When our backs were turned, he also installed a Uniden BearTracker 800 BCT7 police scanner, a Cobra SoundTracker CB radio, a pair of PIAA driving lights capable of illuminating previously unmapped sections of the moon, headlight flashers, tinted windows, and a $935 Sound Off strobe-light system that causes our Crown Vic to resemble Caesars Palace at night and is probably illegal in 48 states. 'You need more than that,' deadpanned Burgor, who outfits cop cars for a living. All we originally required was a pair of utility spotlights ($175) mounted on the A-pillars, plus a Holbrecht grille guard ($175) with which we could bull our way through ugly domestic disturbances and ticket riots at Yanni concerts. So we immediately drove it to Dennis Burgor's Custom Ordered Police Supplies (acronym COPS, naturally) in Taylor, Michigan. It looked like what Tony Orlando was probably driving when Dawn quit.

When we picked it up, our Vic didn’t look like much. It arrived with the handling-and-performance package ($615) and ABS with traction control ($775). We started with an inky-black Crown Vic-black being the hue befitting full-figured personalities such as Marlon Brando and the queen herself, It was the civilian version that anyone can buy, rather than the restricted cop-car flavor. Our goal was a sedan that, in all pertinent performance measurements, would surpass the Impala SS we tested in June 1994. But if Ford wouldn’t create a Dearborn version of the Impala SS, we would.

Sure, it's a lounge lizard of a car, an A&W street racer, a hot rod for Thumper's Third Base Saloon (motto: 'Last stop before home').

And as Chevrolet accidentally demonstrated with its ballsy Impala SS, the market for big brooding, brutish boulevardiers remains, well, rabid. For one thing, it is the last of the affordable full-size, V-8–powered, rear-drive American sedans. Still, there's something about the Crown Vic that might amuse.

1999 ford crown victoria lounge lizard