Developed in just 41 months because of unusually stringent deadline pressures facing Ford's engineers, the Town Car showed Ford how fast its people could move when pushed, an important lesson in a world in which the Japanese always seem to be moving a little quicker. The Town Car's engineers, who cut 13 months off Ford's normal development cycle, have even produced a video to explain to top management how they built a car faster than some of the Japanese. Ford clearly hopes to apply much of what it learned here on its future cars and trucks.

Ford's top executives, still scarred by the Iranian oil embargo and Ford's financial crisis of the early 1980s, saw those boxy boats as remnants of the auto maker's bloated past. "There was a substantial number of management people who felt all the large cars should disappear," recalls Lou Ross, until recently executive vice president of Ford's North American automotive operations and now head of Ford's international car business.

To survive, Ford's leaders were slashing and burning their way through the company, eliminating jobs and cutting costs. While Ford insisted in its 1980 annual report that its problems were not reducing "the scope of Ford's worldwide plans for future products," the Town Car wasn't being considered, in large part because the auto maker had to devote its scarce resources to more important programs. Ford officials say they were about to "bet the company" on the $3-billion Taurus-Sable program. Something had to give.