Video: A Long Look at the 1990 Lincoln Town Car

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Completely redesigned for 1990, the Lincoln Town Car was named the Motor Trend Car of the Year and enjoyed its best sales year in history.

 

Developed over five years at a reported cost of $650 million, the second-generation Lincoln Town Car embraced the smooth styling elements of the Continental and Mark Series cars, reducing its aerodynamic drag coefficient from .46 to .36. But underneath, this new Town Car continued with body-on-frame construction, rear-wheel drive, and a V8 up front—a winning strategy with traditional American luxury car buyers, an aging demographic. Carrying the internal designation FN36, this Ford Panther-based platform would remain in production through 1997, selling a ton of cars for the Lincoln brand and winning the Motor Trend Car of the Year award in 1990.

Due in part to the increasing burden of emissions compliance, there was just one available engine, a 4.9 liter/302 CID V8 with 150 hp (160 hp with dual exhausts) coupled to a Ford AOD four-speed automatic transmission. Of the three trim levels offered in ’90—-base, Signature Series, and Cartier Designer Edition—the latter two featured a dual exhaust system to boost the output to 160 hp. One year later, the 4.6-liter single-overhead-cam Modular V8 with 210 hp would appear.

We’re sharing all these technical details with you now, as there are few to be found in this seven-minute dealer video. Instead, the emphasis is on comfort, luxury, and most of all, prestige. The Town Car is for successful people, we are led to know, and to underline that point, Jack Nicklaus, then just named the golfer of the century by Golf magazine, serves as the spokesperson. (From 1992 through 1997, the Town Car offered a Jack Nicklaus Signature Series special-edition package.) Also, check out all the senior citizens in this production, an honest appeal to the target buyer. It must have worked, as the Town Car sold a record 147,000 units that year. Video below.

 

7 thoughts on “Video: A Long Look at the 1990 Lincoln Town Car”

  1. Extremely well targeted ad. While I certainly don’t meet the same criteria, I have always liked these boats better than Cadillacs.

  2. Nit pickers will note the most unique feature of this vehicle being its “single overhead valve”, and wonder how an eight cylinder engine functions with only one valve. Unfortunately, this impressive feat is not explained in the ad.
    It’s a good thing I didn’t buy one of these cars as I would likely have been disappointed to find that the engine featured a single overhead cam per bank, rather than the single valve. Alas, it would have been more rare than the 50 mpg carburetor!

  3. Thanks for the correction. It was supposed to say single-overhead-cam, two-valve, of course. Correction made. Enjoy your schadenfreude! Most of the blundears goe straight past.

  4. these are great cars and pretty close to bullet proof.I loved seeing these at the auction with air springs collapsed so I could buy ’em cheap, the fix was a pair of Gran Marquis springs from autozone that were $60-80

  5. I’m curious – just where would a seven minute promotional video have been aired? Certainly not on broadcast TV – it’s too long to air as an ad, too short for a feature slot. At events like golf tournaments (in the Ford sponsored hospitality tent perhaps)? At dealerships? At car shows? VHS tapes mailed to select customers?

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