American Police Cars

[jbi]

The performance and fuel economy of the current list of police cars available to the Yanks has been released



Slightly off beat I know, but thought it might be of interest to some folks on here

My personal pick would be the caprice 6.0 V8. It just looks so unassuming, but packs that V8 punch.

[jbi]

The crown vic v8 is ancient and now out of production. Its performance is similar to other engines of its era... e.g ls400

The slow 0-60 times and mpg is due to the huge amount of police equipment on board

[jbi]

wst said:

Pretty appalling figures, yeah. Surely there's some better cars available for the job?

Can you suggest any?

[jbi]

Just to clarify... the only body on frame car now used by the US police is the chevrolet tahoe SUV.

All of those other cars listed are unibody (apart from the now discontinued crown vic)

[jbi]

g3org3y said:

jbi said:

wst said:

Pretty appalling figures, yeah. Surely there's some better cars available for the job?

Can you suggest any?

And it might even go round a few corners.

Much too expensive to buy and maintain. Volvo donated a bunch of V70's for police work in the states a couple years ago. The consensus was they were "okay" but too unreliable and expensive to fix when they went wrong.

[jbi]

Better for police work or a better car?

Police work would be something with lots of interior room for equipment, cheap to buy/maintain, take extreme amounts of abuse and run for many many miles without batting an eyelid.

Since everything is beefed up on the US spec police cars, I would imagine that they are much better suited to the task, unless BMW was perhaps to offer a stripped out heavy duty police spec version of it's 5 series at a comparable price.

[jbi]

Okay... here is a list of changes ford made to the standard Taurus to create the Taurus interceptor for police work

75mph Rear Impact certified
Beefed up subframes
Larger radiator/beefed up cooling system
200amp alternator
Redesigned interior (vinyl rear seats/ steering column shifter/ anti-stab seat inserts/ redesigned dash/centre console
Steel wheels
Custom Law Enforcement SYNC system mapped for police use
Redesigned seats with extra bolstering for utility belt
Revised rear door hinges for 10 degrees extra travel allows for easier loading/unloading of perps
Push bars
A-pillar spotlight

[jbi]

Fire99 said:

The Spruce goose said:

what about Carbon Motors?

Good Grief!

Carbon motors never got off the ground.

Was supposed to be powered by a BMW diesel V6 if I remember rightly.

[jbi]

The Spruce goose said:

jbi said:

Carbon motors never got off the ground.

.

still going as I understand not produced anything yet thou..

they just got their $310 million loan rejected from the Department of Energy about a week ago.

http://www.autoblog.com/2012/03/08/carbon-motors-3...

[jbi]

The perps can sometimes do the ramming as well

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ou61QvIDJg&fea...

[jbi]

Number 5 said:

Nickyboy said:

Number 5 said:

But in answer to your original question they are better.

Bit of a stupid answer when in reality they are out of reach for American Police forces. Anything can be better, whether you can buy, repair and run them for the same cost is another matter.

I read somewhere a while back the Crown Vic cost less than $12k in Police guise. I'm willing to bet an unstressed lazy V8 will last longer in Police use than one of our engines.

The question was: Is there a better car, someone replied by posting a image of a 5 series estate, in my opinion a better car than any of the listed Police Cars.

The question was NOT is there a better car for the same money or budget!

You stupid boy

AHH... But the 5 series is NOT a better car when it comes to police requirements