Aspiring “Lincoln Lawyers” may need a silk napkin to dab their drool after reviewing the brief on this fine-looking 1999 Lincoln Town Car. The Biloxi Mississippi classic has covered fewer than 20,000 miles since last century and shows well inside and out. Check out more pictures and an inexplicable ALL CAPS description here on Craigslist where $13,650 inks the title. Thanks to Tony P. for spotting this black beauty.
Supple-looking tan leather makes a classy alternative to all black. Credit the seller with showing this view so potential buyers can inspect the driver’s seat. With no visible tears or abnormal wear, the captain’s chair welcomes you behind the wheel for a pleasant drive, long or short. I’ve experienced this generation Town Car as a paying passenger multiple times, each ride building admiration for their room, high-quality interiors, and vault-like silence. Shut the solid doors and enjoy instant relief from New York City traffic and the cacophony of perpetually unsatisfied commoners. Upgrading to the “black car” yields a sizable trunk for your family’s vacation luggage, and the smooth silent operation eases travel fatigue before you even reach your hotel.
A mainstay of the black car service companies, these capable people-movers focus on comfort without complicating their mission with pretenses of performance. By 1999, this Panther platform and Ford’s modular 4.6L SOHC V8 had delivered a bazillion miles of bulletproof service to taxi companies and law enforcement in the smaller Ford Crown Victoria and Mercury Grand Marquis. Reliability is the ultimate luxury, is it not? The rear seat offers plenty of room to fan out your briefs and get down to business.
This melted beak and rounded waterfall grille mark a dramatic change from squared off earlier Town Cars with styling that looks contemporary a quarter century later. Nobody will confuse this Lincoln Town car with today’s amorphous luxury blobs, nor would a valet immediately recognize this as an “old used car” unworthy of respect. I’ve ridden in identical-looking cars that seem well-kept and tight after logging 300,000+ miles. If you’ve already got your Lincoln Lawyer suit, why not setup your mobile office in this low-budget Town Car?
Almost everyone can agree these are great automobiles. 😌
Great find Primo!
As PACKARD advised *Ask the Man Who Owns One * I’ve owned three Town Cars (78, 89, and current 2007 Signature Limited with 75,000 miles) as well as Grand Marquis, Crown Vics and other upscale vehicles. As noted these will easily provide 300,000 miles of luxurious driving with only routine maintenance. A fine example of LINCOLN, what a Luxury CAR should be and ONCE was. IMO, dropping them was an even bigger FMC mistake than the EDSEL. As co-founder of The GREAT AMERICAN LAND YACHT PRESERVATION SOCIETY, I hereby declare this to be a genuine Bon Marche. 🏆 Grab it while you can! There is NOTHING currently built to equal it.
Good write-up Todd. Like Stan says, these Panthers did what the were supposed to do very, very well. With the Lincoln carrying the luxury side of the equation.
Maybe someone can chime in: I think many city jurisdictions have limits on black car mileage. (Seems like I remember Houston being 400,000?) Do they also have limits on age? If not, it seems that a livery company would snatch up this low-mileage example.
Mileage perhaps Bob, but I’ve seen some rules about age of the car as well.
Wish folks would ease up on the “color enhance” features in their photos. makes the car look fake. LOL
I’ve lost track of the number of Lincolns I’ve owned in the past. I owned a livery service and started out with Cadillacs and switched to Lincolns very early on. My personal car was a Lincoln Town Car. As long as you perform the required and recommended maintenance it will reward you with miles and years of reliable and loyal service. My theory why they discontinued manufacturing them is they started losing money because they didn’t wear out. What do you guys think?
Probably CAFE standards were too restrictive, and these big, heavy cars couldn’t be made efficient enough to meet them. I’m hoping these standards are rolled back to something more reasonable, so that we can buy cars and SUVs with regular gas engines WITHOUT expensive, unreliable turbochargers.
I’ve heard something similar Zen, “uneconomic to upgrade to current government standards.” I would expect it also involved the re-engineering needed for now-expected automotive features. Example: adaptive cruise control– even highway patrol officers and livery drivers would appreciate this. Of course we are not privy to all the internal discussion, and reasons.
And realize, by the end of their production run, buyers were mostly fleet plus some senior citizen.
Times change and so do tastes. When rappers and NBA stars started rolling in Escalades and Navigators the writing was on the wall for big RWD sedans. Those truck based SUVs get worse mileage than a car but the profit margins are higher plus they were exempt from some regulations being, you know, trucks. I’m late to this party I know but I just noticed this post and I likes me a Lincoln, only I prefer the ones before and after this generation. That grill looks too small next to those giant headlights.
I agree. Years 2003 to 2011 hit the mark for designing the best looking Town Cars. They all had average to good reliability, with the 2007 being the most reliable one, according to CRs.
1999 was the first year for side airbags in a Lincoln Town Car. I wish they had installed stability control in these vehicles. They didn’t, and so 2011 was the last year for them. So sad!
I had a 2004. I loved it, but it kept blowing spark plugs out of the Head.I think it had 115K on it when it started giving me issues.