re: The Ford Panther body should be included in the pantheon of great American cars

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My dad had one of those for years. White with the blue top. Ride was phenomenal, but the airbag suspension or whatever it was was a ticking timebomb. I think he got well up over 200k miles though.

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The Panther air suspension being problematic is kind of a myth.

When your regular shock absorbers go out, most people never even realize it until the problem is glaring.

When an air spring leaks, you know right away, so does everyone who sees your car, and people are skeered of them because "different".

In reality, it takes 15-20 mins to replace an air spring from roll on the lift to roll off. There are only three components that can go bad - the air springs themselves, the solenoid on them, and the compressor. If the dryer is changed out on the compressor every 50k miles or so, the compressor will last forever.

Now, air suspension on a Land Rover or an Audi is an entire 'nother planet, and they are very complex and expensive to repair.