Michigan test archive
Police car tests of the 2010s
The Crown Victoria leaves the tests and the Utility takes over. 10 Michigan State Police vehicle tests; the books for 2010, 2011, 2014, 2016 and 2017 are not held here.
The Caprice comes back in 2011 after fifteen years and beats every car in the test. Then 2012 ends the Panther era: no Crown Victoria, six new Fords in its place, and a new twenty-stop brake procedure, under which three cars stopped in 127 feet or less in a single test.
What follows is the quiet part. A turbocharged Explorer arrives in 2014 and laps quicker than five of the saloons it is competing against. By 2019 the fastest and quickest vehicle on four wheels is a sport utility, and Michigan has written in its own books, from 2018, that “pursuit rated” has no sanctioning body.
The tests
| Model year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 2010 | The same eight cars, tested again — the archive’s cleanest year-on-year repeat |
| 2011 | The Caprice returns after fifteen years and beats every other car in the test |
| 2012 | The Panther era ends; Ford brings six cars, and car braking runs to twenty stops |
| 2013 | E85 vanishes entirely, and a turbocharged Ford takes the fastest lap of the year |
| 2014 | Mid-year 2014.5 cars tested beside their own earlier versions; a 155-mph Caprice |
| 2015 | A retest printed in red, and a four-wheel-drive Tahoe retested after leaving the road course |
| 2016 | A four-cylinder police sedan, the first electric motorcycle, and a new braking record |
| 2017 | The Impala disappears — and Michigan’s own data exposes the speed limiters |
| 2018 | The first hybrid police sedan at 40 mpg, and the first pickup in the police category |
| 2019 | A 150-mph sport utility, two overheating Tahoes, and Michigan accepts LASD’s result for one |