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The Town Car has long been Lincoln’s highest volume model and it boasts high customer satisfaction and loyalty. The vehicle we tested for this review was a 2004 Town Car Ultimate L, a model which got its start three years ago as the Cartier L.

At the time, Lincoln Mercury Division — they weren't using the hyphen anymore — called it the "ultimate Town Car" It was a factory-produced long-wheelbase which model extended six inches to provide an additional 7.5 cubic feeta of space for rear seat passengers.

Other features offered with the Cartier L included wider rear-door openings, rear heated seats, a folding armrest with storage bins, rear audio and climate controls, redundant seat controls, mood lighting and a cigar-size ashtray with illuminated lighter.

One reason for the creation of the Cartier L was Lincoln's leadership position in the livery market where it held a commanding 85 percent market share. Cadillac was the owner of most of the other 15 percent. A similar version made exclusively for fleet and livery dealers—called Executive L—shared most features with the Cartier L.

For 2004, the Cartier name has been dropped and those models redesignated the Ultimate and the Ultimate L, which I don't find very appealing, even though the cars still are. The 2004 model Town Car line, in general, remains Lincoln's full-size luxury sedan with a tradition of a cloud-like ride and top comfort. Minor refinements have been made for 2004. Sirius satellite radio is now available as a dealer-installed option on vehicles equipped with the touch-screen navigation system and six-disc in-dash CD changer introduced during the 2003 model year. New interior and exterior color combinations are available, and all Lincoln vehicles come with complimentary maintenance at no additional charge for 12 months/12,000 miles.

All Town Car models are fitted with standard 17- by 7-inch euro-flange aluminum wheels. Euro-flange wheels have a distinctively clean appearance, because the wheel-balancing weights are mounted out of sight on the inside rim. Fourteen-spoke machined aluminum wheels are standard, with optional nine-spoke chrome-finished wheels available on Ultimate models.

A 239-horsepower, 4.6-liter V8 is standard in the Town Car. The engine is mated to an improved four-speed automatic transmission for 2004. The transmission has received updates that give it increased torque capacity. All-speed traction control is standard and helps improve traction during inclement weather.

The 2004 Town Car is also equipped with Ford Motor Company's Personal Safety System, which is one of the most comprehensive driver and front-seat passenger restraint systems available. It includes dual-stage air bags and safety belts with retractor pretensioners and energy management retractors.

The Ultimate L we tested is immense — perhaps the largest production sedan available in the world today. If there's a bigger one, I can't think of it. It's about a foot-and-a-half longer than the 500S Mercedes we tested recently and 300 pounds heavier. Yet it gets better gas mileage and, at just over $50,000, costs barely half as much. Figure that one out.

There is a real philosophical difference between the Town Car and the 500S. The Mercedes rep, when pressed about the conundrum expressed in the previous paragraph, replied, "but you get so much more car with the 500S." What he meant — although he would hardly have phrased it this way — was that the Mercedes has electronic gizmos up the wazoo that do everything imaginable down to and including raising and lowering the sun screens. Making it simple to operate this high-tech onslaught is impossible; there's just too much to manage. Call me a traditionalist, but I prefer a car that doesn't require someone with a degree from M.I.T. just to operate the controls. In that respect, the Town Car is refreshing, indeed.

Mark Twain once wrote a devastatingly funny article about James Fennimore Cooper's writing style, in particular the way in which Cooper would sound the full literary charge regardless of the importance of the subject at hand. Whether Cooper was attacking an entire army or merely a cow, said Twain, he would hurl everything he had at it. Mercedes is a James Fennimore Cooper kind of car company in that respect. All manufacturers expend serious resources improving their braking systems, for example, but Mercedes will make the same kind of investment in automating the operation of a retractable cargo cover, as in the case of the 500E 4Matic wagon we just tested. To some car buyers, this is doubtless what true luxury is all about. To me, it's unnecessarily confusing complexity and just one more thing to go wrong two or three years down the road — if it takes that long.

Don't get me wrong, Town Car has plenty of state-of-the-art electronics on it, too, it just seems to me that the people who designed it had a more balanced concept of what is really needed in a luxury car, on the one hand, and what constitutes mindless overkill, on the other. As I say, a philosophical difference. Anyway, I loved the Town Car. It's been a favorite of mine for many years and there was nothing in this latest example to make me change my mind. R&D

(Note: The "Ultimate" designation will revert to "Signature" for 2005.)