However, here will be a detailed overview of the Panther platform over the three decades of its existence, how it measured up and how history will judge it in the context of the history of Ford. Those customers appreciated the inherent qualities of the platform, and since this is the Car Lounge after all, we can't ignore what potential lurked underneath. It was a staple for fleets - taxi, police and other fleet uses - and with a dwindling and ageing private customer base as the years went on. It outlasted its GM B-Body competitor by some 15 years and thus could be said to have a market to itself, unless you could consider the Chrysler LX platform as competition given its size and harking back to Chrysler's past as well. The Panther platform was in production for 32 years. Thus severing one of the last links to yesteryear at Ford.

It marked the last of many things: the last of the body-on-frame RWD sedans that once ruled the roads of America, the last car belonging to the Mercury division of Ford which brought to end a chequered seven-decade existence, and with it the end of a more-or-less unbroken line of full-size Fords stretching back decades. It's been over six years now since the last of Ford's Panther platform cars - the Ford Crown Victoria, Mercury Grand Marquis and Lincoln Town Car - rolled off the production line.

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