Driver of Lincoln Town Car With Tree Lodged in Front End Arrested
A testament to the strength of the Panther platform.
"Man bites dog." It's journalism shorthand for an unusual event that's much more likely to be reported upon than a similar, ordinary event. Case in point: When a drunk driver runs into a tree, it's not news. When that same drunk driver keeps on motoring with said tree embedded in the front end of her Lincoln Town Car, however...
Maryann Christy of Schaumburg, Illinois, was pulled over in neighboring Roselle, around 11:10pm on January 23, after a motorist called police to report a car driving with a large, arboreal hood ornament. Roselle police quickly found the vehicle, a late-model Town Car, zipping around with its airbags deployed and a tree roughly 15-feet tall standing—almost perfectly upright, mind you—in the car's front end. Christy, 54, said she didn't quite recall where she'd picked up the woody hitchhiker. She was given a field sobriety test, then, unsurprisingly, taken into custody for driving under the influence.
While we're obviously amused by the tale (and grateful that only photosynthetic organisms were injured), the whole incident leaves us even more enamored with Ford's Panther platform than we were before. Whether it's a luxurious Lincoln Town Car, a traffic-clearing Crown Vic, or an under-appreciated Mercury Grand Marquis, the Panther platform has proven its ability to take a lickin' and keep on tickin', time and again. We're not the slightest bit surprised to see it shrug off a small, deciduous tree the way most cars handle running into a dragonfly.
