came out to the parking lot several hours later….the car was metal and ashes and had been towed. It’s amazing there was no recall on this problem (or at least i never knew of one).