I never had any of the giant luxobarges, but I did drive some. I ferried my bosses 74 Continental across a couple of states in the Midwest at one point.
I had a 77 Caprice Estate Wagon for a few years, but that's a midsize by comparison.
From 1986 to 2000, which encompassed my last year racing Standardbreds, ten years of school, and three years after graduation, this was my daily. From the first year of panther production, a 79 LTD Landau.
It really was a transitional year for the big Fords. The overdrive transmission wasn't used until the next year, so it had a C4 with a 2.26:1 rear end. I had the C4 built with a set of wide ratio gears to compensate.
I never swapped the rear end because we used to do a lot of road trips. This picture is me checking the load about a mile from the apartment in Gainesville, on our way to Cape Hatteras.
The final version had a 0.040 over 302, ported E7TE heads, holly four barrel, performer 289 intake, competition cams HE 260, crane roller rockers, headman shorties, with 2.25 dual exhaust and flowmasters, Accel super coil and blueprint distributor, and the built C4.
For the suspension, it got P71 sway bars and front fender braces, 15 inch steelies with the dog dish hubcaps and BF Goodrich Comp TA tires.
Finished up with Deltron paint. I put a set of cougar buckets in the front, and a certified calibration speedometer, dash mounted tach, and gauges.
Someone ran a stop sign and totaled it. Still miss it, since it never got the stroker Windsor and five speed swap that I had planned. It was a heavy car for the day, but at 3700 pounds on a certified scale, that's not so much by current standards.