Mary Agnes is an aunt of mine, a couple of decades older than me, still youthful in appearance and outlook, and living the good South Florida life as a widow with two grown children and handfuls of grandchildren and great grandchildren around to attend to her every desire. She is independent and proudly tells everyone she’s never had so much as a single cavity. No medical problems at all.
But not long ago, she had some bad luck on the road.

She was driving her Cadillac when a car with a drunk behind the wheel veered into her lane. The drunk’s car plowed into the right side of Mary Agnes’ Cadillac, right where her best friend was seated.

Fortunately, no one was injured. But the Cadillac was a goner.

Mary Agnes knows I test-drive new cars, so she asked me what she should buy to replace her Cadillac.

I suggested that at her station in life, she might consider a Mercedes-Benz. But she shook off that brand. Lexus? Infiniti? Audi? BMW? Perhaps a Jaguar that will say all the right things about its driver.

"Do they have a model with a column shift?" she asked.

Mary Agnes does not ask frivolous questions. This was important.

"I don’t think so," I replied.

"I don’t want any car with that gear selector on the floor," she said. "It seems so … wrong down there."

"Anything else about a car that’s important?" I asked.

"I don’t want those bucket seats, or whatever they call them. I want my friends sitting with me in front or back."

I got the picture. I was certain I could fill in still more blanks in her "want" list.

She would want a V-8 engine because, to her, smaller engines are inferior. She would want an automatic transmission. She would want front-engine, rear-wheel drive. And she would want a big trunk, because you never know when you might need it. I told her my thinking.

"Exactly," she said. "What can you recommend?"

I just finished testing her perfect car, I said. It’s a Lincoln Town Car.

Seniors everywhere are delighted Ford Motor still serves up this beloved land yacht of old. See, people Mary Agnes’ age remember when a big car meant comfort and status. Cadillac was atop the list. To own a Cadillac was to own the very best. Chrysler had the Imperial line of big cars and Ford had its Lincoln division, with the Town Car and Continental to compete with Cadillacs and Imperials.

"Let me tell you about this Lincoln Town Car," I began. "It’s a 2007 model that I drove—the 2008s will be out before long—and it meets your specifications. There will be very little new to you inside this car or in the way it drives."

I told her that the car was powered by a 4.6-liter V-8 engine. "Big," I translated. It gets 17 mpg in the city and 25 mpg on the highway as fuel mileage. This made no difference to her. It could get 10 mpg and she wouldn’t care. I moved on to more important considerations.

"It rides like a cream puff," I said. She perked up.

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