Chevrolet Caprice Lives On Under the Seat of the Police Fleet

posted in: Online Around the Net | 3

Over the weekend, GM presented the new Police Patrol Vehicle (PPV) Chevrolet Caprice that will debut in 2011 in police North American departments. The rear-wheel-drive sedan will offer either a V8 6.0-liter engine having savings of fuel Active Fuel Management plus the capability E85. And a V6 model will be offered beginning with car year 2012.  The configuration of V8 makes 355 horsepower plus torque of 384 lb-ft and is fitted to a 6-speed auto transmission tweaked specifically for the police work.

Apparently GM can do one thing right, negotiate fleet deals with the cops.  Ok, ok… the cars also must be somewhat reliable and work well for the duty required.   But I think another big factor that comes into long term fleet management decisions is repair cost.  If you’ve ever driven by a police yard there are rows of cars that have been banged, shot, crashed, heaped and beat.  Change all those cars over to BMWs and your bill just went up 50% or more.  And god forbid the warranty runs out on those German cars, everything just starts breaking at that point.

I’m glad to see these new Caprices only have 355 horsepower.  Should be no problem out running one of these if you use the force Luke.  That is until 10 minutes later and the helicopter shows up. 

 

3 Responses

  1. Stolen Trophy

    I know most people in this forum are not American car fans, but this is such a terrible thing to transform the more-than-worthy consumer-focused Pontiac G8 GT and GXP into a Blues Brothers-mobile. Cops will get a helluva car and can’t complain with 355hp worth of 6-liter V8 and a six-speed automatic, however. That’s a far cry from the existing 240hp Ford Crown Vics with 4-speed autos.

    Even though the (W210 M-B E-class based) Dodge Charger Hemi police package packs 368hp, the more modern GM Zeta chassis is the better drive. Lucky cops.

    Chris

  2. EMPM, Esq.

    Jalopnik.com has some photos up of the interior, and if you look close on the guages you can see where is says G8. Wonder if they are going to just use a bunch of leftover instruments form the parts bin. Also, you can get this one with a touchscreen in place of the HVAC controls; I don’t know what all it’s going to be able to do but it seems about as useless as it gets in a car where you really need to keep your eyes on the road instead of fumbling for where on the screen you need to touch. Plus, I thought cop cars were supposed to be low tech and simple so that they were easy to service by their own fleet mechanics. And why not just throw a Chevy badge on the G8? Why change it into something far less attractive like this Caprice thing? Chevy just had to turn it into something non-descript and boring.

  3. BRK NCK

    The problem with G8 and GTO is that you get into the same trouble as you would with a BMW, parts costs. Everything is imported from Australia which makes them expensive to upkeep. Wonder if that was factored into their equations.

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