Michigan test archive
2010 Michigan State Police Patrol Vehicle Test
The same eight cars as last year, tested again — and this time the ethanol Tahoe is quicker than the petrol one.
Michigan ran the identical entry list to 2009: two Police Interceptors, an Impala in petrol and E85, a Tahoe PPV in petrol and E85, and two Chargers. Eight vehicles, one category, and for the second consecutive year not a single special-service submission — no Explorer, no Expedition, no pickup, no four-wheel-drive anything. Five motorcycles ran alongside.
A stable field makes year-on-year comparison unusually clean, and three things stand out. The HEMI Charger crossed the quarter mile at 101.47 mph in 14.30 seconds — the highest trap speed a police sedan had recorded to that point; the 2012 Charger reaches 102.74 — reached 60 in 6.00 flat and lapped Grattan in 1:36.90, its best figure yet.
The E85 Tahoe beat its own petrol twin again: 8.13 seconds to 60 against 8.33, and 21.29 to 100 against 21.80. The E85 Tahoe was also the quicker of the pair to 60 in every test here from 2005 to 2008, though not in 2009, and its 21.29-second run to 100 mph is the best of any non-HEMI vehicle in the test — quicker than both Police Interceptors and both Impalas.
And the axle trade is starker than in 2009, when it was 0.05 seconds to 60 and 8 mph. The 3.55-geared Interceptor reached 60 in 8.42 seconds against the 3.27 car’s 8.88 — and topped out at 120 against 129. Half a second bought, nine miles an hour sold. In 2004 Ford had stated only that the 3.55 axle would improve acceleration and reduce top speed to 119 mph.
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 | 6.00 | 14.21 | 146 | 14.30 @ 101.47 | 1:36.90 | 27.01 | 143.4 |
| Chevrolet Tahoe PPV 2WD (E85) | 8.13 | 21.29 | 132 | 16.36 @ 88.27 | 1:42.68 | ‡ | ‡ |
| Chevrolet Tahoe PPV 2WD | 8.33 | 21.80 | 133 | 16.55 @ 87.70 | 1:43.31 | 26.59 | 145.6 |
| Ford Police Interceptor (3.55 axle) | 8.42 | 22.44 | 120 | 16.42 @ 86.98 | 1:41.01 | ‡ | ‡ |
| Chevrolet Impala 9C1 3.9L | 8.53 | 22.99 | 139 | 16.47 @ 88.08 | 1:43.87 | 26.91 | 143.9 |
| Dodge Charger 3.5L | 8.64 | 22.74 | 137 | 16.68 @ 87.27 | 1:40.03 § | 28.09 | 137.9 |
| Chevrolet Impala 9C1 3.9L (E85) | 8.72 | 23.26 | 139 | 16.64 @ 87.42 | 1:43.14 | ‡ | ‡ |
| Ford Police Interceptor (3.27 axle) | 8.88 | 23.73 | 129 | 16.74 @ 86.67 | 1:41.80 | 26.66 | 145.2 |
Every vehicle on this page had a speed limiter fitted. The report states it for the whole field in its General Information section, printed page 2: “All vehicles listed in this report were equipped with electronic speed limiters.”
Unqualified, as it is in every document held here from 2003 to 2014 (the 2003, 2004 and 2005 bulletins and the 2005, 2006, 2009, 2012 and 2013 books). No exceptions, no motorcycle clause — every vehicle in the table above had a limiter fitted, so any top speed in it may be a setting rather than what the vehicle could do.
Gold row: 101.47 mph through the quarter-mile traps, the fastest trap speed by a police sedan in these tests to that point, and a 1:36.90 lap that is three seconds clear of the next car. The HEMI Charger has now led every measure in this test for three consecutive years.
The braking column is the year’s oddity. The V6 Charger stops shortest at 137.9 feet — five and a half feet better than its own HEMI sibling, which needs 143.4. Everything else sits between 143.9 and 145.6. On a page where the spread between the best and worst four-wheeled stopping distance is under eight feet, that is the only meaningful separation.
And the Tahoe deserves a second look. A full-size sport utility reached 100 mph faster than any sedan in the test bar the HEMI, ran 133 mph, and did it as a police-package PPV. In 1997 the Tahoe took 28.90 seconds to reach 100, outside the bulletin’s 28.2, which may not have applied to it.
The motorcycles
| Machine | 0–60 (s) | 0–100 (s) | Top speed | ¼ mile | Brakes (ft/s²) | 60–0 (ft) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BMW R1200RT-P | 4.45 | 11.62 | 127 | 13.06 @ 104.73 | 26.28 | 147.3 |
| Buell Ulysses | 4.92 | 12.35 | 108 | 13.52 @ 103.36 | 24.49 | 158.1 |
| Harley-Davidson Electra Glide FLHTP ‡ | 5.57 | 25.43 | 106 | 14.50 @ 90.90 | 25.97 | 149.1 |
| BMW G650 GS-P | 5.67 | 27.02 | 104 | 14.67 @ 88.60 | 24.51 | 158.0 |
| Harley-Davidson Road King FLHP ‡ | 5.68 | 21.42 | 108 | 14.52 @ 91.89 | 24.88 | 155.6 |
The Harleys’ braking recovered sharply. In 2009 they needed 169.3 and 162.6 feet, the longest stops of that whole test; here they need 155.6 and 149.1 — improvements of nearly fourteen feet each. The Electra Glide now out-brakes the Buell and the BMW G650. Whatever caused the 2008 and 2009 figures, it did not persist.
This is the Buell Ulysses’s second and final appearance, and it improved on its 2009 debut everywhere but braking, where it needed 158.1 feet against 156.9 — 4.92 seconds to 60 against 5.15, and a 13.52-second quarter at 103.36 mph.
Ergonomics, communications and fuel
| Vehicle | Ergonomics & communications | City mpg (EPA label) |
|---|---|---|
| Chevrolet Tahoe PPV | 234.48 | 15 (PPV 2WD) / 11 (E85) |
| Ford Police Interceptor | 217.36 | 14 |
| Dodge Charger | 213.28 | 17.25 (3.5) / 16 (5.7) |
| Chevrolet Impala 9C1 | 204.31 | 17 (9C1) / 12 (E85) |
The Impala’s weakness is unchanged and specific: 4.83 out of ten for rear-seat legroom and 4.50 for rear-seat entry and exit, against 8.67 for the Tahoe on both. Everything else about the car scores respectably. It is the back seat, every year.
One printing quirk worth recording rather than tidying: the Charger 3.5’s city figure is given as 17.25 mpg, to two decimal places, in a column where every other entry is a whole number. Reproduced as published.
And the same warning as last year applies to this column, more strongly. Every vehicle’s ergonomics total rose sharply on 2009 — the Tahoe from 210.87 to 234.48, the Impala from 178.40 to 204.31 — having risen just as sharply the year before. The cars did not change. These totals compare vehicles within a year; they do not compare years.
What 2010 settled
Two years of the same eight vehicles gave Michigan something it rarely gets: a clean repeat. The results held. The HEMI Charger led the cars on acceleration, top speed and the lap again, the E85 cars matched their petrol twins again while costing a little under a third of their range again, and the 3.55 axle again bought acceleration and cost top speed: half a second and nine miles an hour here, against 0.05 seconds and 8 mph in 2009. A test that produces the same answer twice is doing its job.
What the repeat also shows is how completely the sport utility had caught up. The Tahoe PPV reached 100 mph quicker than every sedan except the HEMI, ran 133 mph, and took the ergonomics column by seventeen points. Thirteen years earlier a Tahoe had needed 28.90 seconds to reach 100 mph, outside the 1997 bulletin’s 28.2 seconds (whether that time applied to the Tahoe is not settled). Nobody announced the change; it simply appears, one column at a time, across the tables of this archive.