Michigan test archive
1978 Michigan State Police Patrol Vehicle Test
The earliest results in this archive — a 440-powered Plymouth running 132.7 mph, two cars thrown out, and the bid adjustment shown as a price.
Read this before using these figures
Every other page in this archive is transcribed from an original Michigan report or federal bulletin. This one is not. The source is a re-typeset results table rather than a scan of the published book, so the figures have not been checked against the document they came from.
They are published here because the table is internally consistent and matches the programme’s known structure — and flagged because that is not the same as verified. If you hold the 1978 book, or can check any figure below against it, please get in touch and this notice will be updated or removed.
Until now this archive began in 1980, the first year with a full published report in hand. This table takes it back two more years — and 1978 turns out to be a better place to start, because it catches the last of something.
The results
| Vehicle | Engine | HP | Axle | Weight | Course | 0–100 | Top speed | Braking | Ergo | Comms | mpg | Adjusted bid |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plymouth Fury | 440 4bbl | 255 | 2.71 | 4,413 | 91.1 | 24.8 | 132.7 | 23.3 | 286 | 93 | 10 | $5,397 |
| Dodge Monaco | 400 4bbl | 190 | 3.21 | 4,369 | 93.6 | 34.4 | 117.4 | 22.6 | 286 | 93 | 15 | $5,582 |
| Chevrolet Impala | 350 4bbl | 170 | 3.08 | 3,996 | 92.7 | 33.7 | 115.4 | 24.3 | 311 | 62 | 15 | $5,679 |
| Pontiac Catalina | 400 4bbl | 180 | 3.08 | 4,057 | 93.7 | 34.6 | 110.2 | 25.1 | 312 | 93 | 14 | $5,663 |
| Buick LeSabre | 350 4bbl | 155 | 2.73 | 4,077 | 96.6 | 46.4 | 110.1 | 21.1 | 312 | 58 | 15 | disqualified |
| Ford LTD II | 400 2bbl | 166 | 3.00 | 4,611 | 93.5 | 41.0 | 115.0 | 19.2 | 282 | 68 | 13 | disqualified |
The last big block
The Plymouth Fury carries a 440 making 255 horsepower in a field where nothing else exceeds 190, and the gap it produces is not subtle.
It reached 100 mph in 24.8 seconds. The next quickest car needed 33.7 — nearly nine seconds behind. Its top speed of 132.7 mph is more than fifteen miles an hour clear of the whole field, and it took the fastest road course time as well, at 91.1 seconds.
It did all of that on a 2.71 rear axle, the tallest gearing in the test — which is how a car that heavy reaches that speed and why it still needed the better part of half a minute to get to 100.
Set that 255 horsepower against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s test two years earlier, where a 400 cubic inch V8 produced 144. Michigan’s fastest 1978 car was the last of a kind that had already almost gone.
And it cost fuel. The Fury returned 10 mpg in the city, the worst in the test, against 15 for the Impala and the Monaco. In a programme that within two years would weight fuel economy at twenty-five points out of a hundred, that is not a small line.
Two cars thrown out
The most striking column is the last one, where two entries read disqualified rather than a price.
The Buick LeSabre is the clearer case. A 350 making 155 horsepower through a 2.73 axle — the least power in the test through nearly the tallest gearing. It needed 46.4 seconds to reach 100 mph, almost twice the Fury’s time, and produced the slowest road course lap at 96.6 seconds. It was, on these numbers, not quick enough to be a patrol car.
The Ford LTD II is more interesting, because it does not look obviously bad. It has a 400 cubic inch engine and a top speed of 115 mph, right in the middle of the field. But that 400 carries a two-barrel carburettor and makes 166 horsepower — less than the Impala’s 350 — in the heaviest car in the test at 4,611 lb. It took 41 seconds to reach 100. And it recorded the worst braking figure of the six at 19.2 ft/s².
Note what the ergonomics column says about both. The LeSabre scored 312, tying for best in the test — the nicest car to work in, and ejected anyway. Comfort did not save it.
The bid adjustment, visible
The final column is the one that makes this table worth more than its performance figures, because it shows the programme’s whole purpose as a single number.
| Vehicle | Adjusted bid | Difference from winner |
|---|---|---|
| Plymouth Fury | $5,397 | — |
| Dodge Monaco | $5,582 | +$185 |
| Pontiac Catalina | $5,663 | +$266 |
| Chevrolet Impala | $5,679 | +$282 |
Two hundred and eighty-two dollars separates first from last. That is the entire competitive margin — and it is why a car that drank fuel at 10 mpg could still win, and why the difference between a 132-mph Plymouth and a 110-mph Pontiac comes out as a couple of hundred dollars rather than a verdict.
Michigan never awards a winner’s title. It produces a price, and the cheapest adjusted price takes the contract. Every later book in this archive works the same way, but none of them prints the answer this plainly.
What 1978 tells you about everything after it
Read the braking column against the rest of the archive and the scale of what followed becomes clear. The best stopper here manages 25.1 ft/s² — and it was disqualified for other reasons. The worst manages 19.2.
By 1993 a Camaro stopped at a rate equivalent to 127.6 feet, a record that held nineteen years. By 2017 a Can-Am was recording 32.57 ft/s². Braking is the single most improved thing about the police car, and 1978 is the baseline that proves it.
The same is true of the ergonomics and communications columns. They are scored on a scale — 282 to 312 for ergonomics, 58 to 93 for communications — that does not match the figures used in the 1980s books, and no conversion is offered. Treat them as internal to this year only.