Okay. Inspired by a GQ thread, I pose this question.
Which of the above 3 vehicles is the worst choice for a police car?
MODS:
Ooops. Please amend worse to worst in title, at your leisure.
The Crown Vic Police Interceptor is the gold standard for cop cars, and probably rightly so – they figured out their market and made a solid, reasonably powerful car for it.
The Crown Vic is the gold standard for American cop cars. No other police force in the world uses such large vehicles to my knowledge (although Australian cops use or used to use Holden Commodores, which aren’t far off).
It has two things going for it: price, and lack of competition.
Someone is using the Aveo for a police car?
http://www.automedia.com/2009-New-Car-Buyers-Guide/2009-Chevrolet-Aveo-Sedans/trim/
That’s gotta be the worst of those 3. 106 horsepower is not going to win a whole lot of police chases, plus bumping other cars would NOT be a good idea with such a small and light car.
Plus, good luck if you have to transport suspects that are over 200 lbs. in the back seat!
They all have their strengths. I’d say it depends on the terrain. Suburban for rural, Aveo for urban, Vic for urban with highways…
If I had to sacrifice one, I’d ditch the Aveo, but that depends on how cash-strapped the department is. If it’s four Aveos vs. three Vics vs. two Suburbans… how much coverage do they need?
No. I made the (hyperbolic) comment in the GQ thread that the Crown Vic was the worst choice of vehicle for police use I could think of, and Balthisar asked if that meant I thought the Suburban or Aveo would be better.
FTR, I think a smaller (but not Aveo small!) vehicle would be a much better choice, both in terms of reducing running costs and effectiveness. The Crown Vic is not fast and does not handle well even in LEO trim.
For example, the Orange County (FL) Sheriff’s Office used to have some Ford Contours on the fleet, which IMHO were a much more solid choice.
Define “fast.” Wiki says various variants of the PI have speeds between 120 and 150. How fast do you want it to be (given the current mood against high-speed chases with all their attendant risks)?
What about an LEO version of the Mustang or SHO? Those’d be cool, I’ll admit.
“Quick”, then, if you prefer. I’m more concerned with acceleration than top speed, since high speed chases rarely, if ever, exceed 120 mph, and no everyday law enforcement vehicle is going to be able to cruise at over 150.
The Mustang would be prohibitively expensive; there is an LEO version, though- I know, because I got pulled over by one. :mad:
You still want police departments to have that capacity, though. It may not be common, but it’s certainly possible that police could be pursuing a sufficiently dangerous criminal that they must be apprehended as swiftly as possible, and the danger of leaving them at large outweighs the danger posed by a high-speed chase. (Imagine a psycho with an AK-47, shooting people for kicks). Even if police only have a legitimate need for car chases once every five years or so, we probably want them to be able to do it.
It’s not unlike the logic of arming our cops, really. I mean, it’s meant to be rare that cops even unsnap their holsters - but we’ve decided that we want our police officers to be able to bring deadly force to bear, when every alternative is worse. That’s a rare scenario, but we plan and equip our officers for it.
[Moderator Hat ON]
I think this is better suited to IMHO.
[Moderator Hat OFF]
Police vehicles aren’t just chosen for pursuit characteristics. A big factor is storage, cops carry a big array of weapons, devices, electronics and emergency gear in their cars, and a big trunk is very important to hold all this stuff and keep it accessible.
Body-on-frame construction like that used in the Ford Panther platform improves vehicle survival in accidents where a unibody car would be unrepairable.
Most of the “police package” upgrades are to electrical systems (need to power all the radios/computers/radar/etc.), cooling (extended idle time) and suspension (more able to handle off-road and clearing obstacles)
The Aveo does 0-60 in 11.6 while the (consumer level) Crown does it in 8, according to Consumer Reports.
Too bad GM had to get rid of the Caprice, because that was the best.
Here’s footage of an Impala SS outrunning the police (the Impala is basically a civilian version of the Caprice, but the po-po version is designated as a 9C1):
Re: Caprice
The video you posted was from a previous year, before the Crown Vic had the current 250 HP output.
Aside from the powerplant, the Crown Vic event at that time had superior handling and ride.
A Caprice had this weird balance/handling issue. When you whipped it hard through a corner, it felt like it just WANTED to spin out on you. [Nice instance of a 720 degree spin-out on an old episode of Cops, BTW…]
A Crown Vic always stays flat and neutral in a corner, right until the tires run out of grip.
Sorry to go the opposite way (I hope there’s not a “best” police car thread that this is a response to that i missed), but here in Atlanta, a lot of depts are moving over to the Dodge Charger as the standard. It’s pretty cool looking, fast, roomy, and if I was a cop, I’d love to drive that.
Having driven numerous Caprices and Crown Vic, I have to say from personal experience you are dead wrong. The Chevs start to lose all manner of reliable handling at around the 75,000 mile mark. They’re also slower to accelerate and have far looser handling than the CV. Most cop fleets retire their cars at the 100,000 mile mark, and you will find countless CVs that still have a good 200,000 more miles in them. You’d be lucky to get 25-50,000 out of the Caprice. It was a truly vile car.
In Baton Rouge and New Orleans, at least, I saw plenty of Impalas being used as police cars.
Do you mean the '94-96 Impala or the '00+ Impala?
The old ones were whale-looking, big and rear-wheel drive.
The new ones 00+ up ones are less huge and front-wheel drive.
I’m skeptical that Chevy would have sold the old Impala to police fleets, as it commanded a premium price in the marketplace, and there was no surplus.
Yep. I owned one, and it was a good car. I wouldn’t call the handling great, but it was very predictable. Those cars are sought after as crash derby cars for a reason, too. They can take a pounding.
The Montreal cops have them, too.