The programme
When the top speed stopped being a measurement
Two governed Caprices in 1992. Every vehicle in the test by 2003. The paper trail is in the footnotes of Michigan’s test books and the federal bulletins that summarised them.
A top speed in these books looks like a measurement of a car. For a large part of the programme’s history it is not only that. It is bounded by a number a manufacturer chose, and the engine management enforced.
Michigan recorded that honestly, and the record of it is buried in footnote markers and small print. Assembled in one place, it dates the change precisely.
How fast it happened
| Year | Limited | Share | Which, and at what |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 | 2 of 12 | 17% | Chevrolet Caprice (3.08:1 axle) 114, Chevrolet Caprice Station Wagon 113 |
| 1994 | 5 of 9 | 56% | Chevrolet Caprice Station Wagon 132.1, Ford Taurus 129, Ford Crown Victoria 128.2, Chevrolet Caprice 4.3L 122.1, and 1 more |
| 1995 | 3 of 9 | 33% | Chevrolet Caprice Station Wagon 129, Chevrolet Caprice 4.3L 120, Jeep Cherokee (4WD) 111 |
| 1996 | 5 of 10 | 50% | Ford Crown Victoria 135, Chevrolet Caprice 4.3L 120, Jeep Cherokee (4×4) 112, Ford Crown Victoria (CNG) 107, and 1 more |
| 1998 | 10 of 15 | 67% | Ford Crown Victoria 130, Chevrolet Lumina 123, Jeep Cherokee (4WD) 112, Subaru Legacy SUS (AWD) 112, and 6 more |
| 1999 | 8 of 13 | 62% | Ford Police Interceptor 129, Chevrolet Lumina 124, Jeep Cherokee (2WD) 111, Jeep Cherokee (4WD) 111, and 4 more |
| 2000 | 1 of 10 | 10% | Ford Police Interceptor 129 |
| 2001 | 13 of 13 | 100% | Chevrolet Camaro (6-speed) 159, Chevrolet Camaro (automatic) 159, Ford Police Interceptor 129, Chevrolet Impala 124, and 9 more |
| 2002 | 14 of 14 | 100% | Chevrolet Camaro (automatic) 159, Dodge Intrepid 135, Ford Police Interceptor (2002) 129, Ford Police Interceptor (2003) 127, and 10 more |
| 2021 | 3 of 10 | 30% | Dodge Charger 3.6L AWD 140, Chevrolet Tahoe 5.3L RWD 130, Chevrolet Tahoe 5.3L 4WD 125 |
| 2022 | 15 of 15 | 100% | Ford PI Utility EcoBoost AWD 3.0L 148, Yamaha FJR1300P-AB 145, Dodge Charger 3.6L AWD 139, Dodge Charger 5.7L RWD 139, and 11 more |
| 2023 | 16 of 16 | 100% | Ford PI Utility EcoBoost AWD 3.0L 148, Dodge Charger 3.6L AWD 140, Dodge Charger 5.7L RWD 140, BMW R 1250 RT-P 136, and 12 more |
| 2024 | 9 of 12 | 75% | Chevrolet Blazer EV AWD 130, Chevrolet Tahoe 5.3L RWD 130, Dodge Durango 5.7L AWD 130, Dodge Durango 3.6L AWD 125, and 5 more |
| 2025 | 10 of 14 | 71% | BMW R 1250 RT-P 137, Ford PI Utility Hybrid AWD 3.3L 136, Chevrolet Tahoe 5.3L RWD 130, Dodge Durango 5.7L AWD 130, and 6 more |
| 2026 | 18 of 18 | 100% | Ford PI Utility EcoBoost AWD 3.0L 148, BMW R 1300 RT-P Standard Pkg. 141, BMW R 1300 RT-P Dynamic Pkg. with automatic shift 136, Ford PI Utility AWD 3.3L 136, and 14 more |
And then the footnote disappears, because it became unnecessary
This is the part that matters, and it is easy to read the wrong way.
After 2002 the per-vehicle markers stop. That is not manufacturers abandoning limiters. It is the opposite. From 2003 the documents stop marking individual vehicles and state it once, for the whole field. The 2003 bulletin puts it in a note under its top-speed row:
All vehicles are equipped with electronic speed limiters.
The 2004 and 2005 bulletins repeat it word for word, and Michigan’s own 2005 report puts it as “All vehicles listed in this report were equipped with electronic speed limiters.” From then on it appears every year this archive holds, through 2026. A footnote is only worth printing when it distinguishes some vehicles from others. Once everything is limited, it stops being a footnote and becomes a condition of the test.
The whole sequence
| Year | How it is recorded |
|---|---|
| 1992 | First mention in the books held here. The preface says the 5.0 Caprice with the 3.08 axle and the Caprice station wagon “had ‘governors’ which limited the top speeds to what are shown”, and the summary pages mark both: 114.0 and 113.0 mph. Two of the twelve vehicles with a recorded top speed |
| 1994 | The full book. No table carries a mark; the preface says the Caprice 4.3, the Caprice station wagon, the Crown Victoria, the Taurus and the Explorer “all have electronic limiters which control either the maximum top speeds or engine RPMs attainable”. Five of the nine vehicles with a recorded top speed, and the first time the books held here use the words electronic limiters. The 5.7 Caprice sedan, which ran 141.2, is not on the list, and the book does not say which of the five had which kind of limit |
| 1995 | A federal bulletin, and the first document held here since 1992 to footnote limited cars in its tables, this time as fitted with a speed limiter. Three of the nine vehicles with a recorded top speed carried the footnote |
| 1996 | Five of ten marked. The Crown Victoria at 135, the 4.3 Caprice at 120 — while the 5.7 Caprice’s 139 is not marked. One table, two kinds of number. And a mark means fitted, not reached: the report says every marked vehicle, “except the Ford Crown Victoria 4.6L, reached the top speed preset by the manufacturer” |
| 1997 | A four-page bulletin that never uses the word limiter. It does not say whether that is because no vehicle had one or because this digest left it out; the 1996 report before it and the 1998 bulletin after it both mark limiters |
| 1998 | The bulletin attaches a lower-case b to ten of the fifteen top speeds. Its legend says only “Vehicle equipped with an electronic speed limiter” — that a limiter was fitted, not that the figure is the limit. A second marker, a, sits on both Camaros’ 150: “Due to the limitations of the test track, drivers were told not to exceed 150 mph” |
| 1999 | Eight of thirteen, including both Jeep Cherokees and the Tahoe 4WD |
| 2000 | The bulletin says the Police Interceptor “features a 130-mph speed limiter”. It records 129. Prose only — no table marker, and the bulletin does not say whether the limiter was standard or optional |
| 2001 | Every vehicle with a top speed is marked — thirteen of them, police and special service |
| 2002 | Every vehicle again — fourteen of them |
| 2003 | A bulletin. The markers stop; a note under the top-speed row says it once: “All vehicles are equipped with electronic speed limiters.” The same bulletin states one setting: Chevrolet raised the Impala’s “fuel cut-off” to 129 mph. The Impala recorded 126 |
| 2004 | A bulletin, repeating the 2003 note word for word. It states a second setting: Ford’s optional 3.55 axle “will reduce the maximum top speed of the vehicle to 119 mph”. That car recorded 118 |
| 2005 | Michigan’s full report says it on printed page 2: “All vehicles listed in this report were equipped with electronic speed limiters.” The 2005 bulletin repeats the 2003 sentence word for word, as a footnote to its acceleration and top-speed table |
| 2006–2014 | The same whole-field statement in each book held here (2006, 2009, 2012 and 2013; the 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011 and 2014 books are not held), and no vehicle is individually marked |
| 2015 | The statement gains an exception: “…unless otherwise noted, or with the exception of certain motorcycles.” The same book discloses, on printed page 3, that the Caprice 6.0 was submitted with “the incorrect speed-limiting calibration and tested at 147 mph. When retested with the proper calibration, the vehicle reached 156 mph.” Both figures are printed |
| 2016–2020 | The qualified statement continues |
| 2021 | The book has no motorcycles, and the statement has no motorcycle exception: “All vehicles listed in this report were equipped with electronic speed limiters unless otherwise noted.” It describes the top-speed test as verifying “the electronically limited top speed reported by the manufacturer”. Three specification pages print a Manufacturer Limited Top Speed: both Tahoes (130 and 124) and the V6 Charger (140). Two were measured exactly on it; the 4WD Tahoe ran 125 |
| 2022 | All fifteen specification pages, motorcycles included, print a Manufacturer Limited Top Speed, and eleven vehicles were measured exactly on it. For both Chargers (139 against 140) and the BMW (134 against 137) the data sheet calls the measured figure a “practical top speed”, reached when “the electronic speed limiter reduces engine power and limits acceleration gains prior to reaching” the nominal figure. The Yamaha’s 145 carries the same note, against a nominal 147 that its specification page gives as 145 |
| 2023 | All sixteen specification pages print a Manufacturer Limited Top Speed again, and fifteen vehicles were measured exactly on it. The exception is the Mustang Mach-E, 122 against 124, on which the book makes no comment. No measured figure is marked as a practical top speed this year |
| 2024 | Nine of the twelve specification pages print a Manufacturer Limited Top Speed; the three Police Interceptor Utilities’ pages do not. Seven vehicles were measured exactly on it. The V6 Durango reached 125 against 130, and the Mustang Mach-E’s page prints 112 where it ran 124, the figure printed for the Mach-E in 2022 and 2023, and for the GT in 2026 |
| 2025–2026 | The specification pages print a Manufacturer Limited Top Speed — in ten of the fourteen 2025 entries and all eighteen in 2026. Of the twenty car and truck entries that carry one, sixteen were measured exactly on it. The F-150 ran 1 mph over in both years; the Durango 3.6 finished 2–3 mph under |
Nine years, and one number stops meaning what it used to
From two governed Caprices in 1992, through five vehicles with electronic limiters in 1994, to every vehicle with a top speed in 2001, and a single statement for the whole field from 2003. The books record the spread without saying who decided to fit the limiters or why; Michigan wrote down what each vehicle reached.
It is why a standard Crown Victoria ran between 127 and 130 mph in every test from 1999 to 2011 (the 3.55-axle, natural-gas and long-wheelbase versions aside) without ever getting faster. It looks less like a car being developed than one being held.
What it does to the records
Every top speed on this site from 1992 onward has to be read with this in mind, and the archive marks them where the source does.
The Camaro‘s 159s of 1996 and 1999 come from full reports and carry no limiter footnote. Its 160 in 2000, the fastest figure in this archive, is unmarked too, but it comes from a bulletin whose tables mark no limiter for any car; the bulletin names one only for the Police Interceptor, in its prose. Its 2001 and 2002 figures are footnoted as limited — though, as the 1996 Crown Victoria shows, a limited car does not always reach its limit.
The Charger is the harder case. No Charger entry carries an individual footnote, but every book held here in which it appears, from 2006, states for the whole field that the vehicles were equipped with electronic speed limiters. So the Charger was limited; what the books held here up to 2020 never say is where. In 2016 one needed 13.28 miles to reach 150 mph where the following year’s car needed 1.45. That looks exactly like a change of setting, and this site calls it evidence rather than documentation, because those books do not say what the setting was. The 2021 book is the first held here to print one: 140 mph for the V6 all-wheel-drive car, which ran exactly 140. It prints none for the V8, which also stopped at 140, where the 2020 page records the same model-year car at 149. The 2022 book prints 140 for both, and both stopped at 139, which it calls a practical top speed. In 2023 both reached 140.