Quest For My Mark VIII’s Replacement
PART I
Well, my 160,000 mile 1997 Lincoln Mark VIII (with many mods) has been sold. The car has served me well, but it was time to move into something different. So, I have been looking, reading, researching and test driving MANY cars to find a suitable replacement for the Mark. After coming from the Mark criteria obviously will be pretty high. Reasonably good looking (the Mark wasn’t the prettiest car), a stylish and comfortable interior, very good engine performance, and quiet driving. Car must be loaded with luxury. The overall car will be “near luxury”, “sport luxury” or “pure luxury”. V8 is much preferred, as is rear-wheel drive. Though since the Mark handles only slightly better than a Toyota Camry, FWD cars are not excluded, as long as they meet the other criteria. Let’s face it, if we wanted a car that performed as if on rails, we would not have picked a Mark VIII. We would be going on a 3 day weekend to Toronto, where the cars are cheaper somewhat, to find a replacement for the Mark. My price ceiling is up to $35,000 CDN, and I will be looking at used vehicles. For the amount of mileage I put on (35K plus yearly) a new car doesn’t make sense. So reliability will also factor in. This will be the 1st part of my multi-car test drive.
Let’s begin the odyssey. In an effort to properly “warm up” and also to have a comfy drive for the 3.5 hour trek to Toronto to visit many of the cars, I decided to rent a 2004 Lincoln Town Car Ultimate.
2004 Lincoln Town Car: Ok..with only 400 miles on the clock, this is a brand new car. The Walkaround: Quite a large car, obviously. Lines are smooth, generally pretty pleasing to the eye. Not very modern looking, kinda boring, but a very safe, nice, pleasant styling exercise. You’d be hard pressed to call it “ugly” or “great looking”. It kinda falls in between. The mushy middle, I guess! Some signs of cheapness are evident already. The wheels are cast. The finish is chromed. Sadly, the only part of the wheel that is bright looking is face. The rest of the wheel, between the spokes, is still rough cast while being chromed over. This is obviously an effort to save costs. I noticed it, and wondered if this was a sign of things to come.
The Interior: In short, just terrible!! While the seats are comfy, and the leather nice, and the overall roomy, the interior is so bland and cheap, I can see why Lincoln is struggling. Beautiful wood grain steering wheel….and then you are blasted by the fake wood on the dash. And not much fake wood at that. Oh, and it’s slab sided. Just a big, flat, ugly dash all the way across, with no style. It was difficult to tell the difference between the dash on this and the dash in my dad’s 2001 Crown Vic. A few marks for the light-gold anodized door handles..neato. Analog speedo is simple, easy on the eyes, and a touch elegant. The elegance, however, is ruined by the in-your-face, overly bright (yes, I know you can turn it down) digital display. It is an awful sickly looking very bright Pea Green colour. It is absolutely terrible. Not at all like the nice subdued bluish hue found in the Mark. This green reminds me of the old digital displays found in C4 Vettes or an old digital dash in a Taurus. Not at all becoming to an uber-luxury car. Oh, and more gripes: the interior is too dark. No courtesy lights as found in the Mark VIII for the door handles. I wasn’t fond of the seat controls on the door skin instead of beside the seat. Not a horrible design, just not to my liking, or very intuitive.
The Drive: This is a very quiet car..up to a point. At 40-50MPH, road noise is non-existent. Wind noise is a whisper. Above 50 though, the wind noise is louder than my Mark was. I expected this car to be quieter at highway speeds. Engine is soft, and feels hugely underpowered. Engine is quiet though, and returns great fuel mileage for such a boat. 25MPG at a steady 70MPH. Not too shabby. As expected, “handling” and “Town Car” should never be used in the same sentence. This is a marshmallow on wheels. So soft it is, I thought I’d rub the rocker panel on the road when I tried to push it through a corner. Stereo easy to use, but seems like you have to have the volume at the mid-way point to have a decent sound coming from it. My favorite option was the reverse/back up sensor. It beeps slowly at first, then more quickly as an object is getting closer to your bumper. What a great feature! Wish all cars had this.
Overall: Overall, I found the car cheap. It felt very cheap while inside. If the interior was re-designed with some style and a little flair, and the digital readout ditched, this might be an OK car. But you could tell Lincoln went cheap in many areas, and for the kind of dough they ask for this car brand new ($58,000 base), I could never recommend it. Even used at $17,000CDN for a 1998, this car doesn’t offer very good value. I would never buy one. Scratch the Town Car off the list!!
And so concludes Part I. Please feel free to comment, or add anything. Stay tuned for the next stop when I drop by the Jaguar lot.
PART I
Well, my 160,000 mile 1997 Lincoln Mark VIII (with many mods) has been sold. The car has served me well, but it was time to move into something different. So, I have been looking, reading, researching and test driving MANY cars to find a suitable replacement for the Mark. After coming from the Mark criteria obviously will be pretty high. Reasonably good looking (the Mark wasn’t the prettiest car), a stylish and comfortable interior, very good engine performance, and quiet driving. Car must be loaded with luxury. The overall car will be “near luxury”, “sport luxury” or “pure luxury”. V8 is much preferred, as is rear-wheel drive. Though since the Mark handles only slightly better than a Toyota Camry, FWD cars are not excluded, as long as they meet the other criteria. Let’s face it, if we wanted a car that performed as if on rails, we would not have picked a Mark VIII. We would be going on a 3 day weekend to Toronto, where the cars are cheaper somewhat, to find a replacement for the Mark. My price ceiling is up to $35,000 CDN, and I will be looking at used vehicles. For the amount of mileage I put on (35K plus yearly) a new car doesn’t make sense. So reliability will also factor in. This will be the 1st part of my multi-car test drive.
Let’s begin the odyssey. In an effort to properly “warm up” and also to have a comfy drive for the 3.5 hour trek to Toronto to visit many of the cars, I decided to rent a 2004 Lincoln Town Car Ultimate.
2004 Lincoln Town Car: Ok..with only 400 miles on the clock, this is a brand new car. The Walkaround: Quite a large car, obviously. Lines are smooth, generally pretty pleasing to the eye. Not very modern looking, kinda boring, but a very safe, nice, pleasant styling exercise. You’d be hard pressed to call it “ugly” or “great looking”. It kinda falls in between. The mushy middle, I guess! Some signs of cheapness are evident already. The wheels are cast. The finish is chromed. Sadly, the only part of the wheel that is bright looking is face. The rest of the wheel, between the spokes, is still rough cast while being chromed over. This is obviously an effort to save costs. I noticed it, and wondered if this was a sign of things to come.
The Interior: In short, just terrible!! While the seats are comfy, and the leather nice, and the overall roomy, the interior is so bland and cheap, I can see why Lincoln is struggling. Beautiful wood grain steering wheel….and then you are blasted by the fake wood on the dash. And not much fake wood at that. Oh, and it’s slab sided. Just a big, flat, ugly dash all the way across, with no style. It was difficult to tell the difference between the dash on this and the dash in my dad’s 2001 Crown Vic. A few marks for the light-gold anodized door handles..neato. Analog speedo is simple, easy on the eyes, and a touch elegant. The elegance, however, is ruined by the in-your-face, overly bright (yes, I know you can turn it down) digital display. It is an awful sickly looking very bright Pea Green colour. It is absolutely terrible. Not at all like the nice subdued bluish hue found in the Mark. This green reminds me of the old digital displays found in C4 Vettes or an old digital dash in a Taurus. Not at all becoming to an uber-luxury car. Oh, and more gripes: the interior is too dark. No courtesy lights as found in the Mark VIII for the door handles. I wasn’t fond of the seat controls on the door skin instead of beside the seat. Not a horrible design, just not to my liking, or very intuitive.
The Drive: This is a very quiet car..up to a point. At 40-50MPH, road noise is non-existent. Wind noise is a whisper. Above 50 though, the wind noise is louder than my Mark was. I expected this car to be quieter at highway speeds. Engine is soft, and feels hugely underpowered. Engine is quiet though, and returns great fuel mileage for such a boat. 25MPG at a steady 70MPH. Not too shabby. As expected, “handling” and “Town Car” should never be used in the same sentence. This is a marshmallow on wheels. So soft it is, I thought I’d rub the rocker panel on the road when I tried to push it through a corner. Stereo easy to use, but seems like you have to have the volume at the mid-way point to have a decent sound coming from it. My favorite option was the reverse/back up sensor. It beeps slowly at first, then more quickly as an object is getting closer to your bumper. What a great feature! Wish all cars had this.
Overall: Overall, I found the car cheap. It felt very cheap while inside. If the interior was re-designed with some style and a little flair, and the digital readout ditched, this might be an OK car. But you could tell Lincoln went cheap in many areas, and for the kind of dough they ask for this car brand new ($58,000 base), I could never recommend it. Even used at $17,000CDN for a 1998, this car doesn’t offer very good value. I would never buy one. Scratch the Town Car off the list!!
And so concludes Part I. Please feel free to comment, or add anything. Stay tuned for the next stop when I drop by the Jaguar lot.
T 1
