Michigan test archive
Police car tests of the 1980s
The last of the big sedans. 7 Michigan State Police vehicle tests, transcribed from the original reports.
The programme begins this archive at its most familiar: rear-drive V8 sedans, carburettors, and one qualification bar every car had to clear or go home. A Plymouth Gran Fury sweeps 1980 at 124.6 mph. A Dodge Diplomat is disqualified by a quarter of a second and comes back from the dead two years later. And a Ford Mustang turns up in 1982 as a twelfth car whose numbers Michigan declined to publish — then runs 132 mph the following year and changes what a police car is allowed to be.
These are also the years when the bar itself moves. Michigan tightens the entry requirements in 1987, loosens them in 1988 and tightens them again in 1989, and each adjustment reshuffles the field. Reading them in order is the clearest way to understand that the winner of any given year is as much a product of the standard as of the car.
The tests
| Model year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1980 | Gran Fury sweeps both classes at 124.6 mph; a wrecked Volare wins its class anyway |
| 1981 | Five full-size sedans, four mid-size V8s, and a Buick that could not reach 100 mph |
| 1982 | Six V8s in one class, a K-car curiosity, and a Mustang whose numbers were not printed |
| 1983 | The Mustang’s 132-mph debut, a propane-fuelled Canadian Plymouth, a slant-six Diplomat |
| 1987 | The bar goes up: two 139-mph Mustangs, and a quarter of a second ends the Diplomat’s bid |
| 1988 | The Diplomat comes back from the dead; a 5-speed Mustang runs 6.90 seconds to 60 |
| 1989 | Fuel injection reaches the 350 — and the carburetted M-bodies still clear the bar |
| 1984 – 1986 — tested and published, but never digitised — shelf only | |