Over the past couple of months I've seen three of these cars on the road. Crown Vic platform, one I thought was a Mercury. Went on the net and there's not much info on them. Saw one at a gas station, and the guy was very evasive about the car, he and the car looked like a Fed. I could swear there was a M16 (type) with the stock against the back seat muzzle pointing foward as he pulled out. Back windows were deeply tinted, front windows were graduated tinted.

 

Never heard of the Panther as a model. I know the name of the platform that the Crown Vic and the Mercury Marquis is called the panther platform. Sort of like the 79-93 Mustang was built on the fox platform.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Panther_platform

 

Interesting reading, the "Panthers" I saw were Metallic Black, and Panther imbossed in the rear bumper, said Panther, with a Panther head on the front fender badges.

 

Stay away from cars and people like that. They may be working security for something. If they looks suspicious a simple call to local law enforcement is warranted.

 

Try here:http://www.crownvic.net/
I have been browsing for 30 minutes, I can't find a thing about a "Panther" car. It may be some after-market stuff you saw. The gun is definitely not a stock Ford part.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Panther_platform

 

Hmm, I wonder if there's any truth the comment about the "rumor" that ford's thinking of changing to the D3 platform (think Austrailian Falcon).. Would we then get a 500hp/500tq 5.4 and AWD in a CV???

 

Don't know if this is another attempt to capitalize on the mid 90s Impala SS's. I had one til some fool totalled it for me, heck the resale value was even going up due to cult following.

Back in the late 90s, customizers were trying to build a car that was a "classic" American big sedan with performance equal or better than the Impala SS with the 350 LT1 engines. The Panther that I know of was a customizer, forget who, that took a Clown Vic and supercharged the engine. I think it was a tad faster than the SS, but it was way expensive compared to the SS which for $25K was a pretty good perfromer.

The Panther name was to imply that the car preyed on the Impala, which is a large African deer.

Car and Driver built something similar to the Panther but blew up a couple engines getting there. There were lots of rumors about what Ford was going to do and many ideas were very exciting to the SS crowd as replacements for their aging cars.

After awhile Ford came out with the Marauder which on paper was supposed to be quicker and faster than the SS, but wasn't in real world experience. The car never really got off the ground and Ford shut down production fairly quickly and left a lot of new cars on the lots. Guess the heavy car overcame the small Ford engine. Many SS'rs were disappointed in not having a replacement for their old cars.

If the Panthers you saw are new, then I would guess someone is trying to do it again.

Just my recollection from being a member of the SS crowd since 1997.

Jim Henderson

 

I saw an old mercury cougar today, it had little cougar heads in the wheels. Are you sure you weren't seeing a Cougar, or a Vic with Cougar parts?

 

Its a Panther, has a Panther's head on the fender badge with the word Panther on it. Also has PANTHER molded into the rear bumper, kind of like SHO in the Taurus rear bumper so equiped. They are new too. Absolutely nothing on the web about this particular car.

Years ago (1995-6?) I was working on an AC at the convention center, they had a Crown Vic with a 460 cu in. motor in it with a blower. This was not a 4.6L. Don't think you could of put a toothpick under the hood without denting it when it was shut. I understood it didn't really work, and was a Marine duty engine.

 

Here ya go:

http://www.mitchsplace.com/crownvicm...cvpics_kb.html

And:
http://www.kennybrown.com/pantherintro.html

Looks like this is a custom conversion being done to Crown Vics.