Michigan test archive

2011 Michigan State Police Patrol Vehicle Test

The Caprice comes back after fifteen years and beats every car in the test — and a Kawasaki runs the quickest quarter mile in these tests to that point.

The police category

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.

The Caprice was retested, and the retest was thrown away

This is the most instructive retest in the archive, because Michigan ran one and then refused to publish it. It is worth following in order.

During the second series of laps the drivers of the regular-fuel Caprice 9C1 reported “a floating sensation as the vehicle was driven at high speeds through various turns” and “a noticeable vibration during heavy braking.” GM “thoroughly checked the vehicle and found nothing of concern.” On the third series the driver aborted the run outright, for “a reduction of engine power”; the car was examined again, again “with no problems identified”, and when restarted “returned to full power.” Those laps were re-run at the end of the day to complete the test.

Then, after the test: “After a thorough post test inspection, GM engineers discovered that pre-production, hand built, proto type front struts used on the Caprice 9C1 experienced internal parts failure and the rear suspension cradle required stiffer isolation bushings.” The drivers had been right and two inspections had missed it. On 7 October the test team met GM at Grattan again, and with both faults fixed “found the handling of the Caprice to be much improved.”

And Michigan published the original figure anyway. “The original times posted by the Chevrolet Caprice 9C1 on test day remain as the official results. The laps driven on October 7th were merely for determining handling issues have been resolved.”

So the 1:37.35 in the table above is a lap set on broken struts, and Michigan knew it was when the book went to print. That is the programme’s discipline showing: the test is what happened on test day, and a car that was quicker once repaired does not get credit for it. The 2015 Caprice went the other way in print: that book shows both runs, 147 mph in its summary tables and 156 on the retest sheet, and this archive uses the 156. The archive records which way each went rather than flattening both to “retested”.

Gold rows: both Caprices. They are separated by three hundredths of a second to 60 mph and share a 148 mph top speed — and the E85 car is fractionally the quicker of the two, as the E85 Tahoe was in most earlier tests here, though not in 2009. The Caprice’s 30.19 ft/s² is the highest deceleration rate any police sedan recorded under the twelve-stop procedure in this archive; the 2006 Magnum wagon matched it.

Read the two Fords at the bottom of the table against the Caprice at the top. The 3.55-geared Police Interceptor ran 119 mph — slower on top than both Impalas, both Tahoes and both Caprices, and slower than the V6 Charger. It needed 24.37 seconds to reach 100 where the Caprice needed 14.58. The Panther-platform car had been in every Michigan test since 1983, and in its last years it was the slowest car in the test in a straight line.

The Tahoe’s top speed also jumped, from 133 mph in 2010 to 139 — matching the E85 Impala and a mile an hour up on the petrol car and beating both Interceptors by ten miles an hour.

Vehicle dynamics

Gold row: the E85 Caprice took the best lap average of the year, 1:37.02, three tenths ahead of the petrol car. Both Caprices lapped quicker than either Charger, and the quicker of the two Police Interceptors was four seconds off the pace.

† The Tahoe PPV’s block prints its overall average without the “Overall Average” row label the other nine carry. The value is in the book; only the label is missing.

The motorcycles

Gold row, and it takes two archive records on debut: the quickest quarter mile recorded here to that point, 12.66 seconds, and the highest trap speed, 112.17 mph (the 2015 BMW later ran 12.51 at 116.08). Its 9.70-second run to 100 mph was the first sub-ten-second figure in these tests; the 2012 Kawasaki ran 8.29. The BMW’s 4.10 seconds to 60, set in 2008, was still the quickest launch at that point; the 2012 Kawasaki ran 4.02.

And then the result that makes the point of a road course. The Kawasaki is quicker than the BMW everywhere in a straight line — and the BMW is nearly four seconds faster around the MSP Precision Driving Unit course, 5:37.18 against 5:41.05. Michigan weights dynamics at 30 points and acceleration at 20 precisely because those two columns disagree.

Ergonomics, communications and fuel

The Caprice’s line-item scores are the most lopsided on the page and they explain a great deal about the car. Its rear-seat legroom scored 9.22 out of ten — against 4.44 for the Impala and 4.78 for the Charger, and the highest single figure any sedan scores here — the Tahoe’s headroom takes 9.78. Then its dashboard accessibility scored 5.05, the Caprice’s worst mark; the Impala’s rear legroom is lower still at 4.44, because the technicians who had to fit equipment into it could not get at anything. A rear-drive sedan with a proper back seat and nowhere to put a radio.

Note also the Charger’s new 3.6-litre V6 — the Pentastar, replacing the 3.5 — returning 19 mpg city, the best figure of any police sedan in the test, while running 130 mph.