Five votes each for the 300D and the Grand Marquis. I'm surprised at the level of enthusiasm for the Grand Monkey on this forum. I didn't bother posting this on crownvic.net (where I also am a member) because I figured they would all say to go with the Panther.

If the tranny weren't leaking on the 300, there wouldn't be any question of taking that one. I'm concerned the leak could get much worse during the trip. OTOH, I recall reading a thread where someone had a considerably worse front seal leak, used some stop leak, and got numerous thousands of additional leak-free miles out of his.

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Whoever said there's nothing more expensive than a cheap Mercedes never had a cheap Jaguar.

83 300D Turbo with manual conversion, early W126 vented front rotors and H4 headlights 401,xxx miles
08 Suzuki GSX-R600 M4 Slip-on 26,xxx miles
88 Jaguar XJS V12 94,xxx miles. Work in progress.
99 Mazda Miata 183,xxx miles.