Last Ford Crown Victoria rolls off the line

Last Ford Crown Victoria rolls off the line:

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 cousins have been popular with fleet users because of their roominess, legendary ruggedness and relative simplicity. Most cars today are built with so-called unibody engineering in which the body sides and roof play a role in keeping the body rigid. The Panther Platform vehicles were engineered with an old-fashioned body-on-frame design that's mostly used by pickup trucks today because, while heavier, it's better able to bounce back from heavy, punishing use. "You couldn't kill it no matter what you did to it," Ford spokesman Octavio Navarro said of the Crown Victoria. For some fleet buyers there's no obvious replacement for these rugged cars. …

(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...