The Lincoln Town Car: An Icon of Comfort and Convenience

For decades, the Lincoln Town Car has been the limousine by excellence, a standard for elegance and superb comfort. This luxury sedan was the absolute leader in limousine sales during decades, something important enough to remark.

But the Lincoln Town Car is more than just a vehicle, it’s the physical representation of the automotive revolution that took place in the US during the past century after WWII, an age when innovators invested their passion and talent to create marvels of engineering that defined our lives forever.

There’s plenty to tell about this iconic limousine and today we’ll tell you some of the most interesting details about its history and what it meant to us in the present day.

The Town Car Legacy

Before creating the first Lincoln Town Car model per se, this term was widely used to define a segment of motor vehicles. Original town cars, also known as coupé de Ville, where luxury vehicles that were built between the early 20th Century and 1939 by using an external driving seat and an enclosed compartment for the passengers in the rear side.

Needless to say, this body style was the ideal one for luxury models and wealthy owners that had personal drivers. It was clearly influenced by horse-drawn luxury carriages and became popular in no time.

The design evolved over time and was used by high-end brands like Rolls Royce, Bentley, and Packard until the standard form factor of automotive vehicles evolved dramatically after the end of WWII.

The Continental Limousine

In 1959, the Lincoln Continental Mark IV, one of the first versions of the well-known line of luxury vehicles produced to date, became available. This model was launched in coupé and four-door bodies but a more luxurious tier was lacking. With Mark III and Mark V also available at the same time, Lincoln decided to offer a limousine version of the Mark IV, branded as Continental Town Car.

We can consider the Continental Town Car sold as a part of the Mark IV line-up of luxury vehicles as the first step towards the Lincoln Town Car we all know today. However, at that moment and during multiple decades afterward, the Town Car remained exclusively as a limousine-option for the Continental sedan and not as an independent model.

Generations of Fame

In 1980 and after two decades of success, despite having Cadillac on the lead in the luxury car segment, Lincoln put to halt the production of Continental sedans in order to restructure the line-up and make important improvements in the well-known vehicle. However, they decided to launch the Town Car as an independent model for the first time.

The first generation of Lincoln Town Car vehicles began in 1981 and went intact throughout the years until 1989 when a new update was on its way. Also, 1989 model was chosen to be the Presidential Limousine for President George H. W. Bush.

In 1990, a new generation hit the market. The redesign dramatically affected both in and out this model, bringing a clear focus on modernization. This generation of limousines received multiple accolades and became the best-selling full-size model in the US market.

Seven years went by before the next and final revamp of the Lincoln Town Car. The third generation arrived in 1998. The Windsor engine disappeared and the Modular model, also present in the second generation, was the only one present in the offering. Many other changes came with this generation, like the curviest design in the Lincoln Town Car history.

What We Have Today

It was no surprise when it became known that the Lincoln Town Car was the most popular and widely used limousine both in the US and Canada. The success of this remarkable vehicle is undeniable.

However, during the 2000s, Ford carried a highly comprehensive restructuring plan for all its companies, including Lincoln. This process affected the Town Car, which was left out of the equation despite its grand success. The last unit was produced in late 2011 and Ford didn’t announce a replacement for the model, leaving fans empty-handed and seeing a new line of Lincoln models that had nothing to do with the original vehicle.

Despite this sad event, the Lincoln Town Car continues to be the leading limousine in the US. There are no serious limousine companies without a fleet of this remarkable model operating. Regardless its discontinuation, this model remains as the undisputed reference of luxury, comfort, convenience, and elegance in America and many countries around the world.