I’m certain to get flamed for this one, but what the hell.
I’m a habitual speeder; I never, ever drive the speed limit. I don’t get on the highway for fun, I do it because I have somewhere to be and I’d rather get there soon than later, and I am in no less control of my vehicle at 85 mhp than 55. So, I am always on the lookout for good hiding spots and undercover cops. For the life of me I can’t understand what drives (npi) people to buy Crown Victoria’s and Caprice’s. I’m sure they are fine cars and all, but don’t these people know you’re freaking out all us speeders? Wouldn’t you be just as happy with a Grand Marquis or Bonneville or anything but a cop car?
But if they stopped buying them, GM and Ford would stop making them, so the police would be forced to buy something else. I’m sure the people who buy these cars have taken all this into consideration, and rightly concluded that there needs to be some market for these cars to keep the police from switching to something more generic looking.
The mileage don’t mean shit. Just think about how many hours that thing’s been sitting idling in front of Kripsy Kremes. And how many drunks have thrown up in the backseat?
No thanks. I’ll stick to buying from Little Old Ladies.
Don’t the police remove the spotlights on the hood (near the windshield) when they auction off their old cars? I always thought those spotlights were sure giveaways to unmarked cop cars…that and the radio antenna on the ROOF of the car.
They have a new batch of unmarked cop cars. Apparently the police deparment selected the most common make and model on the roads and then bought several in dark dark colours. They have POLICE written on the doors, in pain just a fraction different than the pain job. So you can’t read it unless you’re 5 feet away in direct sun light.
My parents have a Chevy Caprice Classic. There are good reasons for this.
We used to have a full-sized van and my mother hated it. It was nice to haul things around in, but too bulky for her. My dad suggested a mini-van, but she would have none of it–she wanted a car.
At the time, I still lived at home and rode with them on occasion. My dad is 6’3", I am 6’4", my brother is 6’1". This makes backseat leg room an issue on family trips, especially with my mom and sister in the car as well. Not to mention dad is the prototypical lazy American–rather than losing weight to fit into a car (which he really needs to do), he buys a big car to fit him. (Not that I’m saying it’s easy for everyone to lose weight, you understand… it’s that my dad = couch potato.) Thus the largest car available.
Hi Opal!
It was much cheaper than a Caddie.
If it makes you feel any better, they don’t make the Caprice any more, so you won’t see new ones…
Elwood: It’s got a cop motor, a four hundred and forty cubic inch plant, it’s got cop tires, cop suspension, cop shocks, it was a model made before catalytic converters so it’ll run good on regular gas. Whaddya say? Is it the new Blues Mobile or what?
OK Cainxinth here’s the straight dope on the cop cars… First of all if we talk about actual cop cars being re-used there is a good reason to buy one of these and the reasons all come from under the hood. Basically the Crown Vics that come out of Detroit are no different than those coming from the cop shop as I like to call it. They are not really faster, and they don’t necessarily handle any better they are just tweeked out to be much, much, much more durable. They can do just about anything and go just about anywhere as long as they have traction and are not going over boulders or anything like that. The engines are not built from regular materials they are constructed of “Callaway” type components… Which are made of super duper alloy metals that are very strong and quite indestructable. So thats why people like to buy used cop cars…
As for the other people who buy regular crown vics they just do that for the size I am sure or some other silly reason… I too am a habitual speeder, I have 22 tickets under my belt and was (during high school) quite proud of it. Then I learned that I had to start paying my own insurance and grow up and become an adult and I stopped speeding so much… Also basic physics says…one has to be traveling 90 miles an hour to get to any destination only 2 minutes sooner. Sorry but speeding actually isn’t getting you anywhere quicker…
Nope, you’ll see the new Impalas instead. I once got a ride in one when they first came out, the owner was a heavy-set guy and he wore a shortsleeved cerulean blue shirt that day. Looked for all the world like a state trooper in an unmarked car.
Incidentally, I love the new Impala. Great looks, lotsa power, and they look really nice decked out as police cruisers - very futuristic. Too bad, its one more car i’ll have to look out for on the highway.
Funny: Until I read this thread, I had thought that a used police car would be the last thing anyone would want to buy. In the New York sequence of Night on Earth (see it, it’s a scream), there’s an establishing shot of a lot of such cars. “Who would want them?” I pondered. “They’re probably in sad shape from being pushed to the limit in chases, and driven in all kinds of weather, and (as JonScribe said), the backseats have probably seen all kinds of abuse.”
