So those new police cars are just has big has the Crown Vic it just it is taller and does not have big front and back non living space.
Sweat209, that’s pretty much where I’m going with this.
I drove a Panther-bodied Grand Marquis (same seating as the Crown Vic) for years, I drove the old Caprice for years, and I’ve sat in the back of the newer Taurus. I’ve also looked at the new Police Interceptor at an auto show.
The actual room in the back seat of the new Crown Vic is NOT deficient compared to either of the older police-vehicle chassis. There’s stupid knee room before you add a cage/barrier thing. I suspect that tossing suspects in the back of the new Taurus isn’t a problem; in fact, the upright seating might very well help. There’s a tendency to rely on your arms when getting into a car; with the CV/Grand Marquis you are almost falling into the car as a driver or a passenger. If you’re a cuffed suspect, that whole process would likely be a lot trickier; you might be able to use your hands somewhat, but you’re going to have access to them either in the front or back, and there’s a lot of side action while you’re normally getting into a car.
So if I understand what they did :o they made the new cars taller and cut the non living space of big front and back because of road safety getting hit in the side or roll over on the roof?
But you think that a big front and back non living space would make it safer getting hit in back or front.
So even if there was new Crown Vic it look nothing like old one of the non living space of big front and back .
From the officer point view and suspect point of view the news cars living space is bigger in the news cars than the Crown Vic . It more a illusion of the outside because it is taller and cut the non living space of big front and back .
So alot of the cars 80’s and 90’s with big front and back non living space are long gone because of road safety .
The way the cars actually look are a result of what styling and design could do to make their concept work within the constraints of safety requirements.
Hardly, else the old land-barges of the '70s and '80s would be the safest cars in existence. It doesn’t really matter how “long” the front of the car is if crash energy isn’t intelligently dealt with. Older car designs would pretty much fold up in a haphazard, uncontrolled way, and didn’t have a rigid passenger “cage.” Modern cars are designed such that everything forward of the front doors will collapse in a controlled manner, dissipating as much energy from the crash as possible before the impacting object reaches the (now rigid) passenger cage. The Crown Vic/Grand Marquis/Town Car got a redesign of the front of the frame for MY2003 to improve its performance in offset frontal crash situations. (And yes, I can hear you thinking "why would they make that investment in 2003 but not update it for 2012? Because all three cars still had significant non-fleet sales back then, and Ford was still smarting from the fiasco that was the '97-'03 F-150’s terrible offset crash test results.)
well, interior volume may be similar but the way it’s arranged in the car is different. The Crown Vic had a bench seat, no center console, and larger door apertures than e.g. the Taurus. The Taurus has a center console (removed in the police version, but the IP still sweeps down partway,) a deeper IP and resulting narrower footwells, and smaller door apertures. So while the interiors may be similar on paper, there are reasons why ingress/egress and “living space” will be more cramped in the newer cars. And if you’re an officer wearing soft body armor and a typical equipment belt and radio, the difference can be stark.
Well this is what I’m puzzled over. It can’t be from loss of fleet sales. They gave up something substantial (Fleet sales market) which meant there was another offset driving the decision and that had to be non-fleet sales. If they knew they were going to do this then why give up the extra room. They could have ADDED inches to the remake of the Taurus and been the better for it and made that the large platform for the Lincoln. Hello, Town Car. Not everybody wants to drive an SUV.
Hardly anybody wants to drive anything the size of a Crown Vic.
???
the whole discussion is on the interior room of the CV. The Taurus comes close but with the demise of the Crown Vic and Lincoln Town Car and Mercury Marauder and fleet cars there is still a market for the underlying attributes. As has been stated, there isn’t a need for physical car length but there is a need for wheel base and interior space.
I like the traits associated with the WEIGHT of the civilian Crown Vic; good isolation from road vibration and harshness and very solid crash performance.
I can get all of that from modern FWD/AWD unibody cars, though.
The length isn’t really an issue, though, since you have effectively infinite interior space in the Ford 500/Taurus products that followed it. Just like in lots of other modern cars, the interior gives you ALL THE ROOM you could ever want unless you’re dressed up like a freaking gladiator…
For the public yes the move to smaller cars is what is happening because of the price of gas.
But like the posters above they are saying the way the cars where build in the 90’s and 80’s and before was not safe with long front and back non living space.So well many of cars are smaller today many are still big for living space it just does not have long front and back of non living space so looks smaller from the out side.
This what they where trying to explain to me.So even if one day gas is dirt cheap the long front and back of non living space of the cars of 90’s and 80’s and before will NEVER come back TOO non safe.
The long hood and long trunk aren’t unsafe, exactly.
It’s just that the particular cars they were found in had less safe designs due to having been designed prior to modern design safety standards.