Michigan test archive

1995 Michigan State Police Patrol Vehicle Test

The LT1 era at full song: 155-mph Camaros, a 129-mph station wagon — and a Taurus that missed the new 0–60 gate by eight tenths.

Set this page beside the 1989 test and the transformation is total. The qualification bar that stood at 12.7 seconds to 60 six years earlier now demanded 10.0 flat — with 80 mph in 17.2, 100 in 28.2, 110 mph inside one mile and 120 inside two, plus a formal braking floor of 24.2 ft/s²: the same distances and floor the 1994 specification had set, with 10.1, 17.5 and 29.6 seconds. Every carbureted sedan in this archive’s earlier pages would have failed it. Nine vehicles ran between 27 and 29 August 1994: five police package cars and, in the program’s second category, four “special service” vehicles — two B4C Camaros, an LT1 Caprice station wagon, and a four-wheel-drive Jeep Cherokee, in these pages since the 1992 test.

Three storylines stand out. The 5.7-liter LT1 Caprice ran 60 in 8.21 seconds and 100 in 22.43 — quicker to 100 than the 1983 test’s Mustang — and the station wagon version did 9.07 and 129 mph. The Camaros ran 6.45 seconds to 60, 100 mph in 16.48, 155 mph and a 1:19.20 lap average, the last two the best in these books to that point, with the automatic beating the 6-speed both to 60 and around the course. And the Ford Taurus — promised to Michigan for 1988 and withdrawn before the 1987 test, and a 3.8 police package in these books since 1990 — missed the new 0–60 gate by eight tenths.

Also worth noticing: for the sixth test running in this archive there is no Chrysler sedan in the field at all, as in every test since 1990. The only Chrysler product present is a Jeep, as in 1992, 1993 and 1994. This page is built from the NIJ’s TAP bulletin (September 1994); the full 1995 book has not been found online.

The 1995 qualification bar. To qualify, a vehicle had to reach 60 mph within 10.0 seconds, 80 mph within 17.2, and 100 mph within 28.2; reach 110 mph within one mile and 120 mph within two; average at least 24.2 ft/s² on the two impending-skid stops; and pass the brake sequence — four controlled decelerations from 90 mph, an impending-skid stop from 60, repeated after a four-minute cool-down, and a panic stop within its own lane.

The police package cars

Source: NIJ Technology Assessment Program bulletin, September 1994 — synopsis of the August 1994 test. Acceleration figures are four-run averages; dynamics is the average of the fastest 12 of at least 16 timed laps by at least four drivers. This bulletin printed no quarter-mile times. * = vehicle equipped with speed limiter, the bulletin’s own footnote: it marks three of the nine — the 4.3L Caprice here, and the Caprice station wagon and Jeep Cherokee below.
Car	Engine	0–60 (s)	0–80 (s)	0–100 (s)	Top speed (mph)	Dynamics (s)
Chevrolet Caprice 5.7L	5.7L LT1 PFI	8.21	13.63	22.43	135	83.07
Ford Crown Victoria	4.6L PFI	9.68	16.06	26.71	132	85.14
Chevrolet Caprice 4.3L	4.3L (265 cid V8) PFI	11.32	18.93	33.12	120 *	86.31
Ford Taurus	3.8L PFI	10.80	19.18	33.58	128	87.08
Chevrolet Lumina	3.1L PFI	11.19	19.58	34.04	118	88.30

Measured against the year’s gates: only the LT1 Caprice and the Crown Victoria cleared the acceleration requirements. The 4.3 Caprice, the Taurus and the Lumina all missed the 10-second 0–60 gate and the 28.2-second 0–100 gate. Note the 4.3 here is a 265-cubic-inch V8 — not the old 262 V6 of the eighties pages. The bulletin does not name the year’s winner — the scoring belongs to the full report (see below).

See the original pages: Tables 4 and 3 in the 1995 bulletin

Scan of Table 4 from the 1995 NIJ bulletin: acceleration times from 0 to 20 through 0 to 100 mph and top speeds for nine vehicles — Table 4, “Results of acceleration and top-speed testing”, for the police package cars and the special service vehicles on this page. National Institute of Justice, *Michigan State Police Tests 1995 Patrol Vehicles*, Technology Assessment Program bulletin, September 1994, PDF page 3 of the NCJRS scan (printed page 2). Open full size.

Scan of Table 3 from the 1995 NIJ bulletin: vehicle dynamics average lap times for nine vehicles — Table 3, “Results of vehicle dynamics testing”, the average of each vehicle’s fastest 12 laps in minutes and seconds. National Institute of Justice, *Michigan State Police Tests 1995 Patrol Vehicles*, Technology Assessment Program bulletin, September 1994, PDF page 3 of the NCJRS scan (printed page 2). Open full size.

The special service vehicles

Source: NIJ TAP bulletin, September 1994. Special service vehicles are tested alongside the police package cars but sold for roles outside sustained pursuit service. * = vehicle equipped with speed limiter (the bulletin’s footnote).
Vehicle	Engine	0–60 (s)	0–80 (s)	0–100 (s)	Top speed (mph)	Dynamics (s)
Chevrolet Camaro (automatic)	5.7L LT1 PFI	6.45	10.51	16.48	155	79.20
Chevrolet Camaro (6-speed)	5.7L LT1 PFI	6.58	10.74	16.46	152	80.19
Chevrolet Caprice Station Wagon	5.7L LT1 PFI	9.07	15.24	25.36	129 *	84.89
Jeep Cherokee (4WD)	4.0L PFI	10.57	19.86	36.97	111 *	85.91

Gold row: fastest vehicle of the entire test — the automatic B4C Camaro’s 1:19.20 lap average and 155 mph are records for the program’s published series to this point; its 6.45 seconds to 60 is not, the 1993 Camaros having run 6.10 and 6.18. The 6-speed car was two hundredths quicker to 100. And read the wagon’s row twice: a 129-mph station wagon that out-accelerated three of the five police package sedans.

Complete acceleration data — every 10-mph increment

Four-run averages in seconds, from the bulletin’s acceleration table (Table 4, p. 2). All ninety cells are legible in the NIJ scan.
0 to…	Camaro auto	Camaro 6-spd	Caprice 5.7	Caprice 4.3	Wagon 5.7	Lumina 3.1	Cherokee 4.0	Crown Vic 4.6	Taurus 3.8
20 mph	1.53	1.76	1.77	2.71	1.97	2.32	2.18	2.06	2.28
30 mph	2.49	2.61	2.95	4.33	3.37	3.84	3.65	3.47	3.69
40 mph	3.60	3.66	4.33	6.11	4.88	5.59	5.29	5.09	5.55
50 mph	4.85	5.06	6.00	8.36	6.61	8.22	7.76	7.28	8.00
60 mph	6.45	6.58	8.21	11.32	9.07	11.19	10.57	9.68	10.80
70 mph	8.25	8.62	10.65	14.71	12.03	14.56	14.10	12.48	14.57
80 mph	10.51	10.74	13.63	18.93	15.24	19.58	19.86	16.06	19.18
90 mph	13.39	13.45	17.66	25.36	19.13	26.19	26.85	20.91	24.64
100 mph	16.48	16.46	22.43	33.12	25.36	34.04	36.97	26.71	33.58

Brakes — a threshold with teeth, and two cars tested twice

Braking carried 20 points in the scoring, as it already did in the 1994 book (the 1992 book weighted it 10), and the impending-skid average was a formal qualification gate, as the 1994 specification had already made it: 24.2 ft/s² or the car is out. Only the automatic Camaro was brake-tested, and it led the field: 29.57 ft/s², a computed 131.0-foot stop from 60 mph. The two Caprice sedans were next — the 4.3L at 28.39, the 5.7L at 28.22. Across the whole field the averages ran from 29.57 down to 24.21, the non-ABS Taurus sitting essentially on the qualification floor.

The bulletin’s braking table has ten columns for nine vehicles: the Crown Victoria and the Taurus each appear twice, tested with and without anti-lock brakes. All four runs cleared the floor; in each pair the ABS run stopped harder, by 0.99 ft/s² for the Crown Victoria and 2.14 for the Taurus.

Complete braking data — both phases, ten test configurations

Source: NIJ TAP bulletin, September 1994, Table 5, p. 3. Two impending-skid stops from 60 mph separated by a four-minute cooling period, measured by fifth wheel; each stop is preceded by four decelerations at 22 ft/s² from 90 mph. The final column is the stopping distance from exactly 60 mph computed from the average deceleration rate. All vehicles ran with anti-lock brakes except the two runs marked non-ABS.
Vehicle	Phase I speed	Phase I distance (ft)	Phase I rate	Phase II speed	Phase II distance (ft)	Phase II rate	Average rate	60–0 computed (ft)
Chevrolet Camaro (automatic)	60.6	132.3	29.86	60.3	133.6	29.27	29.57	131.0
Chevrolet Caprice 5.7L	61.1	143.1	28.06	60.7	139.6	28.39	28.22	137.2
Chevrolet Caprice 4.3L	61.2	143.0	28.17	60.4	137.2	28.60	28.39	136.4
Chevrolet Caprice Station Wagon	60.7	150.4	26.35	60.7	155.0	25.57	25.96	149.2
Chevrolet Lumina	60.6	163.2	24.20	60.1	157.6	24.65	24.43	158.5
Jeep Cherokee (4WD)	61.0	153.3	26.11	60.1	147.9	26.27	26.19	147.9
Ford Crown Victoria (ABS)	60.7	152.4	26.00	60.7	147.0	26.96	26.48	146.2
Ford Crown Victoria (non-ABS)	60.6	157.5	25.08	60.2	150.5	25.90	25.49	151.9
Ford Taurus (ABS)	60.7	151.5	26.16	60.3	147.3	26.55	26.35	146.9
Ford Taurus (non-ABS)	60.1	167.3	23.22	60.2	154.7	25.20	24.21	159.9

Gold row: best braking in the test. The 6-speed Camaro was not brake-tested. The bulletin lists one Crown Victoria and one Taurus in its field and prints each twice here, with and without anti-lock brakes; it does not say which configuration ran the acceleration and top-speed tests.

See the original page: Table 5 in the 1995 bulletin

Scan of Table 5 from the 1995 NIJ bulletin: Phase I and Phase II stopping distances and deceleration rates for ten configurations, with and without anti-lock brakes — Table 5, “Results of braking test”. National Institute of Justice, *Michigan State Police Tests 1995 Patrol Vehicles*, Technology Assessment Program bulletin, September 1994, PDF page 4 of the NCJRS scan (printed page 3). Open full size.

Ergonomics and fuel economy

Source: NIJ TAP bulletin, September 1994. Ergonomics scores are totals over an **unestablished number of attributes**, and this is now settled as far as the documents allow. The federal results bulletins say 29 — in the same sentence, with the same three examples, from one bulletin to the next. Six of them have been read for this note: the NIJ TAP bulletin of September 1994 and the NIJ/NLECTC bulletins of October 1996, October 1997, October 1999, December 2002 and January 2004, for model years 1995, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2003 and 2004. **Not one prints the attribute list**, so the figure cannot be checked against anything. The full reports, which do print the table, count **28 scored rows** — counted directly in 1994, 1996, 1999, 2001, 2002 and 2005 (the October 1993 bulletin for the 1994 test says 29 beside a book that prints 28), and in the 2005 report eight of the ten columns sum exactly to their printed totals (the two Tahoe PPV columns add up to 211.90 against a printed 210.40). A number repeated in boilerplate from one bulletin to the next is not a reading of any year’s table, so no bulletin’s 29 is quoted here — including this year’s own, which has been read; one car per model was scored, since interior dimensions are essentially the same. EPA city figures to 0.1 mpg from manufacturer-supplied data; Ford’s Crown Victoria figure was not available at publication.
Vehicle	Ergonomics (pts)	EPA city (mpg)
Chevrolet Caprice	234.25	16.7 (5.7) / 17.6 (4.3)
Chevrolet Caprice Station Wagon	228.18	16.7
Ford Crown Victoria	196.32	—
Ford Taurus	195.33	18.8
Jeep Cherokee (4WD)	176.71	14.5
Chevrolet Camaro	162.22	16.6 (auto) / 16.8 (6-speed)
Chevrolet Lumina	158.93	18.7

The big Caprice’s 234.25 is below the 1994 book’s top totals (244.61 for the Caprice and the Explorer), but above every ergonomics total held from 1981 to 1993; the 1978 and 1980 books graded longer lists of items and scored communications separately, and no totals are held for 1979 or 1988. A rolling office at the peak of its development, a year before the American B-body Caprice’s last Michigan test.

What the bulletin doesn’t hold

This TAP bulletin is a synopsis; the detailed report it references — with the per-lap dynamics, quarter-mile times, final weighted scoring, the year’s winner, bid prices and hardware specifications — has not been found online. Those numbers will be added to this page from an original copy of the full 1995 book; as far as I can tell, they are not available anywhere else online.

What 1995 settled

The program’s center of gravity had moved. A qualification bar of 10.0 seconds to 60 — unthinkable when a 12.72-second Diplomat was competitive — now sorted a field where every engine was injected, the fastest patrol sedan ran 135 mph, and the pursuit specialists were 155-mph Camaros. Of the five police package cars, only two cleared the gates; the mid-size experiments — Lumina, Taurus — showed that front-drive sixes weren’t the answer yet.

And there’s a quieter constant in the field list: a four-wheel-drive Jeep Cherokee, tested seriously, timed properly, printed alongside the sedans, as it had been since 1992. Within a decade, this archive’s tables would belong to its descendants.

Source. National Institute of Justice, Technology Assessment Program bulletin, September 1994: Michigan State Police Tests 1995 Patrol Vehicles — the official synopsis of the August 1994 test. All figures transcribed directly from the bulletin. Read the official record at the DOJ virtual library, and see how these videos are researched.