Land Yachts video.
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“Land Yacht” is a term used to describe huge American cars starting in the 1950s. Decades ago, the size of the car was actually considered a good thing. The larger, longer, the better. Larger cars had a smoother ride and were mostly from luxury brands like Cadillac, Lincoln or Chrysler. The Land Yachts were kings of American roads.
Although many models from Ford, Dodge, or Buick were also getting larger and larger. The first 1973 oil crisis put a damper on the huge thirsty Land Yacht fashion. The second crisis in 1979 almost put an end to these huge living rooms on wheels. That and terrible built quality from most American manufacturers.
One of the most recent models we could call a Land Yacht would have to be that last-generation Cadillac Fleetwood, produced from 1993 to 1996. In true Land Yacht fashion, it was about that smooth ride. Although its interior was pretty spartan when compared to earlier large Cadillac sedans. And it wasn’t that popular with sales going from 32,000 in 1993 to 15,000 3 years later.
The last of them all was the 3rd generation Lincoln Town Car. Which still has a strong following today. It was produced from 1997 to 2011 and was much more popular than the Cadillac. Sales of that generation went from over 97,000 in 1998, to a sad 9500 in 2011.
Obviously, younger car buyers prefer sportier driving characteristics. And SUVs. And nothing that could be referred as a Land Yacht.
The short video above shows what could have happened if Lincoln, Cadillac, and Chrysler had not given up on these huge sedans and coupes.
And who knows, a few could come back one day. The Chinese market is the largest in the world and sedans are still popular over there.
Lincoln offers the Zephyr sedan. Buick has a newer generation Lacrosse and even Cadillac has a redesigned 2nd generation CT6 sedan on sale in China.
Cadillac is also working on two new EV sedans based on the Ultium platform. None of these will probably be called a Land Yacht since a soft suspension is considered a sin these days.
But who knows?
I personally feel that if we can have large, full-sized SUVs and crossovers, along with the full-sized 2-row pickups, then we can surely have land-yachts. The aforementioned are the new “land yachts”. This can be so even if large sedans would be halo-cars or lower-volume examples. They could even have liftbacks like the Cadillac Celestiq to have SUV and crossover convenience. I would love to see this again, although the best examples are not only the Celestiq, but also the Mercedes-Maybach S-Class and the Rolls-Royce Phantom, Ghost and Spectre, and the BMW 7-Series is now 212″ in length. Just below that would be the Mercedes-Benz S-Class and the Bentley Flying Spur sedan. The Maserati Quattroporte just ended production but will have an all-electric successor, hopefully the same size as the outgoing entry. Even the new-generation Dodge Chargers are around their size, at some 206.7″ in length. The Lexus LS flagship sedan falls into that size-range, too, and there’s also the Genesis G90.
Personally, I’m not a fan of downsizing at all. especially what took place during the Malaise Era, I look at it as moving downmarket or backward, and even depressing. I was never a fan of the concept of economy-cars, for they are generally what one would not want to be seen in. Then again, they do have a purpose for a second-car to take into more dense areas where you would not want to take a large SUV, or to commute to the train-station or commuter lots, and even for college students.