The Lincoln Town Car is a model line of full-size luxury sedans that was marketed by the Lincoln division of the American automaker Ford Motor Company. Deriving its name from a limousine body style, Lincoln marketed the Town Car from 1981 to 2011, with the nameplate previously serving as the flagship trim of the Lincoln Continental. Produced across three generations for 30 model years, the Town Car served as the flagship sedan of Ford Motor Company, marketed directly against the Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham (and its Cadillac DTS successor).

Marketed nearly exclusively as a four-door sedan (a two-door sedan was offered for 1981 only), many examples of the Town Car were used for fleet and livery (limousine) service. From 1983 to its 2011 discontinuation, the Town Car was the longest car produced by Ford worldwide, becoming the longest mass-production car sold in North America from 1997 to 2011. While not a direct successor of the Town Car, the Lincoln MKS would become the longest American sedan until 2016 (overtaken by the Cadillac CT6).

From 1980 to 2007, the Lincoln Town Car was assembled in Wixom, Michigan, (Wixom Assembly) alongside the Lincoln Continental, LS, and Mark VI, VII, and VIII. After that factory closed, Town Car production moved to Southwold, Ontario, (St. Thomas Assembly) alongside that of the similar Ford Crown Victoria and the Mercury Grand Marquis. That factory was closed in September 2011; the final Lincoln Town Car came off the assembly line on August 29, 2011.[1]

Within the Lincoln model line, the Town Car was not directly replaced; the nameplate was used from 2012 to 2019 to denote livery/limousine/hearse variants of the Lincoln MKT. For 2017, the revived Continental replaced the MKS, closely matching the Town Car in wheelbase and width.
Contents

1 Background
2 First generation (1981–1989)
3 Second generation (FN36/116; 1990–1997)
4 Third generation (FN145; 1998–2011)
5 Variants
6 Sales
7 Discontinuation
8 Awards
9 See also
10 References
11 External links

Background
Etymology

In the 1920s, a town car was a body design typically used for limousines. The description originated from the horse-drawn carriage that featured an open chauffeur's compartment with a fixed roof for the passengers.[2] During that era, the fixed rear roof horse-drawn carriage became a limousine and the term "de Ville" in French meant "for town (use)".[3] In 1922, Edsel Ford purchased a custom-built Lincoln L-Series town car as a personal vehicle for his father, Henry Ford.[4]

Later, the "sedan de Ville" was used as a model name by Cadillac, the primary rival to the Lincoln Continental from the 1950s to the 1990s.
Continental Town Car
1959-1960
1959 Continental Mark IV Town Car formal sedan (1 of 214 produced)

For 1959, Lincoln augmented it's pre-existing Continental lineup with the addition of two formal sedans known as the Town Car and Limousine. Both new vehicles featured pillared construction, interiors of broadcloth and scotch-grain leather as well as deep pile carpeting. No options were offered with all equipment including air conditioning being standard; the Limousine came with a glass partition between the front and rear seats.

In place of the reverse-slant roofline used by all other Continentals (including convertibles), the Town Car/Limousine was styled with a notchback roofline with a heavily padded vinyl top and an inset rear window. In addition to the slightly restrained styling, the change in the roofline was also functional. To add rear-seat legroom, the rear seat was repositioned without any modification in the wheelbase. In the years to follow both Imperial and Cadillac would redesign the rooflines on their own range-topping vehicles (the LeBaron and Fleetwood Sixty-Special) to appear more formal and limousine-like.