My 1987 LTD Crown Victoria LX was purchased from Alton-Blakely Ford in Somerset, KY with no remarkable options except for the 3.27:1 rear end (I presume this was for driving in the mountains). I have no idea who the original owner was, or what it went through, but ten years later it belonged to an older gentleman in Florida who used it as his winter car. When this man passed away my grandfather bought the car from his widow, and drove it for a short time period. The car was originally painted Dark Shadow Metallic Blue, but the previous owner had kept a car cover on it during the summer that he didn't tighten down well. As a result of wind blowing on the car cover it sanded away most of the paint, exposing that beautiful pink primer that Ford used on the 80's panthers. Shortly after my grandfather had gotten the car, in 1987, he found a good deal on a 1990 Crown Vic LX, so he bought that and sold the '87 to my dad for $800. Not bad for a car that only had 69,000 miles on it.
My dad drove the car for a year, while I learned how to drive on it, and in 1998 I turned 16 and took my driver's test in the car. I knocked over a couple cones while parallel parking but the man administering the test said "oh it's no big deal, you'll never have to park a car this huge anyway". Little did he know that this car would become mine. I bought a Pioneer tape deck, three pairs of speakers (door, dash, rear), and two Pioneer 12" subs powered by a Rockford Fosgate amp. I drove the car like this all throughout high school and generally had a lot of good times with it. Eventually I upgraded the stereo with a much better Pioneer CD playing head unit, Cerwin Vega door and rear speakers, and Alpine dash speakers. I removed all of the factory speaker wiring and ran all new 12 ga. speaker wire.
When I got the car it came with a pair of fog lights, which got smashed off on a snow bank the second winter I had it. I went and bought a new pair, which got smashed off on another snow bank the following winter. That's when I decided not to get any more foglights (or at least not mount them under the bumper). The stereo and fog lamps proved to be too much for the original 65 amp alternator to handle, and that burned out on a long road trip almost leaving me stranded. To date I have had 6 alternators in that car, although my most recent which is the 135 amp 3AG seems to have fixed all of my issues.
Shortly after graduating high school I used some money I had to have a pop-up sunroof installed, as well as a dual exhaust system with Flow mufflers. I drove the car like this until the summer of 2002 when it started to burn massive amounts of oil. I considered getting rid of the car entirely, and using the $2500 that I had to buy another beater. I couldn't bear to part with the sunroof though, so I decided to keep the car and rebuild the engine myself. Prior to this I had never so much as changed the oil in a car, but one day I pulled it into the back yard and just started taking things apart. By the end of the summer I had built an HO motor with 10.1:1 forged pistons, E303 cam, 1.6 Roller Rockers, mildly ported E7 heads, shorty headers, and no emissions equipment whatsoever. I worked for Ford at the time and a friend of mine in the SVT program managed to get a prototype '03 Cobra exhaust system which I modified to fit onto my car, and I ran the tailpipes out the side in front of the rear wheels.
The following spring I had a custom AOD built with a wide ratio gear kit, A-servo, solid input shaft, custom Art Carr torque converter, B&M Transpak, and some other minor modifications. After that I got the Bullitt wheels and some Michelin Pilot Sport A/S tires for it, which made it drive much better. The paint was in very poor condition by that time, so I had it repainted. The guy who painted it for me used epoxy primer to seal against rust, and gave it several coats of the beautiful Sonic Blue color that was so popular on the Cobra at the time. I also added a hood tach from a '69 Pontiac GTO at that time.
The car was not running very well, even though I had done a MAF conversion, so I took it in to have it chipped and dyno tuned. With the new chip it runs much better, and I now know that the car makes approx 250hp and 300ftlbs at the crank.
Last winter I started having problems with my front suspension, so I replaced all of it, along with the braking system. I now have have the 98+ big brakes (12.4" rotors with dual piston calipers). I have all polurethane bushings (even the control arms) and am using police upper control arms. I got some Moog springs and some KYB shocks, and I must say that the front end is much tighter now and the car stops on a dime.
Here are some pics from last fall, shortly before I did the suspension and brake job:
My dad drove the car for a year, while I learned how to drive on it, and in 1998 I turned 16 and took my driver's test in the car. I knocked over a couple cones while parallel parking but the man administering the test said "oh it's no big deal, you'll never have to park a car this huge anyway". Little did he know that this car would become mine. I bought a Pioneer tape deck, three pairs of speakers (door, dash, rear), and two Pioneer 12" subs powered by a Rockford Fosgate amp. I drove the car like this all throughout high school and generally had a lot of good times with it. Eventually I upgraded the stereo with a much better Pioneer CD playing head unit, Cerwin Vega door and rear speakers, and Alpine dash speakers. I removed all of the factory speaker wiring and ran all new 12 ga. speaker wire.
When I got the car it came with a pair of fog lights, which got smashed off on a snow bank the second winter I had it. I went and bought a new pair, which got smashed off on another snow bank the following winter. That's when I decided not to get any more foglights (or at least not mount them under the bumper). The stereo and fog lamps proved to be too much for the original 65 amp alternator to handle, and that burned out on a long road trip almost leaving me stranded. To date I have had 6 alternators in that car, although my most recent which is the 135 amp 3AG seems to have fixed all of my issues.
Shortly after graduating high school I used some money I had to have a pop-up sunroof installed, as well as a dual exhaust system with Flow mufflers. I drove the car like this until the summer of 2002 when it started to burn massive amounts of oil. I considered getting rid of the car entirely, and using the $2500 that I had to buy another beater. I couldn't bear to part with the sunroof though, so I decided to keep the car and rebuild the engine myself. Prior to this I had never so much as changed the oil in a car, but one day I pulled it into the back yard and just started taking things apart. By the end of the summer I had built an HO motor with 10.1:1 forged pistons, E303 cam, 1.6 Roller Rockers, mildly ported E7 heads, shorty headers, and no emissions equipment whatsoever. I worked for Ford at the time and a friend of mine in the SVT program managed to get a prototype '03 Cobra exhaust system which I modified to fit onto my car, and I ran the tailpipes out the side in front of the rear wheels.
The following spring I had a custom AOD built with a wide ratio gear kit, A-servo, solid input shaft, custom Art Carr torque converter, B&M Transpak, and some other minor modifications. After that I got the Bullitt wheels and some Michelin Pilot Sport A/S tires for it, which made it drive much better. The paint was in very poor condition by that time, so I had it repainted. The guy who painted it for me used epoxy primer to seal against rust, and gave it several coats of the beautiful Sonic Blue color that was so popular on the Cobra at the time. I also added a hood tach from a '69 Pontiac GTO at that time.
The car was not running very well, even though I had done a MAF conversion, so I took it in to have it chipped and dyno tuned. With the new chip it runs much better, and I now know that the car makes approx 250hp and 300ftlbs at the crank.
Last winter I started having problems with my front suspension, so I replaced all of it, along with the braking system. I now have have the 98+ big brakes (12.4" rotors with dual piston calipers). I have all polurethane bushings (even the control arms) and am using police upper control arms. I got some Moog springs and some KYB shocks, and I must say that the front end is much tighter now and the car stops on a dime.
Here are some pics from last fall, shortly before I did the suspension and brake job:
And yes, the car is awesome, looks even better in person than on the pics 
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