Thought I’d share this from Autohaus Bill, just a stunning 1986 Town Car. My mother in law had one of these that was absolutely her pride and joy…this is likely one of the best surviving examples in existence.

 

I used to absolutely loathe these back in the 90ies when they were all over. It's easy to nostalgize over them today, but they were very unsophisticated, poorly built, did not hold up well, and the ride would make me seasick. The Lexus LS400 from the same era is like a spaceship in comparison. It is nice however to see a pristine example.

 

Nice video....reminds me of the huge 1965 Buick Electra 225 I had in college that I loved (which was even larger than that somewhat downsized Town Car), although it was old, worn, and not in anywhere near the condition of that mint-Town Car....these are the closest pictures I could find to it graphically.

Three things in the video, though, turned me off. One, that guy's voice. Two, I'm not a fan of digital gauges...never have been. Three, too many identical buttons on the dash...that was also a problem over at GM with big Buicks and Oldmobiles in the 80s and 1990s.....but not back when my old Buick was built.

 

With all due respect, maybe you, in particular, needed Dramamine after riding in a vintage Town Car, but for millions of Americans, that was EXACTLY the kind of ride (along with Bordello interiors, pillow-soft seats, and cocoon-like sound-insulation) that they wanted....particularly those who had grown up with large Ford and GM American cars in the 50s and 60s (Chrysler products back then were a little stiffer and noisier, because of their unibody and torsion/leaf suspensions). The downsizing of the mid-late 1970s full-size cars had already robbed many of those cars of their former comfort-levels by shortening the wheelbases and lightening their weights...the Town Cars of the 80s brought at least some of that back, although even they were downsized some.

IMHO, one of the worst things Ford did with the Town Car was the 1998 redesign, which traded its former boxiness for a new Jaguaresque look to the roof and trunk/rear-end. That might work on a Jag, but TC buyers were of a different mold...they liked the boxy, traditional look. As I recall, even at limo-firms, there was a fair amount of resistance to the new-generation look, and the squared-off 1997 and earlier models kept a lot of their value because resistance to the new ones enhanced demand for them as used cars. Eventually the market adjusted to the new look, but it took some time.

 

My wife tells stories of how carsick she used to get in the back seat of that thing...

 

Perhaps she should have been riding up front.

 

She was 6.

Cars can be TOO soft and wallowy is the point.

 

Several things are at play here. First, maybe its just a coincidence, but I remember back in the 90ies pretty much every American car had a distinct smell of gas inside the cabin. I don't know if its from poorly sealed gas tanks or just exhaust fumes with incompletely burned gas, but these fumes alone can make one sick. Another thing is the suspension frequency. I read a very technical article years back, explaining how the human vestibular system is adopted to natural range of motion frequencies, such as walking, running, etc. American manufacturers back then did not concern themselves with such level of sophistication, and just designed their suspensions to be as soft and floaty as possible, resulting in frequencies out of this range, and thus many people were getting sea sick riding in the back of these cars.

 

Right. There's a science to how soft and quiet you can make a car and not make people sick. Lexus did a lot of research into this when they designed the ride feel of the LS400. When we got our LS400 my Dad came from Lincolns and Cadillacs, he didnt have a Town Car, he had a Continental which had a little bit more of a European ride but still very soft and wallowy, then he had a Cadillac STS which was a little firmer but still really loose. The LS400 was never a wallowy car, it was just extremely solid and refined and well damped, never felt floaty boaty but just rode so great. On another level entirely.

I also remember that gassy smell you're talking about. More the 80s from my memory than the 90s though.

 

Yes, I had a tendency to get queasy in certain conditions of aircraft G-forces and bumping/turbulence. It was one of my few weaknesses as a pilot (or passenger)...though I usually got it worse as a passenger.

Making the vehicle-suspension firmer doesn'tnecssarily help, though. That only increases bumping and harshness.

 

Thats not the case at all. My wife for instance because she has car sickness prefers a firmer riding car. She much prefers to ride in the Pacifica for instance on a trip than my Lexuses, she hasn't ridden in the S Class on a trip not sure how she will feel about that, it rides more solidly and less floatily on the highway.

And firming up the suspension damping can also IMPROVE the ride. When the damping is too soft the car floats around all over the place and bumps are followed by up down side to side motions as rebound that are very uncomfortable.

Great example is a 90s LS400 and a 90s Town Car. The LS400 rides much better yet is also much more firmly sprung. What these cars lacked was sophistication in the suspension

 

The LS400 was not nearly as firmly sprung as today's LS500.

 

Which has no bearing on what we're talking about

 

Actually, it does. The extra firmness of the 500 is one of the things that is dampening its sales (no pun intended)

 

It doesn't. Of course you can make a car too firm, but that doesn't mean that adding firmness necessarily hurts a cars ride. Its all about suspension tunung, on cars like these old Town Cars...there was no tuning...