Michigan test archive
2009 Michigan State Police Patrol Vehicle Test
Eight vehicles. No trucks, no special-service category, no Ford but the Interceptor — and the first police sedan to break six seconds.
Look at the size of this test. The 2008 evaluation ran nineteen vehicles across two categories plus three motorcycles. The 2009 evaluation ran eight, all of them in the police category, and the special-service section is simply absent — no Explorer, no Expedition, no Suburban, no pickup, no four-wheel-drive Tahoe. For the first time since Michigan created the classification in 1999, not one special-service vehicle was submitted.
The Dodge Magnum is gone too, leaving the Charger alone from Chrysler. What remains is four nameplates: two Police Interceptors differing only in axle, an Impala in petrol and E85, a Tahoe PPV in petrol and E85, and two Chargers. These vehicles were tested in the autumn of 2008, and the thinness of the entry list is the most eloquent thing on the page.
What did show up went very fast. The Charger 5.7 reached 60 mph in 5.96 seconds — the first police-package sedan in this archive to break six seconds — ran 100 in 14.29, crossed the quarter mile in 14.43 at 100.54 mph, and lapped Grattan in 1:37.08. It also stopped in 135.2 feet. In 2002 a Dodge police sedan missed its braking requirement by four hundredths; seven years later it was the quickest, fastest and among the best-braking cars in the test.
The police category
| Vehicle | 0–60 (s) | 0–100 (s) | Top speed | ¼ mile | Dynamics | Brakes (ft/s²) | 60–0 (ft) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dodge Charger 5.7L HEMI | 5.96 | 14.29 | 146 | 14.43 @ 100.54 | 1:37.08 | 28.65 | 135.2 |
| Chevrolet Impala 9C1 3.9L | 8.37 | 22.22 | 139 | 16.36 @ 88.77 | 1:42.25 | ‡ | ‡ |
| Chevrolet Tahoe PPV 2WD | 8.40 | 22.56 | 132 | 16.46 @ 86.83 | 1:42.98 | 27.04 | 143.2 |
| Chevrolet Tahoe PPV 2WD (E85) | 8.50 | 22.86 | 133 | 16.53 @ 86.69 | 1:42.60 | ‡ | ‡ |
| Chevrolet Impala 9C1 3.9L (E85) | 8.59 | 22.53 | 140 | 16.58 @ 88.11 | 1:42.22 | 26.84 | 144.2 |
| Dodge Charger 3.5L | 8.79 | 23.52 | 136 | 16.77 @ 85.91 | 1:40.40 | 28.66 | 135.1 |
| Ford Police Interceptor (3.55 axle) | 8.79 | 23.70 | 120 | 16.71 @ 85.56 | 1:40.36 | ‡ | ‡ |
| Ford Police Interceptor (3.27 axle) | 8.84 | 24.07 | 128 | 16.69 @ 86.07 | 1:40.81 | 27.19 | 142.4 |
Gold row: 5.96 seconds to 60 mph, the first sub-six-second police sedan in this archive, and a 1:37.08 lap that is three and a half seconds clear of anything else in the test. Its 14.43-second quarter at 100.54 mph is the first sedan to break 100 mph through the traps here.
Below it the field is remarkably tight — six vehicles separated by 0.47 seconds to 60 mph. The Impala is quickest of them and runs 139 mph; the Tahoe PPV, a full-size sport utility, reaches 60 in 8.40 and runs 132, which is twelve miles an hour faster than a Police Interceptor with the 3.55 axle. The 3.55 Ford needed 2.40 miles to reach 120 mph, against 0.87 for the Charger 3.5 and 0.42 for the HEMI.
The braking column has swung back to Dodge: both Chargers stop in almost exactly 135 feet — 135.1 and 135.2 — against 142.4 for the Interceptor and 143.2 for the Tahoe.
The motorcycles
| Machine | 0–60 (s) | 0–100 (s) | Top speed | ¼ mile | Brakes (ft/s²) | 60–0 (ft) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BMW R1200RT-P | 4.41 | 11.27 | 130 | 13.10 @ 106.11 | 26.24 | 147.6 |
| Buell Ulysses | 5.15 | 13.58 | 106 | 13.87 @ 100.80 | 24.68 | 156.9 |
| Harley-Davidson Road King FLHP ‡ | 5.31 | 28.13 | 104 | 15.74 @ 88.08 | 22.87 | 169.3 |
| Harley-Davidson Electra Glide FLHTP ‡ | 5.58 | not reached | 101 | 14.63 @ 88.92 | 23.82 | 162.6 |
| BMW G650 XChallenge | 7.56 | 30.02 | 105 | 15.87 @ 87.37 | 24.94 | 155.3 |
Two machines appear for the only time in this archive. The Buell Ulysses reached 60 in 5.15 seconds and ran the quarter in 13.87 at 100.80 mph — quicker than every car in the test except the HEMI Charger. Harley-Davidson shut Buell down the following year, which makes this one of the very few official police evaluations the marque ever received. The BMW G650 XChallenge, a single-cylinder machine, is at the other end: 7.56 seconds to 60 and 30.02 to 100, the slowest acceleration figures on the page — and it still out-braked both Harleys.
The Harleys’ braking has not recovered from its 2008 fall. At 22.87 and 23.82 ft/s² they need 169.3 and 162.6 feet — the longest stopping distances anywhere in the 2009 test, on two wheels or four.
Ergonomics, communications and fuel
| Vehicle | Ergonomics & communications | City mpg (petrol) | City mpg (E85) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chevrolet Tahoe PPV | 210.87 | 14 | 10 |
| Dodge Charger | 197.70 | 16 (3.5) / 16 (5.7) | — |
| Ford Police Interceptor | 194.07 | 14 | — |
| Chevrolet Impala 9C1 | 178.40 | 17 | 12 |
The E85 penalty is unchanged and severe: the Tahoe drops from 14 mpg city to 10 and the Impala from 17 to 12, both losses of about 29 percent, for performance within two tenths of a second of their petrol twins.
The Impala’s ergonomics total is the lowest here and the reason is one part of the car: 3.60 out of ten for rear-seat legroom and 3.40 for rear-seat entry and exit. Every other line item is competitive. For a vehicle whose back seat is a working part of the job, that is the figure that matters.
Note also that the Charger’s two engines return the same 16 mpg city — the 3.5 V6 gains nothing over the 5.7 HEMI on the EPA city cycle, while giving away 2.83 seconds to 60 mph and ten miles an hour on top.
What 2009 settled
The entry list is the story, and it is a short one. Nineteen vehicles became eight. The special-service category — the Explorers, Expeditions, Suburbans and pickups that had filled half the book for a decade — produced not a single submission. Michigan ran the test it always runs, and most of the industry did not turn up.
What did turn up made its case emphatically. A Dodge Charger with a HEMI reached 60 mph in 5.96 seconds, ran 146, stopped in 135 feet and lapped three and a half seconds clear of everything else. Seven years earlier Chrysler had come back to these tables with an Intrepid that missed its braking requirement by four hundredths of a foot per second squared. The car that replaced it was now the best police sedan in the test by every measure the programme records.