When I autocrossed mine, the base 2.73 gears enabled me to just shift it down into 1st on the column and leave it there, I never once hit redline. In most cases the car was able to rotate on command through the apex if the suspension had settled into the turn and I laid on the throttle.
Definately not an ideal car, but more or less stock with some 17x8 mustang wheels and tires I was consistently coming mid-pack.
Just thought I would throw that out there.
i love the CVPI but the thing that sucked for me was (in my eyes) the crappy MPG. My highest MPG was 18 all highway with 3.27 rear end.
My lowest was......10 . something
Other then that i would buy another in heartbeat. Oh take a good look at the wiring as it passes through the fireway and such, i have seen a few where the wires chafe so much bad things happen (shorts, mystery problems)
(Pssssttt... I'm P71...)
Stock engine in mine. The P71 goodies are stupid-easy to swap. In fact, I have the P71-spec intake sitting in my shed if anybody needs one. There are huge differences in the seats between cop-spec and civvie (cop ones have 50# armor plates in them) and the different civvie trim levels. The higher the trim, the nicer the seat. Ford conveniently only uses 1 wiring harness so if you buy a P71 and swap in heated power seats they literally plug in.
In reply to paanta:
Yeah, that's the place!
Javelin wrote: literally the cheapest car in America to ensure.
Freudian slip?
I think this is the type of vehicle that you wish would die but keeps on going..
I personally would never want a panther platform car period but on the plus side you'd probably save a fair chunk of change compared to an equivalent year accord/civic/camry/etc which should give you gas money for a good while.
i dont know squat about the p71 or early fomocos, but when we were brainstorming for our challenge car we wandered through our local pull a part to see what was available. there were TONS of late model )1 through 0 whatever ford sedans with almost no visible damage. i asked a guy who was taking some engine parts from one of them what was breaking that made the car a junkyard candidate and he said the transmissions were weak.
again. i dont have any personal experience with them,and clearly a lot of people here do so i dont want to talk you out of it, but the number of seemingly good candidates in the junkyard seems to suggest that something major was prone to failure and that is the only answer i have ever heard about what that failure was.
From my ridealong in a police P71 (front seat, NOT the back 
), the handling impressed me more than anything. It's no Miata by any means, but it handled more like a 540i than a bloated American boat.
There's plenty of room for 4 people wearing helmets during an autocross run. I DID ride in the back seat for that.
As far as the Town Car goes, I'd avoid it for the sake of the air-suspension. Expensive if it goes out. I'd personally find the nicest Grand Marquis you can, although don't be forgetting about the other options, i.e. accord, camry, maxima... But IMHO, a CrownVic is way cooler than any of those. I wouldn't mind driving one again--that being said, ours was a fairly unique one. Ours had the nicest interior you could get with the Crown Vic AND the police suspension and transmission/transmission cooler. We bought it from our neighbor who has a 55' Chevy as well. He replaced with with a Maurauder.
mtn wrote: As far as the Town Car goes, I'd avoid it for the sake of the air-suspension. Expensive if it goes out. I'd personally find the nicest Grand Marquis you can, although don't be forgetting about the other options, i.e. accord, camry, maxima... But IMHO, a CrownVic is way cooler than any of those. I wouldn't mind driving one again--that being said, ours was a fairly unique one. Ours had the nicest interior you could get with the Crown Vic AND the police suspension and transmission/transmission cooler. We bought it from our neighbor who has a 55' Chevy as well. He replaced with with a Maurauder.
I would take the Maxima or even a Sentra over any panther.
dj wrote: I would take the Maxima or even a Sentra over any panther.
I've (we've) had a Maxima and a CV at the same time. Different animals, I just do not care for FWD.
I have an 03 max & my 02 p71. Love the nissan, prefer the ford. Mainly because of the burnouts. :D
4r70w's are anything but weak.
The AOD's broke behind the older 5.0/5.8 Panthers, but the 4R70W is bullet-proof.
You'd have to be on smack to prefer a Sentra over anything. (Former SE-R owner here). The Maxima's are nice, but it's not even in the same class. You could fit a Maxima in a P71's trunk.
For maximum space/safety for minimum dollars, plus a little RWD V8 hoonage, you cannot beat them. I missed mine today driving in the pouring rain and picking up groceries in the Miata... NOT fun!
For someone who wants a panther that is nice to sit in and drive look for a HPP car or LX Sport. Handling Performance Package if I recall. Pretty sure you could get it in grandpa (ford) and grandma (mercury) flavors. Tend to have nicer wheels and a floor shifter to boot.
FWIW the HPP package is available on both vic and marq, but also has the rear air suspension and a 3.27 rear end ratio. Im not sure of the sport. Vic Sport models have the 17" alloys above, HPP cars have 16" mesh alloys that look pretty nice. They also have a pretty sweet digital dash, and digital climate control, if you're into that sort of thing. I have been meaning to see if the climate control is a plug and play swap for mine. The dash cluster is not.
P71s come with 3.27 or 3.55 rear end ratios, which while accellerating better, most owners say gas mileage suffers. non HPP/sport package cars have a 2.73 rearend.
stock rear swaybar is 17mm, which is also the same on the P71. HPP/Sport cars have a 21mm rear swaybar which is an easy and cheap upgrade to the 17mm bar. I am pretty sure the rear air suspension on the higher models can easily be removed and replaced with springs from a base or P71 model. You dont just want to remove the bags as the spring rate on those springs is really low IIRC.
aw hell heres a lot of info. http://www.p71interceptor.com/ http://www.crownvic.net
there's an '05 p71 with 76k on it in our local paper for $3950. What a value!
I thought of a downside.
The online community.
The panther specific stuff is pretty awful.
How bad is P71 fuel economy? I got the above offer as a trade for the XR4ti. Wife needs something different than her MB 190E 2.6
Gas is the killer
Zombie thread..
but for all things MPG.. Fuelly has the answer.
http://www.fuelly.com/car/ford/crown%20victoria
In reply to m4ff3w: u want the p71
That site sounds dead on. 20MPG mixed is what I got. 18 city, 22 highway with spurts as low as 11 (HPDE day) and as high as 28 (65MPH straight shot on a freeway with the nose gaps taped up). Runs on 87 though.
don't ask me to explain how or why, because it made no sense to me, but mine got better mileage on 89 E10. 17-19 in town, 23-26 highway.
pre-5.4
One downside (?) that no one has mentioned is that almost everyone I know drives FWD vehicles. Many people don't react well to RWD vehicle dynamics because they are simply not used to them.
This thread makes me miss my grandmas old cv.......it was a civi p71 package with the 3.55s, leather, air ride, and digi dash.....lol. it was truely quick for what it was, and got traded in with under 9000 miles at 5 years old....lol
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