I like the Panther cars. I always had a soft spot for them. Since they are so old I see them as a reliable vehicle since I'm sure that Ford has worked all of the kinks out of them back when Regan was president. I think they do have some life left. After all the Grand Marquis is Mercury's best selling model as well as the best selling full-size car. Since the Crown Vic mostly sold as fleet they should leave it for that. Obviously cops like them. What Ford should do is leave the CV to fleet sales and make a new model for retail.

UPDATE: Ok, it's offical, Ford will be bringing the Australian rear-drive Falcon platform to the US as the replacement for the Crown Victoira, and 2011 will be the last year for the Crown Vic and other Panther cars. For more, read this:
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080324/AUTO01/803240338/1001- /BIZ

Don't forget taxiguy, Wikipedia is not always very accurate. I think the best source to reading about future cars are car magazines, like Motor Trend.

I knew the Grand Marquis was still around, but I thought Ford stopped making the Lincoln Town Car a few years ago. I'm surprised to find I was wrong:

http://www.lincoln.com/towncar/home.asp

The Grand Marquis is not gone by any means, and niether is the Town Car (here's a link to the Gr. Marq's site even: http://www.mercuryvehicles.com/grandmarquis/ )
And the Crown Vic (or the other panther cars for that matter) is NOT being discontinued for 2009.
02Silverado4x4, did you even read my first post?

The Ford Crown Victoria has been retired to fleet only sales for the 2008 model year, and will be discontinued altogether in 2009 or early 2010 (or so I hear). The Mercury Grand Marquis is already gone, but I think the Lincoln Town Car is still being sold to consumers. Not sure. The "updated" version was for export markets only or something like that.

So they're just mimicking GM's Pontiac G8 then

They're actually thinking about bringing over an extended wheelbase version of the Ford Faclon from Austraila as a replacement (I believe they call the long wheelbase model the LTD there)
It's rear-wheel drive and has a much more powerful engine than the Crown Vic does, although it is not quite as big as it is only about 202 inches long and the Crown Vic is 212 inches long

I read recently that Ford has no plans on green lighting the Interceptor Concept Car. But, that "parts" of it (I am assuming they mean mechanical parts) will find their way into a future RWD full-size car ... (That future car – whatever it is - sounds like a possible CV replacement) I’ll see if I can find that article.

Neptune, I believe that a name change is in order. The Crown Victoria name has been around since 1983, anyways. The reasons why Ford is ending production of the CV is because:
a) they plan on retiring the Panther platform all together
b) the car never really sold well in the civilian market
c) simply putting it, the current gen Crown Vic has been around since 1998, with the design itself dating back to 1991 (with the 1992 Grand Marquis)

The Chevrolet Impala itself is not popular for many reasons, but if I remember correctly, it held 15-20% of police car sales before the Charger came out. Now the Charger is proving to be serious competition in the police car market, although it will never be as popular or widely-used as the Crown Victoria. Two of the foremost law enforcement agencies in the country, the California Highway Patrol and the NYPD, will not be using it as a market patrol vehicle.