One more era in the Motor City came to a close in September of 2011 when the last Ford Crown Victoria came down the line.
Among North American car buyers, there has always been a market for the classic full-size sedan with rear-wheel drive, a proper V8 in the front, and good old body-on-frame construction underneath. It remains true to this very day, and these folks will accept no substitutes.
But it’s also true that this market, loyal as it is, has grown smaller with each passing year. And so it was that the last of the big rear-drive sedans from the Motor City, the Ford Crown Victoria, ceased production at 12:25 PM on September 15, 2011. Assembly line workers at Ford’s St. Thomas, Ontario plant, about 100 miles east of Detroit, followed the car down the line, recording the bittersweet event on their cell phones and adding their signatures to the floorpan.
The Crown Victoria nameplate at Ford dates back to 1955 with a fancy version of the Fairlane Victoria that sported a stainless steel tiara across the roof. (See our feature here.) The badge was revived in 1980 for the LTD Crown Victoria, Ford’s full-sized entry on the corporate Panther platform, which became simply the Crown Victoria in 1992. The last major exterior update came in 1998, while the chassis and suspension were significantly upgraded for 2003. In its final MY 2012 form, the Crown Vic was powered by a 4.6-liter modular V8 with electronic fuel injection and 239 hp.
While the Crown Vic remained in production into the 2012 model year, retail marketing in the USA actually ended in 2008. Consumer sales had slowed to a trickle and production was now devoted to the fleet, police, and export markets. Plans for a new global rear-drive platform were cancelled as assembly of the Crown Vic and its corporate stablemates, the Mercury Grand Marquis and Lincoln Town Car, was consolidated at the St. Thomas plant.
Production of the Grand Marquis ceased on January 4, 2011 (Mercury’s final day as well) while the last Town Car was produced on August 29. Ford had stopped accepting Crown Vic orders in April and the final car, an appliance-white LX, was part of fleet order headed for the Middle East. American drivers who still insist that a vehicle with a V8, rear-wheel drive, and body-on-frame construction is the only way to travel—and they will always be out there—can have it their way with a pickup or SUV.
One reason sales dropped is that Ford quit revising the car, no updates for several model years so the styling became stale. They had made their money back on the tooling years before and refused to update it.
It didn’t die for lack of enthusiasm.
Obama killed that vehicle.
I worked for a supplier for Ford and we were working 24-7 on parts for that vehicle, when then President Obama took aim at that big V8.
He and his buddy Biden hate the BIG gas guzzling luxury car and to heck with what the American car buyer wanted.
Please, give us a break with that political stuff.
Joe, you are absolutely correct.
As far as the vehicle is concerned, my brother-in-law was the vehicle maintenance director for a large multi-municipality fleet.
From 2011 until he retired in 2020 they kept the Crown Vic on the road… much longer even than what was supposed to replace them. Fire Chiefs and Police hierarchy refused to let them die. He had some chassis’ pushing a million miles. In fact, the Fire Chief’s personal one was a 2003 with over 1.5 million miles on the frame.
Fed allocation was withheld the last couple of years (2010/11) as an incentive to source something else.