While Town Cars of the past have had engines up to 460 cubic inches, today'sTownie moves about with the aid of a 281 cubic inch single-overhead-cam V8 that is by any measure a world-class engine in terms of output, smoothness, quietness and fuel economy. It gets about triple the mileage of the old 460 on the highway and produces 210 horsepower, adequate for most of us, but without the accelerative snap provided by the Cadillac's 350 cubic-inch, high-torque V8. The induction system has been changed for 1996 to a center-entry system that is quite a bit quieter at wide-open throttle. The Town Car's transmission is an equally good Ford 4R70W 4-speed automatic overdrive that gives away some shift smoothness to the Japanese luxury cars, but not much. The Town Car in its most opulent rendition, the Cartier, is the one we tested for this report, a model that adds twin bucket-bench power 6-way heated memory seats, electrochromic mirrors, traction assist, and 16-inch spoked aluminum wheels and tires to the already huge list of Town Car standard equipment. But it drives and rides like all the others, which is to say very quietly and very smoothly, unless and until it falls into a 5-star pothole, in which case the suspension fails to protect the occupants from considerable noise and harshness. This is a luxury car, and its coil spring suspension is designed to soak up intrusions and isolate the spacious cabin from the outside world to the maximum extent possible. It is not designed to do sporting maneuvers, and offers a good deal of controlled body roll when cornering at high speed, even when equipped with the $100 ride control package option. The new power steering effort level switch is plumbed into a speed-sensitive power steering system, pointing the Town Car's 16-inch alloy wheels and big P225/60R-16 cruising tires. It's controlled by a horizontal slider located to the left of the steering column, and when switched to the High position, it does make a profound difference in the effort required to move the car off center, a much more pleasing situation than when it is in the Normal or Low positions, when the steering goes all ropy and unpredictable, which you don't want to do with a 4000-pound car. Until you have to park it, and that's when the Low effort range comes in very handy. We found the standard all-disc ABS brakes on the Town Car to be authoritative and powerful in winter driving conditions, and fade-free after a series of hard stops.
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