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Well, careful driving, instrumentation to facilitate careful driving, and weight reduction will be of the most help in the city.
Weight reduction: how do you get a 4038lb car down to a more reasonable weight, like 3000lb? Well, you can start by deleting parts that are found in the Lincoln but not the Crown Vic. The '95 Crown weighs 3761lbs. I presume most of the weight is from interior luxury garbage and the fancy adjustable suspension. I presume the interior of the car smells like sweat and oil anyway, so there's no sense in burning all that gas to haul around your living room. Gut it.
That 4.6L engine is downright athsmatic, with 190HP in the Crown Vic and a less pathetic 210HP in the heavier Town car. Swap in the powertrain out of a Ranger - 143HP out of a 2.3L four cylinder, and a five speed manual transmission. A high-tech 4 cyl arrangement will save you weight throughout the car - lighter engine, tranny, battery, exhaust. You could even get a smaller fuel tank if you wanted to.
I would love to see a gutted, stick-shifted Crown Vic with a Ranger engine, fuel economy tires, an engine kill switch, a ScanGauge, and an alternator delete. It would probably get better gas mileage than a carelessly driven Focus.
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