A Lincoln Town Car Cartier L, seen in the Lido area in Beijing back in 2016. The big American sedan was in great shape, painted in a classy shade of black with a shipload of shiny chrome. License plates are from Tianjin Municipality.
The third-generation Lincoln Town Car was manufactured from 1998 until 2011 with a facelift in 2003. The car we have here is a pre-facelifted example. The Cartier L was the top-trim level luxury variant.
The Cartier L came with all the goodies imaginable and with a luxurious-looking finish, including Cartier L badges in shiny gold chrome on the C-pillars. The L stands for Long. The wheelbase was stretched by 15 centimeters compared to the standard car, which wasn’t exactly small. Wheelbase went up from 2990 millimeters to a massive 3412, bringing the total length to 5624 millimeters.
Specially designed Cartier badge on the boot lid. The Lincoln Town Car has always been a popular sedan in China in the luxury segment. The name is widely recognized, and old examples are kept running, a relative rarity in China.
The pre-facelift third-generation Town Car was never officially sold in China, but many cars arrived via barter deals, the gray market, and other misty channels. The post-facelift 3th-gen was officially sold in China for a short while, but it was way overpriced with a base price of 750.000 yuan, so those are even rarer than the older cars. The Chinese name of the Town Car is 城市 (Chéngshì), and that means City.
The Lincoln Town Car has a 4.6 liter Ford Modular V8 under the hood with an output of 220 hp and 393 Nm. The gearbox is a four-speed automatic, sending horses to the rear wheels. The top speed was 180 km/h, which was not bad for a big heavy car like the Lincoln Town Car Cartier L sedan.
The license plate is interesting. Both 9 and 8 are lucky numbers in Chinese culture, so the owner of this Lincoln is a triple-lucky guy. He is lucky at least once for having such a great car.