[somerandomqaguy]

I think you're romanticizing that era a bit. The most commonly sold CUV's today are smaller length and width wise then station wagons or sedans way back when. The Crown Victoria was considered a regular sized sedan for it's day and it's as long as a crew cab F150. The land yachts easily match the footprint of the super cab F150 with shorter beds today, they just seem smaller because they're lower.

[criddell]

> most commonly sold CUV's today are smaller length and width wise then station wagons or sedans

You didn’t mention height and isn’t that the actual issue?

[dd8601fn]

The article says height of the hood and massive A pillars. People like big and boxy.

Increased hood height kills people and creates an absurdly large blind area. Massive pillars add roll safety but create horrible blind spots in left hand turns.

[HDBaseT]

Which is strange to me. I hate the big and boxy look.

A sedan is the perfect shaped car in my opinion. Wagons are nice too.

[mikepurvis]

As elsewhere in the thread, I drive a V60, and r/sportwagons host regular threads bemoaning the lack of good wagon options stateside. With the death of the focus and golf wagons, it's basically just luxury cars left, and not everyone wants to have a Mercedes, BMW, or Audi as their canoe trip vehicle, much less a freaking Porsche Panamera Turismo.

And nevermind that often these cars come with other compromises that signal they aren't really intended for "utility" use, for example the Taycan can't fit a regular tow receiver so forget about using a bike carrier with it other than the overpriced two-bike one that is available from the manufacturer.

[criddell]

Even Volvo is going SUV-only in the US:

https://www.volvocars.com/us/media/press-releases/3C9B9B3A25...

It seems people buying new cars mostly want big cars.

[hbs18]

A sedan shaped two door coupe is even better. The B pillars are behind you so you get better visibility.

[lupire]

You aren't a big tough manly man that other people give way for to avoid getting clobbered.

[Marsymars]

> The Crown Victoria was considered a regular sized sedan for it's day [...]

Are you sure about that? In North America, other than the Crown Vic in its heyday, Ford also had the Escort, the Festiva, the Tempo and the Taurus for sedans, all of which were smaller than the Crown Vic, which was the largest car they sold.

[somerandomqaguy]

As far as I was aware the others didn't sell in any close to the same numbers. The Crown Vic and it's Panther platform siblings were the basis for taxis and police cars across the US and Canada for a long time, and they could be had second hand for for a few months pay cheque back in the day.

[Marsymars]

> As far as I was aware the others didn't sell in any close to the same numbers.

Per wiki, Crown Vic sales peaked at 114k in 1999. In the same year, the Taurus sold 368k and the Escort sold 260k. (The Tempo was discontinued by then, but was typically moving 200k+ per year.)

[somerandomqaguy]

Hmm, curious, I remember seeing way more Crown Vics and other Panther platform vehicles from the 90's onward then Tauruses, even into the late 2000's. Wonder if it was just a regional thing where I lived...

[WorldMaker]

Maybe you just knew more cops? At one time that often seemed to be the way to spot an off duty cop was a civilian dressed Crown Vic that probably parked at home next to the work provided Crown Vic. Though I also knew someone that bought used cars solely from cop auctions partly because they weirdly liked the "harshly restored to civilian use after several years of work abuse" aesthetic about a former cop Crown Vic and also supposedly because they were incredibly cheap at auction if you didn't mind being a lifetime mechanic because those cars were in awful shape coming out of the auction.

[rnxrx]

In terms of platform variants the Taurus outsold the Crown Vic by a fair amount. The latter was certainly hugely popular as fleet vehicles, but the Taurus was Ford's best selling sedan for quite a while. The Taurus was never rated for anything more than fairly light-duty towing (<= 1500lbs).

More to the point - at least for automatic transmission variants in the early 90s - even the base F150 could certainly out-tow Crown Vics of the time, unless the latter had a tow package, which would push the rating up to 5000 lbs (..same as the lower end F150). Later on the delta was a lot greater (in the truck's favor) as the tow packages for the cars were phased out.

Nowadays the minimum ratings of F150s (even with shorter beds) is 5000lbs, or more. The smaller CUV/SUV platforms are usually rated ~1500lbs *max*, with some of the larger truck-based models obviously running in the same range as the trucks.

TL;DR - Even back in the day the "typical" sedan was still only rated for towing small loads, unless specially ordered with towing packages. Now..all that said, the frequency with which typical F150 owners ever actually tow anything is a whole other question.

[asdff]

Would you rather be hit by a crown vic or an f150?

[olyjohn]

Crown Vic has always been full size. Sorry.