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Comments
Pretty! Isn't it?
Actually, its beautiful, and I think that evening winter sky just sets it off nicely.
One thing I hate is car shopping at night under the various artificial lights. Some make the car look pretty good, but true color is always a question mark.
I know what you mean about lights. I bought a ranger about 13 years ago and thought I was getting the bright red but it turned out to be the cabernet red which is similar to Autumn Red. I did the test drive in the afternoon but by the time I had finished the paperwork it was dark. There was also a mileage difference so I know they switched trucks on me but by the time I figured it out I decided I liked it so I kept it. I have several other stories about them and I'm happy to say that they went out of business a few years ago.
1. Chrome wheels. Any OTHER factory 17" wheels available? Jag wheels? Any aftermarket wheels available with correct offset? ??
2. What's the drag coefficient for the LS? I haven't seen it in anything I've read. Not a big deal, just curious. From what I've read HERE, the car seems very well planted at higher speeds, and I'm assuming isn't too bothered by cross-winds.
3. '03 V8 model -- anyone bought or driven? If so, any thoughts on how the sport suspension compares with earlier sport suspensions? Any improvement in ride comfort, noise, handling? Anything else about the '03s that you like, dislike?
P.S. Great feedback on colors...thanks! George, great photo of your Autumn Red. It looks like it has about 10 coats of Zaino. :-)
londine, may be time for you to get hooked up with some more detailed information. My e-mail's in my profile, drop a line to me or any one of the last few posters.
I prefer the look of the chrome strips around the windows.
The Light Tundra color of my '03 LS has gotten nothing but compliments. I particularly like the heavy metal flake content of the paint. Looks great in bright sun and the paint takes on different colors depending on time of day, viewing angle etc..
As for the chrome window trim issue, I prefer the blacked out trim of my '03 vs. the chrome on my '00 LS.
Anything specific you looking for?
Once on the road, traction control worked perfectly and the wheels never spun once. Overnight sleet should make it even more interesting tomorrow.
Here's a good story on Dallas drivers in the snow. Another urban legend is made ----.
A bag of kitty litter in the trunk can also come in pretty handy.
http://www.msnbc.com/local/KXAS/A1508826.asp?0cb=-214488
It would snow or sleet and you would expect to see bare roads and sidewalks as it fell. All that came from the city consuming over 100,000 tons of salt per winter. The convenience cost plenty. Back in the dark days of Ford in the mid 70's I bought two new cars and had holes through the doors in one winter. I've had everything from floor pans to brake and gas lines simply fall apart from corrosion. The ultimate trip to the graveyard was to store your car in a heated garage where the hydrochloric acid as a combination of road salt (NaCl) and good old H20 bathed your car for six months of the year. The heated garage accelerated the process.
Having your car fall apart is one thing but having all the bridges onto the island fall apart is quite another matter.
You've probably guessed that I no longer miss those kinds of winters.
I'll take the ice we see in Dallas a day or two per year over that anytime.
After the equivalent of about 4 times around the Earth, I can honestly say this is the first car I've owned that I very much looked forward to turning 100,000 miles. As the odometer clicked the countdown to the magical, mystical number in tenths, I got a sense of anticipation. The rain was coming down in a light mist, there were no other cars in front of me or behind me. It was just me, Primadona, and that road.
At 99,999 I got the camera ready, wondering where I was going to be on Ortega when the magic moment came. Luckily for me, the camera has a mini-screen so you don't have to look through a viewfinder otherwise I would never have captured the moment.
As I passed a sign that showed a 180 degree turn posted at 30 mph and started into the curve, the odometer clicked the passage into the century mark. I took the picture keeping my eyes on the road, wondering if it would come out. As soon as I could I pulled into a turnout and checked. A perfect picture!
For those interested in these things, Primadona's odometer went from showing 10's of thousands and tenths of a mile to showing 100,000 without the tenths of a mile indicator.
Coming off of Ortega on the Lake Elsinore side the rain stopped and the glow from the lights of the city shown bright beneath me. Once I got on Highway 15 Primadona and I celebrated in the way we both knew we would. 100 miles per hour at 100,000 miles. She ran up to speed effortlessly. She wanted to go faster but there was traffic about a mile ahead so a quick picture and back down to our normal dance of 80 mph.
Came home and told Debbie and took a couple of pictures of the outside of the car and the interior. Had the LS Grin (patent pending) showing from ear to ear! What an awesome car! And what an awesome group of people that brought her to life.
Primadona and I are looking forward to seeing how many miles we can go together. She's in excellent shape and feisty enough to show a BMW 530i that was tailgating us the power she still has under her hood. Outside of some sway bar bushings that I'm going to replace she's as solid as when I first got her. She has rewarded me with a ton of memories, of drives of fancy, of rediscovering that very visceral feeling that I thought was long gone of enjoying the drive because you could enjoy the drive.
That first experience of putting her into a perfect four-wheel drift and being able to control it either with my hands or with my right foot. The absolute pucker factor of losing my brakes on a 270 degree turn with Debbie and Ryan in the car and heading toward a wall of dirt, knowing that Primadona would do everything she could to keep us away from the dirt. She did, scrubbed down the speed, and without a hint of drama, flicked her nose away from the embankment, and continued on her way. The first time I took her, on a deserted highway, up to 144 mph and marveled about how rock-solid she was and how firmly planted those tires of hers were. The time I dusted off a BMW M3 on the back road into our subdivision. The M3 was skipping sideways on the rutted corner surface while Primadona kept reeling him in, absorbing the ruts and staying exactly in the line I gave her. Then at the end both of us pulling over and getting a thumbs-up from the M3 driver, with both of us giggling like school children.
Thank you Lincoln, Thank you LS Team members. You made something that, for me, is greater than the sum of its parts. I look forward to another 100,000 miles.
Congrats!
Scott,
For the record, the car that broke in half was my dads 59 Lincoln Premiere. It was a 4 door hardtop with no frame. When the floor rusted out (while the black lacquer paint glistened) she broke in two and went down like the Titanic. Not all Ford ideas were winners.
Still, I remember Hydrochloric Acid as HCl, so the ingredients are there.
End result is about the same anyway, its just a matter of timing.
Yeah, cars, bridges, and don't forget pancaking parking ramps.
Then, one day, while under the car, I noticed some rust marks in the chassis rails between the front and rear wheels.
Well, after an hour of poking, prodding, and scrapping with a screwdriver and a coat hanger, I wound up with a bucket full of what used to be the car's chassis and some long open gapes in the lower part of the chassis box frame.
That was almost 30 years ago. I still have the car, it still drives the same, and I can still jack it up using the solid points where the convertible X member meets the rest of the chassis. (Without that X member, I doubt if the car would have held up.)
Body now has 205,000 miles; replaced motor (From a wrecked 64 Galaxie sedan) has over 100,000 miles, but, unless the car just folds in two or dies completely, I will never sell or junk it as long as I can drive. We've owned it since 1969, and it deserves to be considered part of the family.
PS: still looks great (bright turquoise/black buckets/352 v8, 3.50 rear/white top) and draws a lot of attention on the road or at car shows.
Having spent most of my life in the "rust belt", I can feel your pain. My wife drives our LS year round. It hurts to see it go through the winter, but on the other hand, winter is when you need a very reliable car....
The idea of finding a good frame from a west or south west junk yard, getting it shipped back east, having the body, motor, trans, rear etc transferred from the bad one to the good one just seemed like way too much trouble.
I'll just keep driving it until the day comes when something goes bad that's not worth fixing and put her to rest.
That will be a very sad day. (I can still remember the day I bought her (46,000 miles)in 1969 for $795 including a new valve job. It became my wife's car, replacing her 1958 Pontiac Chieftain 2 dr hardtop, while I drove the "newer" 1968 Merc Cyclone GT.)
The THX stereo option is intriguing, but so is its price tag, at $3k. I'd welcome some feedback on how good the system sounds compared to stock and/or audiophile.
Same for the navigation set-up, if anyone's used it.
My 2 cents
The THX certified system in the '03 LS is magnificent. Plenty of power (264 watts/eight speakers, six amps and two subs) and undistorted sound at high volume. Peak output is 120 db. The NAV system is quite good and pretty intuitive. The total system is comparable in price to other luxury and near luxury car premium sound and NAV systems. The only real complaint seems to be that you can't order the NAV separately from the THX certified audio; it's all or nothing. C'est la vie. I love it. I'll leave the comments on the "standard" Audiophile system to someone who has it.
I'm writing a technical article for a conference and would like to include this info. If I could obtain a picture of the battery, it would be even better. My email is chartron@aol.com
I'd go to the local dealer but can do without the sales pitch just to see a battery.
Thanks in advance.
The Jag battery is probably lead free because of it's European origins. The legislation on the books over there call for a take back and end of life program plus a ban on lead. Like everything else I've seen in electronics over the past quarter century, the US will wait till the last day and get pulled into the lead free deal screaming and kicking while Japan and Europe have been more pro active on this issue.
Of course neither of them have kazillions of square miles of space to dump stuff like we do in North America.
Also, the Lincoln website (www.lincoln.com) has been updated recently. It has a nice comparison chart with the competition. With the recent $2k price reduction, the base V6 appears to be very competitive. A loaded V8 Sport Premium (with THX and Nav) I recently viewed at the Milwaukee Auto Show stickered at over $46K (not a good value IMHO). The new wheels & steering wheel are not particularly attractive, but in the case of the wheels, that's what the afermarket is for.
Some great deals on 2002 models around here with one dealer giving $10K off of MSRP, so a nice V8 Sport going for $30.5K. Good things happen to those that are patient!
And geebee1 is right; the '02s are an absolute steal.
??
I like the looks of what they have done. I may be keeping my 2000 V8 Sport and would be interested in the supercharger kit.
Thanks in advance!
But that's a separate issue. :-))
So a more appropriate comparison would have been a LS8 Sport with moonroof which would have had a MSPR of $41,700 and can be bought for under $40K discounted price. This makes the LS8 Sport about $10K less than the street price on a comprably equipped 530i.
The video is in Windows Media format and is about 5 megs in size. Pat, we do have permission to link it and show it.
http://www.llsoc.com/Videos/LSBMW540.wma
And in case you're wondering who AMCI is, here's their link:
http://www.amcitesting.com/
Is there any hope for a 400 HP LS anymore (other than transplanting an Stype R engine)?
Thanks!
The 540i is so much more expensive than the real world LS price!
I think the Macpherson strut set-up on the Bimmer is really showing it's age now.
The LS probably lost some ground in the 0-60 comparison, but every .1 second faster the Bimmer was cost a lot of money considering the price difference.
I feel a better comparison would be the LS vs. the 530i.
Then the Bimmer would really look bad for the price!
The second will be how much cheaper you can buy one if you do Euro delivery.
The third will be "but it's a BMW".
(been there - done that)
Did I miss anything Div2?