Panther Magazine, a Literary Tribute to Body-on-Frame

The Best Car Ever Made

I’m often asked, “What is your favorite car?” by people who don’t know a lot about cars.

This is a challenging question, as it varies by month. But when people ask me, “What’s the best car?” I know exactly what to say, the Ford Crown Victoria, which some people understand, but if they don’t, I follow up with, “those old police cars.”

Of course, it is merely an opinion I’ve set in stone. Is it the correct answer? In my world, the Ford, Mercury, and Lincoln sedans built on the Panther Body chassis are the best cars ever made. Pound for pound in terms of reliability, durability, and versatility. It’s why I own a 2009 CVPI and love it dearly as a daily driver, road trip cruiser, practice stunt car and amateur rally cross racer – using the same set of tires.

I’m not the only one who thinks so, as a growing community of enthusiasts shares a deep affection and respect for these classic sedans. Steel-framed relics stand stoically compared to the modern car, which continues its downward evolution into overpriced data-collecting appliances vulnerable to fragility if a single sensor fails. Every fandom needs a voice, and one man is taking charge of speaking for the Panther Body community.

Deric McCottrell, the founder, CEO, and managing editor of Panther Magazine.

Panther Magazine

The name might lead some to think it’s a magazine on big cats, but no, it is literature devoted to the car built for any occasion.  

Forget the Miata and Tacoma; the one vehicle that checks all the boxes for durability, comfort, wrench-ability, motorsport-worthy, and affordability is the Ford Crown Victoria sedan. This righteous belief extends to the other Panther chassis models: the Mercury Grand Marquis, Marauder, and Lincoln Town Car.

The “Panther” refers to the body-on-frame steel chassis Ford engineers introduced in 1979 as a platform for upcoming Ford, Mercury, and Lincoln models. Why did they choose the name Panther? My research did not provide me a definitive answer, so there’s the possibility that Ford engineers simply thought it sounded cool – and it does.

FoMoCo has a reputation for naming products after fierce animals.

CEO Deric McCottrell Road to Publishing

Panther Magazine’s editor and founder, Deric McCottrell, didn’t start as a Panther fan. His origin story in the world of automotive lifestyle started with Low Riders. Born in La Mesa, California, and raised in San Diego, McCottrell’s introduction to cars was the iconic West Coast lowrider scene.

His childhood household had a subscription to LowRider magazine, which greatly influenced his taste in cars as a youngster, and who could blame him? Many among us remember being kids loitering by the magazine rack at grocery stores, trying not to drool at the scandalously dressed buxom model leaning over the metallic flake hood of a Chevy Malibu.

While most consider the Chevrolet Impala the quintessential low rider, McCottrell’s eyes were drawn to the Lincoln Town Car. However, it wouldn’t be until his late teens before he had the opportunity to ride inside a panther body, a Mercury Grand Marquis, which instantly became his second favorite car after the Lincoln Town Car. 

At the time, he never heard of these cars being called panthers. It wasn’t until 2019, while browsing Instagram, that he noticed a “panther body” hashtag, sparking his curiosity to research its meaning.

Upon learning that his two favorite vehicles of all time, the Town Car and Grand Marquis, shared the Panther name, he decided to start an Instagram account focused on his 2000 Mercury Grand Marquis.

This endeavor evolved into creating a FaceBook group for Panther vehicles and managing it as an admin with a friend based in Massachusetts.

The year 2020 ended with him buying an “Aero” 1995 Mercury Grand Marquis and relocating to a studio apartment overlooking Nantasket Beach in Hull, Massachusetts, during the spring of 2021. The communal respect and attention people showed for these vehicles stayed on McCottrell’s mind during the pandemic.

Living near the tranquil soundtrack of beachfront waves helped inspire McCottrell to take the plunge on an idea to publish a magazine for fans of Ford’s Panther sedans. 

By May 2022, he had the 100 printed copies of Panther Magazine issue #1 delivered to his doorstep. Since then, McCottrell has been judging his time working as a United States Postal Service letter carrier and running a magazine. 

Did McCottrell have any prior experience in publishing, writing, editing, or running a small business? No.

All he had was an idea to create something around a passionate subject. Some people wait for divine inspiration or the “right time” to put a dream into action, but you only need the guts to take the first step into the unknown. 

Since its launch in 2022, Panther Magazine has been distributed across all 50 states and various countries worldwide.

We Yanks aren’t the only ones obsessed over these blue oval-branded land yachts.

A prime example is Daniel Drawners, based in Stockholm, Sweden, with a Crown Victoria Police Interceptor powered by a WWII-era Rolls-Royce Meteor V12 aircraft engine. The car is known as The Meteor Interceptor and is worth a Google search. 

Find Your Absolute Favorite Car

I asked McCottrell if he had any advice for someone looking to start their own niche car magazine, he said, “Find your absolute FAVORITE car and make everything about that car – create memes about that car, share everyone’s car whether it’s a modified showroom car or a rust bucket. It’ll create that family feel. There’s endless potential to meet people from other places you’ll meet and the other ideas you’ll come up with to grow and strengthen the brand.

McCottrell’s ambition has no need for brakes, as he states, “I’ve met so many people that drive these Panthers from all over the world and made so many positive connections and networks – it motivates me to be the best CEO I can be and expand not only my business but my personal life as well.”

One of his goals was to organize massive panther car meets in major cities. Create a center point for owners to journey in their full-sized sedans to celebrate shared mindsets. As of 2025, Panther Magazine has helped sponsor, host, and co-host car meet events in over 15 major cities from Houston, Texas, to Boston, Massachusetts.

I tip my cowboy hat to Deric McCottrell for self-funding a business that brings Panther fans together to share their appreciation for these cars.

One can take inspiration from McCottrell’s story. There’s no excuse not to indulge in an idea that sparks ambition in the mind. The beauty of the internet is that no matter what you’re into, at least two other people share that interest. 

A written statement only needs another reader to be successful.

Origins of the Ford Panther Platform

The Panther platform’s origins came from a necessary downsizing among Detroit’s Big Three during the closing years of the Malaise Era.

By the late 1970s, four-door sedans measuring 20 feet long wheezing through smog emission-choked big block V8s were getting too long in the tooth. Ford introduced the Panther platform as a shorter-length successor to the 1969 platform used by Ford, Mercury, and Lincoln at the time. This new frame would be rear-wheel drive, featuring a live rear axle, and provide ample room for a V8 engine at the front.

By 1992, the Panther platform was assigned exclusively to sedans. The last Panther-bodied sedan left the Ford assembly line in September 2011, cementing its legacy as one of the longest-running vehicle platforms in automotive history. Every Lincoln Town Car, Mercury Grand Marquis, Marauder, and Ford Crown Victoria sedan built after 1979 is a panther body.

The Source of Its Power is Steel  

The big frame makes them unassuming to the untrained eye. Yet, it’s this steel spine that makes it suitable for just about anything. Want to go off-road? Lift it. Want to go racing? Send it. Want to barrel roll through a city bus while on fire? Add a roll cage and strap on a crash helmet. It can be anything you need it to be, from a sideways drift missile to a demolition derby brawler.

These cars are beloved by members of law enforcement and Hollywood alike. If you don’t see them on the street, you’ll see them getting destroyed in cinematic chase scenes and shootouts on the big screen.

The point is that these cars often carry an emotional response. Whether it’s a sudden reminder of a bad night in the backseat of a Crown Vic patrol car, a good night in the back of a stretch Town Car limo, or an early day memory of the bouncy leather seats of Grandma’s Marquis.

Today, the Panther Bodies are finally starting to show their age, but not their work ethic. Nearly 15 years since their production ended, you still see them on duty serving their community or parked around the block. They haven’t faded away like other vehicles from the 2000s to 2010s. 

They represent the last of a breed, relics of a formal norm.

Today, Ford, Chevrolet, and Chrysler no longer build body-on-frame, rear-wheel-drive, four-door sedans. Future generations will likely look upon these old cars with bankable nostalgia.