Here's all three of my cars:
The 1995 XJR in front was actually rated better than the Lexus LS400 in short, medium and long term quality, so that poem doesn't fly with it. :D And it's a completely different car from the 87 XJ parked behind it.
Posted on 11/13/2009 12:22:27 PM PST by taildragger
DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) -- Ford Motor Co. says it plans to sell a new police cruiser vehicle to replace the Crown Victoria once the sedan is phased out of production in 2011.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
lol
Oklahoma? North Carolina Highway Patrol’s the worst, IMHO!
In SC, I rarely see State Troopers. But here in NC, they’re everywhere!
Most car companies don’t keep making the same car with little to no improvements for 30 years, though. This should have been fixed, at the very latest, with the 2002 ‘refresh’ - but it wasn’t.
Every NC State Trooper I’ve ever had occasion to deal with has been the consumate professional, fair and impartial. Can’t say the same for some city and county police, but that’s always been the case for me with State Troopers.
The dumbest speeding ticket I ever received in my life was doled out to me by a State Trooper, I still remember his name clear as a bell, can even see it glinting in the street lights on his brass name tag. He was former military, a black man, in a marked Ford Mustang pursuit vehicle. I was in a brand-new Maxima, and was late to meet up with friends, to go to one of their parent’s beach houses down at Wrightsville Beach.
Got stuck behind a logging truck, on one of those infernally long stretches of US 74 that are lined with “canals,” deep, water-filled ditches, really. No opportunities to pass, for what seemed like forever. Bits of wood and bark dropping off the logs and bouncing off the hood of my new car ... finally, a passing zone opened up, and I floored it. Felt really good to wind it through the gears, really sweet and smooth.
Then, the radar detector went off. Not a slow building up of beeps indicating signal strength, but an immediate blaring from instant-on radar. I stood on the brakes, hard, and when I looked down, the speedometer was at ninety and rapidly falling.
To make a long story short, the good Officer Bass wrote me up for 91, and warned me not to ask him for any favors, because he could arrest my @$$ and impound my car.
I drove around with a scroll for a year, a provisional license, as a result. My insurance tripled.
But, I do remember and respect Officer Bass down by Clinton, NC.
Says the guy who owns a Jaguar! Your XJ was produced from 1968 to 2003 with little to no improvements.
Uh, no.
The 2003 XJ shared NO parts with the 1968 XJ. They weren’t even remotely the same car! Not only that, but the original car had dual fuel tanks carried behind the rear axle and from the XJ40 onwards (1988 ‘XJ’) it had the tank ahead of the rear axles in the passenger cell area.
For that matter, the last of the classic XJs in 1987 only had about 40% parts commonality with the first XJ and most of the remainder didn’t interchange at all. Jaguar made continuous improvements to the XJ from Series I-III, then the all-new XJ40 came out, followed by the heavily revised X300 and the again revised X308, the ‘last’ pre-Callum XJ.
Nice try, no points, come again.
After installing a five row radiator, an huge trans cooler, having the GM (!) Transmission shift points reworked, and fixing a stuck button on the 8-track, I was able to drive my 1976 Jaguar XJ-6 many hundreds of miles between overhauls, with only minor daily electrical problems.
All of this mind you, while achieving a very green 15 mpg. The R-12 AC (borrowed by Jag from GM, along with the Trans and window lift motors) worked perfectly. you can't beat it! Still have it. Somewhere.
My bad. I thought we were playing by the same rules of the game when you said this about the Crown Vic:
Most car companies don’t keep making the same car with little to no improvements for 30 years, though.
With your new rules, you too would be awarded no points. You see, the Crown Vic as we know it now was first produced in 1992 model year, and is not even remotely the same car as a 30 year old LTD/Crown Victoria either.
Except that under the bodywork, the suspension and chassis are exactly the same as they were in 1977. There has been little to no significant change in the actual structure of the car since 1977, so the rules are still the same. You fail again.
You can (and some people have) swapped bodies between a 77 and an 02-up CV. It’s just like the Ford Ranger, except with the Ranger, they changed one bolt location. They didn’t change anything on the CV.
The Jags are unibody cars - and even then, the unibody design changed radically between the classic XJ and the XJ40 of 1988.
Here's all three of my cars:
The 1995 XJR in front was actually rated better than the Lexus LS400 in short, medium and long term quality, so that poem doesn't fly with it. :D And it's a completely different car from the 87 XJ parked behind it.
BTW, dumping the DOHC 6 was treasonous. Excuse me I am upset. I have to go sit in my Alvis now.
Is wheelbase a thing?
1973-78 LTD wheelbase: 121"
1977-79 LTD II wheelbase: 117.9"
1979-91 LTD/Crown Victoria wheelbase: 114.3"
1992-09 Crown Victoria wheelbase: 114.6"
Kind of casts a doubt on the accuracy of the rest of your information. Or I guess those body swaps looked pretty funny with the wheels hitting the wheel wells, huh?
so the rules are still the same. You fail again.
Well you fail math!
The 87 is pretty much the same car as an 84, with the only significant differences being that the 87 had a couple of electric bug fixes and better paint.
The 95 in front has an all-aluminum Jaguar DOHC I6 with an Eaton supercharger on it. :D It’s just not the iron block I6 that’s in the car behind it, that’s all.
The 73-78 LTD isn’t the same chassis as the Panther platform, though the Panther chassis was developed from it. The 77 LTD II is what the CV came from.
Moving the axle back or forth three inches (especially on a body on frame car) isn’t significant at all. The classic XJ, for example, was available in two wheelbases - doesn’t make them different cars. The Lincoln Town Car, which we all agree is the same car, is available in a 117.7 inch wheelbase and a 123.7 inch wheelbase. Still the same crap chassis underneath, and the body of a 1982 Town Car will still drop right onto a 2005-up Town Car SWB chassis (this has been done recently by a couple of crazy Dallas hotrodders with access to flooded Katrina cars and a bent-frame hot-rodded Town Car). So you fail again.
And then this knucklehead blasts by us both at about 90, engine roaring. Past me he sees her and the idiot slams on the brakes. Three-two-one, and on come the lights and she's got her bust. I was cheering as I passed them. She waved.
Still the same crap chassis underneath, and the body of a 1982 Town Car will still drop right onto a 2005-up Town Car SWB chassis
Where to start? Well, the 1982 Crown Vics, Grand Marqs, and Town Cars obviously had a completely different body than their 2005-up versions.
The 1982's had a 5.0L or 5.8L cast iron OHV V8 engine. The 2005-up cars have a completely different 4.6L aluminum SOHC engine.
The 1982's had a 4-spd AOD automatic overdrive transmission, which debuted in 1980. The 2005-up cars have the 4R70W, which is a heavy duty, electronically controlled, wide ratio geared rework of the AOD.
AND THE FRAME THAT YOU KEEP BRINGING UP?
You seemed to have missed that the Panther platform was completely redesigned in 2003. New hydro-formed steel frame, new front and rear suspension, and the recirculating ball gear box was replaced with a rack and pinion.
Just how much of the car has to be replaced before you consider it "not the same crap?"
Here we have a different body, different frame, different engine, different transmission (albeit based on the old one), different steering and different suspension. All that, and you still think it's the same car?
So you fail again.
What's the obsession with telling me I fail? Projection? Because you don't know enough about Crown Vics to tell people they "fail" when discussing them.
Marshmallow Murder
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=playnmJB_TI
I hate to say it, but you will never be able to convince some people that American cars are just as good as (and in many cases better) their foreign competition.
I travel for work and rent vehicles several days a week. I prefer cars by American manufacturers. I love the larger Buicks, Cadillacs, and Fords. I am always disappointed when I get stuck with a Toyota, Honda, Volkswagon, even a Lexus. They just don’t feel as substantial as the American brands. The doors are generally thinner and they are not as roomy or comfortable. They aren’t bad cars. It’s just that at this point in my life I don’t need to save a few nickels on gas. I would rather drive a safe, reliable, comfortable vehicle.
Now for my own observations concerning American vehicles. I notice that whenever there is a horrible accident involving a Lexus, Toyota, or Honda, the entire family traveling in one of those vehicles is killed and the people in the American vehicle walks away with scratches. I’m sure that’s not always the case, but it sure does seem like it.
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