Dodge looks to be a major player in new police car market
Next year, the police car market will undergo a change the likes of which haven’t been seen since Chevrolet dropped the full-size Caprice in the mid-1990s when the Ford Crown Victoria goes out of production, ending the long reign of the big, body-on-frame American sedan in law enforcement use.
“We’ll go after that market hard,” promised Peter Grady, Chrysler’s Vice President Network Development and Fleet. Grady’s responsibilities include special-service vehicles like the Dodge Charger police car. The Charger currently accounts for about 18% of new police car sales, up from 14% when the current Charger police package went on sale in 2007. By comparison, the Crown Victoria captures an estimated 70% of police fleet sales. Approximately 80,000 new police cars are purchased each year.
At stake is much more than new car sales and the image that comes from being top dog in the cruiser market. Parts and maintenance sales over the life of each unit can add a significant amount to an automaker’s bottom line.
The competition is going to be fierce: According to the latest reports, the next Ford Interceptor will be derived from the new Ford Taurus and will be offered with a choice of two V6 engines and either front-wheel or all-wheel drive. There had been a lot of speculation the new Ford would be based on the rear-wheel-drive, V8-powered Australian Falcon but the Ford announcements about an “American-engineered” and “American-built” vehicle would seem to give more credence to the Taurus foundation, as would the fact it will be built in the same plant as the Taurus. To create its Chevrolet Caprice Police Pursuit Vehicle, General Motors is going to dip into its Holden subsidiary for a long-wheelbase version of the Zeta-platform Commodore, a rear-wheel-drive, V8-powered car that served as the basis for the now-discontinued Pontiac G8.
A wild card in the segment is Indiana start-up Carbon Motors, which says it plans to produce the E7, a purpose-built, law-enforcement-only, vehicle powered by a six-cylinder BMW diesel engine. The card gets even wilder considering the company needs a significant amount of fresh capital to bring the E7 to market. Carbon has purchased a former Visteon plant in Connersville, Indiana, but hundreds of millions in additional expenditures will need to be made before the first E7 rolls off the line.
Each of the cars from the Detroit Three will have an advantage: The new Charger will have an advantage in that it will be first out of the gate, coming to market at the end of this year, well ahead of the new Chevy and Ford, which won’t start shipping until sometime in 2011 and the Carbon E7, scheduled for sometime in 2012. The Ford, which will be built in the company’s Torrence Avenue Assembly Plant in Chicago, will be the only U.S.-made police car (unless Carbon can get all the financing it needs). The Dodge will continue to be built in Chrysler’s Brampton, Ontario plant while the Chevrolet reportedly will be built in Australia. The Chevrolet could have a performance advantage; General Motors is claiming a six-second 0-60 time and a top speed higher than the 5.7-liter Dodge. Based on testing of the Pontiac G8, these numbers would appear to be valid. Dodge may need to offer its 6.1-liter HEMI as an option in order to remain the fastest squad on the beat.
All three vehicles will be tested next year by both the Michigan State Police and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, the two agencies most influential in determining the vehicles selected by major law enforcement agencies.
