Lincoln Town Car

Spend more than a few minutes outside any major U.S. airport and you'll see dozens of shiny black livery cars waiting to pick up arriving bigwigs. Look closer and you'll discover most of them are virtually identical to the 2011 Lincoln Town Car.

That's because this grande dame of the Lincoln lineup hasn't had a major mechanical redesign in, well, decades. Which, oddly enough, is both this full-size luxury sedan's greatest strength and fundamental weakness.

On the plus side, the Town Car is one of the few remaining sedans on the market to offer seating for six passengers. Rear-seat legroom is abundant, especially in the 6-inch-longer "L" body style. Other benefits of driving a car that's roughly 18 feet long include a downright cavernous trunk and excellent crash test scores.

The downsides of the Town Car's anachronistic nature become readily apparent from the driver seat. The combination of its body-on-frame design and a solid rear axle contribute to the car's lackluster handling and nautical ride quality. The 239-horsepower 4.6-liter V8 and four-speed automatic transmission are about as outdated as you can get, delivering both poor fuel economy and meager acceleration.

To put all this in perspective, one need only take a spin in one of the Town Car's many competitors, which are newer, more refined and often less expensive. Choices include the Hyundai Genesis, Lexus ES 350, Toyota Avalon and even Lincoln's own MKS. The Chrysler 300C also provides similar luxury and a more robust V8 -- there's even an extended-wheelbase version available. In short, the 2011 Lincoln Town Car is not a car we can recommend unless you spend most of your time picking people up from the airport.

The 2011 Lincoln Town Car is a full-size luxury sedan available in two trim levels that correspond to the available wheelbases. All Town Cars seat six people, thanks to a three-person front bench. The regular-wheelbase Signature Limited model comes standard with 17-inch alloy wheels, keyless entry (with code access pad), a power-opening and -closing trunk, rear parking sensors, 40/20/40-split front bench seats with eight-way power adjustment and driver memory functions, leather upholstery, heated front seats, power-adjustable pedals, a tilt steering column, a wood-trimmed leather-wrapped steering wheel with audio and climate controls, dual-zone automatic climate control, an auto-dimming rearview mirror and an eight-speaker stereo with a six-CD changer.

The Signature L adds 6 inches of wheelbase and therefore substantially more rear-seat legroom (not that the regular Town Car was lacking in this department). It also features heated rear seats, rear-seat audio and climate controls, a folding armrest with a storage bin and two power points, rear-seat vanity mirrors and redundant fore-aft controls for the front passenger seat.

Options for both trim levels include chrome-clad wheels, whitewall tires and xenon headlights. The Continental Edition package adds polished aluminum wheels, chrome B-pillar trim and special badging and interior stitching.