Few models in the Lincoln Town Car lineup were as extravagant as the Town Car Cartier. Debuting in the 2001 model year, the Town Car Cartier paid homage to its predecessors, particularly the opulent, low-and-long luxury car of the same name from the 1970s.
The Town Car didn’t start out as a distinct model. It was originally introduced as a trim package option available on the Lincoln Continental before it became its own thing for the 1980 model year. Fresh off a redesign for the 1999 model year, the Town Car Cartier debuted as an optional upgrade in 2001, bringing quite a few unique features to the luxury sedan as part of its high-brow French nameplate. This included Cartier Chrome aluminum wheels outside, while inside, it got monogrammed floor mats and heated front seats with five levels of intensity just a push of the button away.
In case the Lincoln Town Car Cartier by itself wasn’t luxurious enough, the marque offered the “gold package” to go along with it. This fit the Cartier with a bit more pizazz, including a gold clock affixed right to the center of the dashboard. Leather seating surfaces and black maple trim completed the ensemble inside, although it wasn’t lacking in terms of space. In fact, the sedan was offered with two wheelbase configurations, including the “regular” length or the “L” edition, which added six inches of overall wheelbase and stretched the luxury sedan out even more.
However, the one place that the Town Car Cartier really disappointed was in the power department. The luxury sedan featured a naturally aspirated V8 engine, good for just 235 horsepower, and while that represented a 15 horsepower upgrade over the “regular” Town Car, it still wasn’t enough to get out of its own way. The Town Car Cartier, especially the L edition, was a long, heavy piece of luxurious machinery, and those 235 horses just weren’t enough to really get it going.
However, lack of get-up-and-go aside, the Town Car Cartier was a luxurious machine through and through, right down to its price tag. Back in 2001, it carried a starting price of $40,885 – or roughly $73,000 when adjusted for inflation.
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Deluxe Highway Cruiser.
From the times Lincoln produced real luxury cars and was a serious luxury automobile company and not the vulgar joke it is today.
Town Car sales were going down at a rapid rate to where it made no sense to make them anymore. Lincoln this year sold over 100K units for the first time since 2007 without 4 door sedans. 2001[21][72] 66,859
2002[73] 59,312
2003[21] 56,566
2004[21][74] 51,908
2005[21] 47,122
2006[75] 39,295
2007 26,739
2008 15,653
2009 11,375
2010[76] 11,264
2011[77] 9,460
2012[78] 1,001
I believe this vehicle sold very well considering it had only 2 redesigns in 1990 and 1998, and no updates after 2003. Starting in 2008, Lincoln Navigator sales never topped 20,000 units despite all the updates and redesigns and the untold millions (maybe billions) of dollars Ford has invested in it. Since MSRP of the 2025 Lincoln Navigator starts at $101,990, don’t expect sales to top 12,000 units unless a $20,000+ rebate and 0% financing is offered.
That list of declining sales doesn’t tell the full story. The car was never redesigned over that whole period, so of course sales declined to the point that only car services were buying them at the end.
Honda Accord, Toyota Camry, Avalon where all updated and they are selling at a fraction of what they use to. Accord is down 50% from it high marks. The Lincoln Continental sold poorly when it came out in 2017 and it was so far advanced that any Town car and had more room. The MKZ sales fell off year by year, so that was gone also. What full size car now sells in great numbers like 20 years ago? None of them, people tastes moved away and 4 doors where discontinued. To many people living in the past.
The Lincoln Continental sold poorly because Ford hired an inexperienced unqualified furniture guy as CEO from 2017-2020 who hated sedans. I believe some Ford executives tried to save the Continental with the Coach Door Edition (2019-2020). I believe a Lincoln Continental Coach Door Edition will outsell the Lincoln Navigator.
you just can’t launch a model and expect it to update itself. The investment and talent must be assigned. Just another missed opportunity.
Nothing to see here…
Fusion, Taurus, Town car…. bye bye.
As a former TC Cartier owner I don’t recall it being anything special. The radio system was dumb down to the level of an entry level Ford Escort. It required premium fuel for very little extra HP. My 1995 TC at least had the look of a tank vs that melted look. The Cartier had an analog clock on the dashboard but lacked heated seats in the rear. The safety features were in the sheet metal and that’s it. My buddy bought a used Cadillac around the same time and it felt like a Rolls Royce inside. And it had adaptive cruise control.
In retrospect I think Ford dropped the ball. There was so much more they could do to make it truly luxury. They had the Mercury Grand Marquis to peddle it to the masses and Crown Victoria to sell it to the power hungry performance people. Instead they kept churning the same car in 3 body styles.
The Town Car Cartier debuted in 2001? Who writes this stuff? AI? The Cartier Edition was an option for the Town Car starting in 1982.
Have a 2005 TC great vehicle, 25mpg, comfy, lots of room, bagged, cruise all day,
120,000 Lincoln Town Cars were sold in 1994, sales declined due to lack of updates, Ford gave up on it after the 2003 update. Then in 2006 Ford hire a Boeing employee named Alan “Goofy” Mulally who pulled the plug on it as well as Mercury. Alan “Goofy” Mulally’s dual actions is why Lincoln’s lineup consists of 4 ugly overpriced Milk Trucks and will be China-only by 2030. Lincoln needs to replace all their executives starting the Brilliant Dianne Craig.