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How the demise of Lincoln's Town Car has kick-started a limo revolution

The deaths of the Ford Crown Victoria and the Lincoln Town Car have meant overhauls of three high-profile American fleets: police, taxi and livery car. Just as police fleets are more open to considering other options and a Nissan van is the new face of the NYC taxi, livery car companies are looking at replacements for the Town Car beyond The Blue Oval. Ford, via Lincoln, has made an MKT Town Car (pictured), but an article in the Detroit News claims "it has failed to win over most of the big limousine companies." The upstarts trying to move in include livery and limo editions of the Cadillac XTS, and livery specifications of the Toyota Avalon and Chrysler 300.
Each of those challengers, however, faces challenges. The Town Car was a workhorse, American, rear-wheel-drive sedan with plenty of rear legroom. Cadillac has been in the livery space before but with decontented models that were about selling the brand, not its luxury. It is taking the opposite approach with the XTS, pointing out that its livery edition is "contented in the upper half of the XTS range." Still, the CEO of Michigan's largest livery company says "it's quite a bit smaller than what we're used to," and he also prefers rear-wheel drive.
The Chrysler 300 is rear-wheel drive, and American, which matters to some companies, but Chrysler hasn't yet revealed the livery package for it. The livery Avalon marks Toyota's first time getting into that business in the US, a natural step after having done so well with taxi clients and with the Town Car out of the way. Still, the livery client is a different to taxi buyers, so the Avalon could face other soft-touch hurdles.

J.D. Power: Vehicle dependability at all-time high, Lexus and Porsche lead

Each year, J.D. Power and Associates surveys original owners of three-year-old vehicles to find out what kinds of problems they have had experienced over the last 12 months, and then it uses this data to create its annual Vehicle Dependability Study. This means that the models in the 2013 study are 2010 model year vehicles, and J.D. Power rates each make as well as the top individual models based on how many problems were experienced per 100 vehicles (PP100).
Debunking the idea that carryover models are more dependable than new or updated models, the 2013 study found that the average carryover model experienced 133 PP100, while all-new or redesigned vehicles for the 2010 model year had 116 PP100; vehicles that received minor changes fared the best with just 111 PP100. The overall average for all makes was 126 PP100, which is the lowest figure since the findings were first issued in 1989.

Toyota Matrix not long for this world?

According to a report from AutoGuide, Toyota doesn't have plans to replace the aging Matrix hatchback in the United States after this year. If true, the timing coincides with the replacement for the Corolla, on which the Matrix is based, with that car slated to get its first complete redesign since 2006 (2008 in the US market).
We'd love to tell you how many Matrix models were sold by Toyota in the United States last year, but the automaker chooses to bundle Matrix sales with Corolla sales, so we have no idea. That said, we have to assume sales of the hatchback don't contribute much overall to the total number of Corolla-based machines.
We're also unsure if Toyota will choose to exit the youth-oriented compact hatchback market entirely, or if the automaker will rely instead on its hybrid Prius line and Scion models like the xB and xD.