Corrections: the Michigan archive

Corrected — the limiter record, checked against the books

A limiter mark says a limiter was fitted, not that the figure is the limit

The 1998 legend says only “Vehicle equipped with an electronic speed limiter.” The difference matters: Michigan’s 1996 report says every limiter-marked vehicle, “except the Ford Crown Victoria 4.6L, reached the top speed preset by the manufacturer,” and in 2026 three BMW motorcycles recorded 135 to 141 mph against a printed limit of 145. The year pages now say a limiter was fitted — from 2015 to 2020 for the cars and trucks, since those books except “certain motorcycles” — and that a figure may be a setting.

Source: Michigan State Police, 1996 report; NLECTC bulletin, October 1997 (the 1998 test); Michigan State Police, 2026 report.

Corrected — six details on the Speed Limiters page

The counts, the quotations and the Charger

The page said one limited vehicle in 1995 in three places, against three in its own table. It counted 8 of 8 in 2001, where the book marks all 13. It counted two 2006 Police Interceptors as individually limited on the strength of this site’s own year page; the 2006 book names no car and no setting, and both are now removed. It gave 2025 as 2 of 14, where the specification pages print a limit for 10. It quoted the 2003 statement as “All vehicles were equipped” and said the 2005 book repeated it word for word. The 2003, 2004 and 2005 bulletins do repeat one sentence word for word, but it reads “All vehicles are equipped with electronic speed limiters”; Michigan’s own 2005 report words it “All vehicles listed in this report were equipped”. And it said of the Charger that “the book does not say so”: every book the Charger appears in states, for the whole field, that the vehicles had limiters. What none of them says is where the limit was set.

Source: federal bulletins for 1995 and 2003 to 2005; Michigan State Police evaluations, 2001, 2005, 2006, 2015 and 2025.

Corrected — the source of the 2005 page

The 2005 page named the wrong document as its source

It said it was built from the eight-page NLECTC bulletin of December 2004. Its tables come from Michigan’s own 83-page report, 2005 Model Year Police Vehicle Evaluation Program, October 2004, which is the only one of the two with per-driver lap times and individual brake stops; some manufacturer notes come from the bulletin. The page now names both. It also said the 2001 to 2004 tests were not yet in the archive. They are.

Corrected — the Disqualified page

Six vehicles were disqualified, not fourteen

The books name six: the Buick LeSabre and Ford LTD II in the 1978 results table, the Buick LeSabre, Chevrolet Impala and Ford Fairmont in 1980, and one Dodge Diplomat in 1987. The other seven were never called disqualified by their books, and nor were two more vehicles that carried the same flag in the site’s database. The list had been compiled from that flag, which was set by the way a table row was styled, not by anything a book said. One Diplomat was tested in 1987, not two. Ford and Buick have two disqualifications each, Chevrolet and Dodge one.

Source: Michigan State Police evaluations, 1980 (printed p.ii); for 1987, the National Institute of Justice’s preliminary results of October 1986 and the report as its year page quotes it; the re-typeset 1978 results table (the 1978 book, since added, names the same two cars and gives the reason, acceleration); and the books or year pages for 1996, 1998, 1999, 2001 to 2003, 2008, 2015 and 2026, none of which names the other nine as out.

Corrected — the longest stop by a sport utility

The longest sport-utility stop was not 173.7 feet (see the entry on the 1999 test on other pages)

The four-wheel-drive Tahoe’s 185.0 feet in 1999, the Ford Explorer’s 184.1 the same year and the Ford Excursion’s 180.0 in 2001 are all longer, though they come from the twelve-stop procedure and the 173.7 from two stops; the entry on the 1999 test on other pages explains why the site no longer calls any of them a record across procedures. Across all vehicles the comparison is harder: the 1980 Ford LTD-S’s 187.9 feet is one phase’s distance as measured, not projected to exactly 60 mph, and the lowest braking rate is the 1978 Ford LTD II’s 19.2 ft/s², from the re-typeset 1978 table. (Books added later hold longer stops. The 1978 book prints the LTD II’s rate as 19.192, which gives a computed 201.8 feet from 60 mph, the longest in these books, and single measured stops of 220.8 feet for the LTD II from 60.7 mph, 189.9 for the Monaco and 189.5 for the LTD II’s second stop; the 1992 Caprice station wagon’s computed 188.7 feet is also longer than the LTD-S’s. See the entries on the 1992 book and on the 1978 to 1994 books.)

Checking this also put the Tahoe page right in four other places. Its year table had skipped the 2001 test, so 2025 was its twenty-fourth appearance, not its twenty-third (its twenty-eighth since the 2021 to 2024 books were added), and its run at 98 mph lasted four tests, 2001 to 2004, not three. Two superlatives came out: that its forty-four-foot improvement was the largest by any vehicle, when the Explorer and the Explorer-based Police Interceptor Utility, which this archive counts as one line, went from 184.1 feet in 1999 to 127.1 in 2017 (under different procedures), and that the Camaro was the quickest vehicle Michigan has tested, when it was the quickest car in the 1997 to 1999 tests.

Source: Michigan State Police evaluations, 1999, 2001 and 2017.

Corrected — the police motorcycle page

2015 is in the archive, and the motorcycles did not always brake where the cars did

The page marked 2015 as “books not located”; the 2015 book is held, and its fastest motorcycle was the BMW R 1200 RT-P at 141 mph. It said the motorcycles were tested “to the same standard” and “using the same procedure” as the cars: in 2015 their brake tests were on the Precision Driving Unit’s track in Lansing while the cars braked at the Chrysler Proving Grounds, and in 2007 and 2009 they ran an extra braking test the cars did not. It said one Can-Am model appeared in three tests; there were three different models, and the 121 mph quoted for the F3P was the 2016 F3’s (the F3P ran 120). It dated the motorcycles’ change to twenty brake stops to 2012; it was 2011. It gave the 2026 automatic BMW’s advantage to sixty as 0.74 seconds; over the same Dynamic-package machine it was 0.77. Two unsourced phrases were also removed: that the Can-Am “was never widely bought”, and that a Road Glide “is bought for presence, escort work and eight hours in the saddle”.

Source: Michigan State Police evaluations, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2015 to 2017 and 2026.

Corrected — the 2007 page

The BMW was the quickest thing Michigan had timed, not the fastest

The BMW ran 130.1 mph; the 2000 Camaro had run 160. Its acceleration and quarter mile did beat every earlier car, but its 136.5-foot stop did not: nineteen earlier cars with braking figures, and four Dodges in the same test, stopped shorter. The 2002 Camaro’s 14.14 was the best quarter mile by any car before 2007; the best in the archive is the 2014.5 Ford Police Interceptor sedan EcoBoost’s 14.13.

Source: Michigan State Police evaluations, 1978 to 2014.

Corrected — four smaller details on the archive pages

1978, 1981, the 1980s and the history page

The history page said the two 1978 cars were disqualified “for failing minimum acceleration standards”. That was right, and this entry was wrong to withdraw it; the 1978 book, since added, gives that reason (see “Corrected again — two corrections that were themselves wrong”). The 1981 page said the Buick LeSabre “was eliminated on the spot”; it is absent from the book’s competitive tables, but the book never names it. The 1980s page said the Diplomat came back two years after its 1987 disqualification; it was the following year, under the eased 1988 bar. And the 2026 page now carries every car’s deceleration rate and the motorcycles’ braking, which it had left out.

Corrected — the Camaro page

The Camaro braked best in its early years, and was never better than sixth for ergonomics in a full field

In 1993 a Camaro averaged 30.34 ft/s², a computed 127.6 feet, the best in that field; the scan of the 1993 bulletin does not show which of the two Camaros it was. In 1995 the automatic stopped in 131.0 feet, again the best in the field; the page had left that figure out. Only from 1996 did its braking fall behind. It ran above 150 in eight tests. Of the eight tests that ran both transmissions, the automatic was faster in four, the six-speed in one, and three were ties. (With the 1991, 1992 and 1994 books since added, it ran above 150 in ten tests, and of the eleven tests that ran both transmissions the automatic was faster in six, the manual in two and three were ties; see the entry on the 1992 book and the entry on the 1978 to 1994 books.) In a full field its best ergonomics finish was sixth, and the Lumina, a Mustang and a Geo Tracker all scored below it before the Hummer did. It was the quickest car in the 1997 to 1999 tests, not the quickest vehicle Michigan has tested, and Michigan has recorded sedans faster than 147 mph. The page’s year table also carried eleven empty rows and was missing four lap times; both are fixed.

Source: Michigan State Police evaluations, 1991 to 2002 (the 1995 bulletin, printed p.3; the 2001 book, printed p.24; the 1993 figures as given on the 1993 page).

Corrected — the vehicles page and the site index

The entry counts were out of date, and the Tahoe is not the only vehicle still being tested

The counts were corrected to match each vehicle’s own page: 45, 32, 47, 17, 39 and 50, with 29 for the Impala and 20 for the Diplomat and Gran Fury; the old figures came from an earlier version of the database. The Camaro’s best stop is the computed 127.6 feet of 1993. The Crown Victoria line first reached 150 mph in 2013, and its quickest 0–60 is the 2014.5 EcoBoost sedan’s 5.66. The motorcycles that win three columns are patrol machines: the books say Michigan “rekindled interest in motorcycles for day to day patrol operations” in 1993. What is true is that no column is won by a four-door car or utility. The Tahoe was last on all four columns, as the page said, but the Police Interceptor Utility and the motorcycles are still being tested too (the 2021 book, added later, puts the Tahoe fifth of seven on both braking columns; see the entry on that book). The site index was corrected to 164 Ford and 151 Chevrolet entries and six disqualifications, and the Ford, Chevrolet and Dodge pages’ own headings to 164, 151 and 84 entries, agreeing with their tables. (These counts have changed since, as books were added; the vehicle pages, the maker pages and the site index carry the current ones. The count of six disqualifications has not changed.)

Source: Michigan State Police evaluations, 1983 to 2026, as transcribed on the year pages.

Corrected — the fastest police sedan

The Caprice and the 2006 Charger were the fastest American police sedans in these books, not the fastest anywhere

Volvo sedans ran faster than 139 in every Michigan test from 1997 to 2000, the S-70 T5 reaching 153 in 2000, and the 2015 Caprice ran 156. What the books held here support is narrower: no American police sedan in them beat the 1996 Caprice’s 139 until the 2006 Charger’s 150, and the pages were changed to say that. Both times Chevrolet dropped the Caprice, after 1996 and after 2017, it did hold the best police-sedan top speed in these books to that point, and the Chevrolet pages now say it that way. The 2018 page said the Caprice had set or raised that figure three times; it did so five times, in 1995, 1996, 2012, 2014 and 2015. (The 1994 book, added later, has the Caprice 5.7 at 141.2 mph, so the figure no American police sedan in these books beat until 2006 is that one, and the pages now give it; the five times are 1992, 1994, 2012, 2014 and 2015. See the entry on the 1978 to 1994 books.)

Source: Michigan State Police evaluations, 1978 to 2015.

Corrected — the Charger and Dodge pages

The Charger was limited; the books never say where

Both pages had not caught up with the speed-limiter correction above. No Charger carries an individual footnote, but every book it appears in states for the whole field that the vehicles were equipped with electronic speed limiters, and the 2002 Intrepid and both 2002 Durangos do carry the footnote. The Dodge page also now counts 84 entries, not 83.

Source: Michigan State Police evaluations, 2002 to 2020.

Corrected — when braking went to twenty stops

The change was in the 2012 book, not 2014

The change was made in the 2012 book for the cars, and in the 2011 book for the motorcycles, as the 2014 page and the database already said. The books held here bracket it: the 2009 book describes twelve stops and the 2015 book twenty. The Tahoe’s 2013 stop was its second year under twenty stops; its best under twelve was 138.2 feet in 2007. The Tahoe page’s “forty-four feet separate its worst year from its best” is true of the two-wheel-drive car and now says so; the four-wheel-drive car’s worst, 185.0 feet, makes the full range fifty-five.

Source: Michigan State Police evaluations, 2009 and 2015, and the 2014 page.

Corrected — the 1987 page

Five claims on the 1987 page went further than the books held here

Four 1978 sedans were quicker to 100 than the Caprice’s 34.62 seconds, the Catalina by two hundredths; it was the quickest since among the books then held. (The 1984 and 1986 books, added later, have four more sedans quicker to 100, the 1984 LTD 302 at 29.89 and the 1986 Canadian Caprice at 29.34 among them, and the page now names both; see the entries on the 1986 book and on the 1978 to 1994 books.) The Mustang claims hold only for the books held here, which then lacked 1979 and 1984 to 1986, and the page now says so; it also now notes that the 1987 car’s 7.64 seconds to 60 was slower than the 1986 five-speed’s 7.30. The Diplomat’s 27.24 ft/s² beat every earlier car in those books, and only the Gran Fury beside it did better. The page also now notes that the 110 mph rule caught four of the cars tested for information: the two-barrel Gran Fury needed 2.87 miles to reach 110 against the two allowed, and the 302 Crown Victoria, the V6 Caprice and the Reliant never reached it. Every 1987 test figure in the page’s acceleration, top-speed, quarter-mile, lap, braking, ergonomics and fuel tables was re-read against the National Institute of Justice’s preliminary results of October 1986 and agrees with them.

Source: Results of Michigan State Police 1987 Vehicle Tests, NIJ TAP Alert vol. 1 no. 5, October 1986, Tables 3 to 7; the 1978 results table (the 1978 book, since added, prints the same figures).

Corrected — the 1988 page

Every 1988 figure checks out; several sentences went further than the evidence

Every figure on the 1988 page agrees with the National Institute of Justice’s preliminary results of October 1987, read again in full. The Mustang’s figures are the best in the books held here to that point, which then lacked 1979 and 1984 to 1986 (the 1984 and 1986 books and the 1985 scoring sheet have since been added, and the claim still holds; 1979 has no results). The V6 Caprice and both 2-barrel cars missed all three acceleration times, not only the first, and the V6 Caprice never reached 110 mph. The bulletin reports acceleration and top-speed results but no brake qualification, so the leading cars are now said to have cleared the four acceleration and top-speed gates; the eased bar would have let even the 1987 Diplomat through. The bulletin gives no transmissions for the sedans, so “three-speed” is gone. And the 1989 Caprice 5.7 did lap the road course faster than any sedan before it in these books, but at 9.82 seconds to 60 it was not the quickest sedan held (the 1987 Canadian Caprice ran 9.49), nor the fastest (the 1978 Fury reached 132.7 mph in the re-typeset 1978 table, as the 1978 book, since added, confirms). The page also no longer says the full 1988 report “was never digitized”; it has not been found online, which is all that can be said.

Source: Michigan State Police Test 1988 Patrol Vehicles, NIJ TAP Alert vol. 1 no. 7, October 1987 (NCJ 111388), Tables 1 to 6; the database for 1978 to 1989.

Updated — the 2021 book

The 2021 book changes five statements that were written without it

The 2021 Model Year Police Vehicle Evaluation is now held, and has its own page. It tests the new-generation Tahoe, which stopped in 127.4 feet (rear-drive) and 127.1 (four-wheel drive) against 142.5 and 144.9 on the 2020 page, under the same twenty-stop procedure; 127.1 is the shortest stop by any Tahoe in the books held here, under either braking procedure, and it puts the Tahoe fifth of seven on both braking columns of the vehicle comparison, ahead of the Crown Victoria and the Camaro. It prints a Manufacturer Limited Top Speed on three specification pages, including the V6 all-wheel-drive Charger’s 140 mph, the first Charger setting in any book held here. Its two Chargers mean that 2020 was not the last year with a police sedan; the last are the two Chargers of the 2023 book (see the entry for that book below). Its shortest stop, the 3.3-litre Police Interceptor Utility’s 126.6 feet at 30.59 ft/s², is also the Utility’s best, and the shortest stop and highest rate by any Ford other than the Mach-E (2022, 2023 and 2026). No archive record changes.

Source: Michigan State Police, 2021 Model Year Police Vehicle Evaluation Program, November 2020, printed pages 10, 12, 14, 51–60; the 2020 and 2025 pages.

Corrected — details found while adding 2021

A lap record’s year, a Ford braking best, a limiter sentence and the Utility table

The 1:34.39 lap belongs to the 2012 Charger 5.7 with the 2.65 axle, as the 2012 page and the records page say; the Charger page’s 2012 row now shows it. The 2026 Mustang Mach-E’s 31.62 ft/s² was already higher than the 2017 figure, and the 2021 Utility’s 30.59 is now the best by any Ford other than the Mach-E. The 2000 bulletin says the Police Interceptor “features a 130-mph speed limiter and a standard ‘one-touch’ driver’s window”; “standard” describes the window. The 1999 Explorer (184.1 feet) and the 2002 Explorer of the 2001 book are now in the Utility table, which counts 53 entries across 29 tests; the 172.8 feet was in 2000, and the 1999 Explorer and four-wheel-drive Tahoe both stopped longer. The table now shows the limiter mark on all six Explorer rows that carry one (1994, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002), not two. The Tahoe was withdrawn for 2000 and is in the 2001 book, and no Explorer or Utility appears on the 2009 to 2011 year pages; of those books only 2009 is held.

Source: the 1994, 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2012 pages; the records page; the 2000 bulletin; the database.

Updated — the 2022 book

The first electric car and the Mustang’s return came in 2022, not 2025 and 2026

The 2022 Model Year Police Vehicle Evaluation is now held, and has its own page. It tests a 2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E, the first battery-electric car in the books held here (the Zero motorcycles of 2016 to 2018 were electric) and the first Mustang since 1993. It reached 60 mph in 4.03 seconds, the time the 2026 Mach-E GT equalled; the three quickest cars to 60 are now the 2023, 2022 and 2026 Mach-Es (see the 2023 entry below). Its 270-mile range is printed in the book. It was tested under the same forty-minute charging procedure the 2025 book describes. Every specification page in the book prints a Manufacturer Limited Top Speed. The 2026 Mach-E GT keeps the records for 0–100 mph and the shortest stop by a car.

Source: Michigan State Police, 2022 Model Year Police Vehicle Evaluation Program, November 2021, printed pages 30, 34, 44 and 47; the 2025 and 2026 pages.

Corrected — the longest stops on the records page

The longest-stop list left out three stops

Under the twenty-stop procedure the 2013 Victory Commander I needed 160.3 feet, the 2026 Road Glide 157.94 and the 2012 Victory Commander I 156.9, all longer than the 2025 F-150. The 2022 and 2023 books add two longer stops, both by the F-150: 160.9 feet (2022, at 24.07 ft/s²) and 162.2 (2023, at 23.87), each below the book’s 25.79 criterion. The list now reads 170.13, 162.2 and 160.9, and says that it covers the twenty-stop era only.

Source: the 2012, 2013, 2022, 2023, 2025 and 2026 pages; the database.

Corrected — “quickest vehicle” claims

Several “quickest vehicle” claims left out the motorcycles

Motorcycles run the same acceleration and braking tests. In 2011 all four motorcycles were quicker to 60 than the Caprice, the Kawasaki Concours at 4.50 seconds and the BMW R 1200 RT-P at 4.70. In 2019 the Yamaha ran 3.78 and the BMW R 1250 RT-P 4.03, among the motorcycles quicker than the Utility’s 5.77. In 2025 the BMW R 1250 RT-P ran 4.03, against the Blazer’s 5.08, and the Blazer’s margin over the next car, the F-150, is 0.87 seconds. In 2026 the automatic BMW ran 3.61, against the Mach-E GT’s 4.03. In 1993 both Camaros were quicker to 60 than the Mustangs. Each claim now says car, or on four wheels, and the Mach-E GT’s 122.45 feet is the shortest stop by a car in the books held.

Source: the 1993, 2011, 2019, 2025 and 2026 pages.

Updated — the 2023 book

The quickest car to 60 is the 2023 Mach-E, and the Silverados first ran in 2023

The 2023 Model Year Police Vehicle Evaluation is now held, and has its own page. Its 2023 Mustang Mach-E reached 60 mph in 3.93 seconds, the quickest time by a car in the books held; the 2022 car and the 2026 GT share 4.03. It also stopped in 122.8 feet at 31.54 ft/s², second among cars to the 2026 GT’s 122.45 feet and 31.62. The same book tests the Silverado Z71 and Z7X police pickups and two Chargers, which are now the last police sedans in the books held. The book’s F-150 stopped in 162.2 feet, which joins the longest-stop list between the 2026 Ram and the 2022 F-150.

Source: Michigan State Police, 2023 Model Year Police Vehicle Evaluation Program, November 2022, printed pages 14, 16, 50, 54 and 72–73; the 2022, 2025 and 2026 pages.

Corrected — two lists on the records page

The shortest-stop and deceleration lists left out five figures

Four twenty-stop figures in the books then held are shorter than the 125.8, 126.2 and 127.0 listed: the 2016 Charger 3.6L (2.62 RWD) at 125.0 feet, the 2015 Charger 5.7L (2.62) and the 2017 Charger 3.6L (2.62 RWD) at 125.1, and the 2016 Charger 3.6L (3.08 RWD) at 125.6. And the 2026 Mach-E GT’s 31.62 ft/s² is higher than the 2017 Charger’s 31.44. Both lists are now taken from the database, which also holds the 2022 and 2023 Mach-Es: the stops read 118.9, 122.4, 122.45, 122.8 (the 2023 Mach-E), 123.2, 124.7, 125.0 and 125.0 (the 2016 Charger and the 2022 Mach-E), and the rates 32.57, 31.64 and 31.62.

Source: the 2015, 2016, 2017, 2022, 2023 and 2026 pages; the database.

Corrected — the test results table

A range was shown as a fuel figure

286 is the Blazer’s range in miles. The 2026 book prints it in place of fuel figures (its specification page puts “286 mile range” in the City field) and gives no MPG or MPGe figure for the Blazer. The cell is now blank, and the column is headed City mpg / MPGe, because the electric vehicles’ figures in it (the 2023 Mach-E’s 90, the 2024 Mach-E’s 96, the 2025 Blazer’s 89, the 2026 Mach-E GT’s 95) are MPGe.

Source: the 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026 pages; the database.

Updated — the 2024 book

The first test with no police sedan was 2024, and the Blazer EV first ran in 2024

The 2024 Model Year Police Vehicle Evaluation is now held, and has its own page. It tests twelve vehicles and no Charger, so it is the first test in the books held here with no police sedan of any kind; 2025 is the second and 2026 the third. Its field includes the first Chevrolet Blazer EV and a Mustang Mach-E, two battery-electric vehicles. The Mach-E’s fuel figures are 96 MPGe city and 90 combined, so the 2026 GT’s 90 combined is equal-highest and its 95 city is not the highest. The 2024 Mach-E reached 100 mph in 10.87 seconds and the 2024 Blazer in 11.08, second and third among cars to the 2026 GT’s 10.63.

Source: Michigan State Police, 2024 Model Year Police Vehicle Evaluation Program, October 2023, printed pages 3, 18, 32, 49, 50 and 72; the 2025 and 2026 pages.

Corrected — counts across the site

Several counts across the site did not match the database

The test results table then listed 530 vehicles, 399 of them Ford, Chevrolet and Dodge; it now lists 656, 509 of them from those three makers, and the manufacturers page gives those figures. Ford’s last police sedan was the Police Responder Hybrid, tested in 2020; the Police Interceptor sedan’s last test was in 2018. The braking procedure changed to twenty stops in the 2012 book. The year table on the what-Michigan-tests page is now generated from the database, as the chart already was, so the two agree: 1993 has one Cherokee, 1987 has eleven vehicles, and sport utilities outnumbered sedans in every book from 1997 to 2003, again in 2005, and in every book from 2019. The maker pages’ per-year counts are regenerated the same way and their captions say what is counted. The Ford model table now adds up to 213, the number of Ford entries. The first pickup in the books held here is the 2005 Silverado 2500 HD; the 2018 F-150 remains the first in the police category.

Source: the database; the year pages; the 2012 and 2014 pages.

Corrected — records and superlatives

Claims that the 2023 Mach-E and later records had overtaken

The 2023 Mach-E reached 60 mph in 3.93 seconds, 0.15 behind the third-quickest motorcycle, and stopped in 122.8 feet at 31.54 ft/s², 0.35 feet longer than the 2026 GT. Two Can-Am Spyders, in 2016 and 2017, also stopped harder. The 2026 book prints the GT’s 122.45 feet as a projected stopping distance from its average deceleration. The 130.1 feet belongs to the 2006 Charger 3.5L and is fifth; third is the 2000 Volvo V-70 T5 wagon’s 129.5. The 2005 Silverado 2500 HD and the 2007 F-250 were heavy-duty pickups too, and the last Hummer, in 2003, lapped in 2:00.87. The Tahoe’s ergonomics run of seventeen firsts in nineteen years is on the combined scale used up to 2017, and 2016 went to a sedan; on the ten-point scale it was first in 2021, 2022 and 2024, second in 2023, fourth of six in 2025 and third by model in 2026. The Kawasaki’s 8.29 seconds to 100 is the 2012 entry and stood for eight years; the Yamaha’s 147 mph in 2020 and 144 mph in 2019 are motorcycle bests, not archive bests, since cars have run faster; the quickest motorcycle to 60 before 2019 was the 2015 BMW R 1200 RT-P, at 3.99; and the 2026 automatic BMW has since run 3.61 to 60 and 7.97 to 100. Each of these claims now gives its figure, or says “to that point”.

Source: the 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2012, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021 to 2024 and 2026 pages; the 2025 book, printed page 67; the 2026 book’s brake sheets; the database.

Updated — the 1992 book

In the books held here, the first sport utility and the first limited top speeds are in 1992, and the first Camaro in 1991

The 1992 Police Patrol Vehicle Evaluation and Purchasing Program, published in September 1991, is now held and has its own page. Its four-wheel-drive Jeep Cherokee is the first sport utility in the books held here, and its Camaro’s 152.0 mph is the first figure over 150 mph; the first Camaros, one of them at 150.00 mph, and the first station wagon are in the 1991 bulletin (see the entry on the 1978 to 1994 books). Its preface says two Caprices had “governors” which “limited the top speeds to what are shown”, 114.0 and 113.0 mph: the first individually limited top speeds in the books held, three years before the 1995 footnotes. It brakes an anti-lock Crown Victoria for braking only beside the conventional car that ran the test, 16.0 feet apart, and the 1995 bulletin prints a Crown Victoria and a Taurus both ways; the 1996 gap, 16.07 feet before rounding, is level with 1992’s 16.01. It has a 3.8 Taurus and no Chrysler sedan, as 1993 does. The Camaro was Chevrolet’s fastest entry in every test held from 1991 to 2002, and the Caprice was in six of those books; the 1992 Caprice’s 133.0 mph was already the fastest sedan figure in these books to that point, above the 1978 Plymouth Fury’s 132.7. A Jeep Cherokee is in every book held from 1992 to 2001, and the 1993 one ran 115. Nineteen Chevrolet entries carry a limiter or governor mark, from 1992 to 2002, and twenty-six Ford entries carry one, from 1994 to 2002; the Crown Victoria page counts twelve. The 1992 book already divides its field into six police patrol package cars and six special service cars. The 1993 Camaros ran 6.10 seconds to 60 and 15.82 to 100, so the 1995 marks are the 155 mph and the 1:19.20 lap. The Crown Victoria page now counts 83 entries across 36 tests, 58 of them the Panther’s from 1983 to 2011. On the 1993 page the 2.56-axle Caprice is 6.28 seconds slower to 100 than the 3.08 car, and 10.9 mph faster on top. The Caprice page now counts 49 entries across 18 tests, station wagons included, and the slowest Caprice is the 1987 V6 at 106 mph. The first Camaros to pass the Polara’s 147 mph are the 1991 bulletin’s, and the two governed Caprices of 1992 begin the limiter story. Ed Sanow’s report on the 1992 test says its 1:20.56 lap average “broke the MSP record set last year” and that the pursuit-car results were “exactly the opposite from last year”; the 1991 bulletin has two Camaros. The 1992 Cherokee also missed the 80 and 100 mph qualification times, at 20.40 and 40.39 seconds, and is now listed with the Lumina and the 5.0 Caprices. The 2000 Police Interceptor’s limiter is stated in that bulletin’s text, not in a footnote. The Tahoe page now counts 549 stopping distances in the database, each the stop from exactly 60 mph at the vehicle’s average deceleration rate, and gives the longest as the 1978 Ford LTD II’s 201.8 feet. Where the full books held print horsepower, it is the manufacturer’s SAE net rating on their hardware pages, and the 1992 page now gives it.

Source: State of Michigan, 1992 Police Patrol Vehicle Evaluation and Purchasing Program, September 1991, preface and pages 6, 24–32, 39–48 and 57; Ed Sanow, “Top Cruisers Pass the Test”, Law Enforcement Technology, February 1992, pages 34–39; the 1978, 1980, 1987, 1991, 1993, 1995, 1996 and 2000 pages; the database.

Updated — the 1986 book

The 1986 test is now held, and it moves the 1987 changes earlier

The National Institute of Justice’s TAPIC Alert of October 1985, with the preliminary results of the 1986 test, is now held and has its own page. The same file holds the State of Michigan specification of September 1984, written for the 1985 test, which already asks for 13.5, 24.0 and 45.0 seconds to 60, 80 and 100 mph with 110 mph within 3 miles, and already scores the bid by deviation from the best car with weights of 30, 20, 10, 20, 10 and 10; the 1986 bulletin already describes at least fifteen laps scored on the fastest twelve. (The 1984 book, since added, already asks for those times and uses those weights; see the entry on the 1978 to 1994 books.) The 1986 five-speed Mustang ran 7.30 seconds to 60 and 19.81 to 100, which stood until 1988, and 137.2 mph and a 1:24.22 lap, which the 1987 Mustangs beat. The 1986 Canadian Caprice ran 9.59 to 60 and 29.34 to 100, and the 1987 Canadian Caprice 9.49; with the 1978 Fury at 9.23, the 1989 page now calls its Caprice the first U.S.-specification sedan in these books under ten seconds to 60 since 1978, and its 122 mph is no longer counted among sedan records, the 1978 Fury having run 132.7 and the 1980 Gran Fury 124.6. Its 1:26.20 lap was 2.04 seconds clear of the next sedan. The Diplomat ran 121.5 mph in 1986 and the M-body Gran Fury 121.4 in 1984, and the 1989 page now gives both. The 1986 Crown Victoria 5.8 ran 115.1 mph; the Crown Victoria page now gives it as the slowest of the principal cars in its year-by-year table, and the full table holds slower Crown Victorias, among them the 1991 5.0 at 107.60 mph and the 1984 LTD Crown Victoria S with the 302 CFI at 100.5. The September 1984 specification already asks for the Unity #225 spotlights with H7635 halogen spotlamps and for Goodyear Eagle GT/HR radials, and asks only for a front plate bracket; the 1987 page now says so, and says each car is charged the fraction by which it trails the best. The 1986 and 1987 Caprice V6s are already throttle-body injected, so the 1989 page now says injection reaches the Caprice’s V8, and the 1988 page that Chevrolet’s only injected engine in that test was still the Caprice’s 4.3 V6, as in 1987. The ten motorcycle-only manufacturers are now described as represented here only by motorcycles, since the count is of their entries in the books, not of what they build. Several of these were errors found while checking the 1986 book rather than changes it caused: the 1988 and 1989 injection wording, the 1989 lap gap, the 1989 page’s 122 mph sentence, the 1987 scoring wording, the motorcycle makers’ description, and the Caprice page’s 1987 stop, of which the two measured stops were 150.8 and 150.7 ft; that page now gives every year’s stop from exactly 60 mph at the car’s average deceleration rate, 148.2 ft for 1987. The entry counts on the archive’s pages have changed with each book added; the current ones are in the entry on the 1978 to 1994 books.

Source: NIJ TAPIC Alert, October 1985, Tables 1–6; State of Michigan specification Mich. 3905-0010, September 1984, pages 1, 3, 5, 6 and 7; wagon specification Mich. 3958-0018, October 1984; NIJ TAP Alert, October 1986, front page and Table 5; the 1983, 1987 and 1989 pages; the Crown Victoria and Caprice pages; the database.

Corrected — the braking procedure before 1999

Before the 1999 book, Michigan scored two measured stops, not twelve

The 1992 and 1996 books score two measured 60–0 impending-skid stops, each made after four heat-up stops from 90 mph, and the year pages from 1980 to 1998 describe the same two-phase sequence (in 1980 the mid-size cars began their heat-up stops at 80 mph); the 1978 book, since added, describes three heat-up stops from 90 mph followed by one measured impending-skid stop from 60, done twice. Twelve measured stops begin with the 1999 book, and twenty with the 2012 book (2011 for motorcycles). The database now labels the records from 1978 to 1998 “two-stop”, and its dataset description, the how-the-test-works page and the database page now give both changes.

Source: the 1978 book; 1992 book, pages 6 and 27; 1996 book, braking methodology; the 1980 to 2000 year pages.

Updated — the 1978, 1979, 1980, 1984, 1985, 1990, 1991 and 1994 books

Every Michigan test from 1978 to 2026 is now held in some form, and several firsts and records move earlier

A scanned file of 551 pages, supplied as the 1978, 1979, 1980, 1984, 1985, 1990, 1991 and 1994 test books, specifications and evaluations, is now held, and each of those years has its own page. It contains the full 1978 book, written in November 1977; the title page, method, schedules and maps of the October 1978 test of the 1979 models, but none of its results; a second copy of the 1980 book; the 1984 book, of September 1983, with thirteen vehicles and no bids yet opened (printed pages 23–24 and 26–28 are missing from the scan); for 1985, the State Police scoring sheet of four sedans, the bid record and a draft specification (with a station-wagon specification for 1984 models), but not the test book; the full 1990 book, of September 1989, with eight vehicles tested at Ford’s proving ground; for 1991, the National Institute of Justice results bulletin of November 1990, with Chevrolet’s MVMA specification form for the 1991 Caprice; and the full 1994 book with the October 1993 bulletin. So every test from 1978 to 2026 is now held in some form, and only the 1979 results are missing.

The first Camaros in these books are the 1991 bulletin’s two: the automatic ran 150.00 mph, 6.51 seconds to 60 and a 1:21.08 lap average, so the 1992 Camaro’s 152.0 mph is the first figure over 150; the 1991 Camaros are also the first to pass the 1969 Polara’s 147 mph. The 1991 Caprice station wagon is the first wagon, and the 1990 Taurus 3.8 the first police Taurus. The 1994 preface says five of its vehicles “all have electronic limiters which control either the maximum top speeds or engine RPMs attainable”, and the 1994 specification already sets 10.1, 17.5 and 29.6 seconds to 60, 80 and 100 mph, 110 mph within 1 mile and 120 within 2, a 24.2 ft/s² braking floor and a 20-point braking weight. The September 1983 specification printed in the 1984 book already asks for 13.5, 24.0 and 45.0 seconds and 110 mph within 3 miles, and the 1984 book already weights dynamics 30, acceleration 20, braking 10, top speed 20, fuel 10 and ergonomics 10, though it still sums weighted Z-scores; the deviation-from-best method first appears in the 1985 specification and on its scoring sheet. The 1994 Caprice 5.7 ran 141.2 mph, the best by an American police sedan in these books until the 2006 Charger’s 150. The 1978 Plymouth Fury (9.23 seconds to 60), the 1978 Pontiac Catalina (9.98), the 1984 LTD 302 (10.29) and the 1984 Impala 350 (10.30) were quicker to 60 than the 1987 Caprice, so the 1989 Caprice is the quickest U.S.-specification sedan to 60 in these books since 1978. The M-body Gran Fury ran 121.4 mph in 1984. The 1984 five-speed Mustang ran 7.43 seconds to 60 and 20.77 to 100, and the automatic lapped in 1:26.81; three of the 1986 sedans beat the 1985 Crown Victoria’s 1:29.67 (the 1985 sheet does not name the course). The 1994 Caprice and Explorer scored 244.61 on ergonomics; the 1994 Caprice ran faster than the 1996 car, and the 1995 car lapped quicker. The 1984 and 1985 Chevrolets are Impalas, and every test held from 1986 to 1996 has a Caprice, so 1997 is the first test since 1986 in the books held here with no Caprice. In 1994 the six-speed Camaro out-ran the automatic too, 153.5 mph against 152.8, and the 1994 book brakes a Crown Victoria and a Taurus with and without anti-lock, 10.3 and 11.8 feet apart in computed stops from 60 mph. The archive now holds 658 entries from 48 tests: 215 Ford, 193 Chevrolet, 103 Dodge, 23 Plymouth and 15 Jeep entries, 84 Crown Victoria entries across 36 tests, 49 Caprice entries across 18 tests, 23 Camaro entries from 1991, and 53 entries on the Police Interceptor Utility page from 1994, its Explorers included; 32 Impala entries across 24 tests, 28 Diplomat and Gran Fury entries, 23 Mustangs with nineteen two-doors, 31 Ford Crown Victorias from 1985, 16 Explorers from 1994, and twelve and six limiter rows on those two pages. The 1978 book and the 1979 file give the road course as 1.82 miles, and the 1978 book is now the oldest held, though the 1980 preface is still the earliest to say when the programme began. The 1984 book’s mid-size LTD 302 H.O., with central fuel injection, beat every scored car to 60, 80 and 100 mph.

Updated 22 October 2026. This entry previously gave the totals as 656, 213 Ford, 83 Crown Victoria entries and 30 Ford Crown Victorias from 1985; two 1993 braking entries have since been added (see the two 1993 entries below).

Source: State of Michigan, Patrol Vehicle Evaluation and Purchasing Program books for 1978 (November 1977), 1980 (October 1979), 1984 (September 1983) and 1990 (September 1989); Michigan State Police, 1994 Model Year Patrol Vehicle Testing, December 1993, with its specification; the 1979 title page, method and schedules; the 1985 scoring sheet, bid tabulation and specifications; NIJ TAP bulletins of November 1990 and October 1993; the year pages; the database.

Corrected — the 1978 and 1980 pages, checked against the books

The 1978 page is now built from the book, and the 1980 page from a second copy whose full-size scoring differs

The 1978 book prints a communications total of 53 for the Catalina, the lowest of the six, and 13 mpg EPA city for the Monaco (15 is its combined figure). Every figure is now given as printed: ergonomics 312.75, 311.65, 311.92, 286.13, 286.13 and 281.91; laps 91.054 to 96.569 seconds; 0–100 24.783 to 46.390 seconds; braking 19.192 to 25.056 ft/s². The bids are the marked-unit, F.O.B. East Lansing sheet, $5,397.54, $5,582.55, $5,663.23 and $5,679.02, and the book prints three more sheets; the Fury is the adjusted low bid on all four. Its preface says why two cars went out: “The Buick and Ford were eliminated due to their inability to meet the established minimum acceleration requirements.” On their averages both were outside the 0–80 and 0–100 times of 21.0 and 38.0 seconds; the book does not say which time it applied. The LeSabre had the best ergonomics outright and the slowest lap average, while the slowest single lap was an Impala’s. The book names its choice: “the top rated vehicle for our purposes is the Plymouth Fury”. It does not say what the state paid. Acceleration, top speed and braking were run at Chrysler’s proving ground at Chelsea on 29 October 1977, and the laps on the 1.82-mile course whose Michigan International Speedway map the book prints. The comparisons and the big-block framing are gone, because the book does not make them. The second copy of the 1980 book prints full-size weighted scores of +0.441, +0.166 and −0.607, which recompute exactly from its raw scores, adjustments of −$144.82, −$54.67 and +$199.49, and adjusted bids of $6,391.66, $6,518.13 and $7,105.34; the order is unchanged. It prints 14 mpg for the Malibu 350 and 13 for the Aspen 360, a St. Regis lap of 91.821 on the lap sheet (its scoring pages use 91.100, and the page now shows both), sixteen laps by four drivers for the full-size cars and twelve by three for the mid-size, a clearly printed 17.95 for the Aspen 360, and 96.198 for the Volare as an assigned figure. It says the Volare “sustained sufficient damage” on a warm-up lap, and that its dynamics score was assigned by joint decision of the State Police and the Department of Management and Budget, with Chrysler’s concurrence. The LTD-S, at 120.5 mph, also beat the Volare. The 1.635-mile course and the IACP material came from the other copy, catalogued as NCJ 78761, which is not held here; this copy names the MIS road course without a length and has no IACP material, so the page no longer makes those statements, without showing them to be wrong. The 1978 Fury’s 132.7 mph was faster than the 1980 Gran Fury’s 124.6; the 1978 book already weights fuel at twenty-five points, and its April 1977 specification is the earliest held; the book does not compare its cars with any outside the test; and the Aspen 360 was the quickest car of the day, but the Gran Fury was faster on top speed.

Source: State Police Patrol Vehicle Evaluation and Purchasing Program, November 1977, preface and printed pages 1–65; 1980 Police Patrol Vehicle Evaluation and Purchasing Program, October 1979, preface and the dynamics, acceleration, braking, fuel and scoring pages.

Corrected again — two corrections that were themselves wrong

The 1994 Caprice did record 141 mph, and the 1978 cars did fail on acceleration

Both corrections were wrong, and the original wording was right. The 1994 book is now held, and it records the Caprice 5.7 at 141.2 mph, on its top-speed sheet, in its results summary and in its raw scores; the October 1993 federal bulletin prints 141.20. The figure in the two videos was Michigan’s. And the 1978 book’s preface says the Buick and the Ford “were eliminated due to their inability to meet the established minimum acceleration requirements”. Both earlier entries now point here, and the history page again gives the reason.

Source: Michigan State Police, 1994 Model Year Patrol Vehicle Testing, December 1993, the Caprice 5.7 top-speed sheet, results summary and raw scores; NIJ TAP Bulletin, October 1993; the 1978 book, preface.

Corrected — details found while adding the eight books

Claims that were already wrong, found while checking every page against the new books

The 1978 book, written in November 1977, already shares its results with “other law enforcement agencies” and the manufacturers, so the pages now say that the earliest book held here is the 1978 one and that whether there was an earlier evaluation, of the 1977 models, is not settled: the 1980 preface says the programme was developed in 1976, and the anniversary counts in the 1996, 1999 and 2001 books point to a first test of the 1977 models, while the 1990 preface speaks of testing since 1977. In 1980 the Gran Fury took the full-size class; the Volare “sustained sufficient damage” on a warm-up lap and was the mid-size adjusted low bidder; and 124.6 mph was the fastest in Michigan’s 1980 test; the book does not compare it with cars elsewhere. The 1978, 1980 and 1984 prefaces say nothing about a clean roof; the 1990 preface does, as a belief held “since we began testing in 1977”. Michigan braked cars with and without anti-lock in 1992, 1994, 1995 and 1996. Limiters were already in the 1992, 1995 and 1996 books before 1998. The sedan disappears in 2024. Besides the six bulletin years, every year before 1996 and the years 2021 to 2024 are absent from the specifications table. The 1987 five-speed Mustang’s 1:22.02 was quicker than the 1989 five-speed’s 1:22.51, so only the automatic’s 1:21.56 was the best lap to that point. No Chrysler product is in the 1990 test, so 1989 is the M-bodies’ last. The 1978 book graded a much longer ergonomics list, with totals of 281.91 to 312.75, and the 1994 Caprice and Explorer scored 244.61. The 1993 Camaros ran 6.10 and 6.18 seconds to 60. The 1995 Caprice lapped quicker than the 1996 car. The 2000 Volvo S-70 T5 sedan ran 153 mph and the 2012 to 2017 Caprices up to 156. The 1980 field’s stops ran from 154.6 to 187.9 feet, 33 feet apart. The books from 1984 to 1992 weight fuel at ten points and the 1994 book is the first held to weight it at five. The 1996 Geo Tracker scored 132.16, below the Hummer; the 1998 Tahoe scored 238.89; the 1993 and 1995 Camaros, the 2000 Volvo V-70 and the 1998 and 2000 Volvo S-70 sedans all stopped shorter than the 2003 Impala; the Tracker, the 1989 Mustang, the Hummer, the 1980 Fairmont, the 1991 Camaros and the 1986 Mustang all scored below the F-250; the 1984 Dodge Aries four-cylinder rated 25.6 mpg; fuel was worth ten points from 1984 to 1992 and twenty-five before; four-cylinder cars had been tested in 1982 to 1987 (the 1982 book counts its two among its “police package cars”; see “Corrected — the 1982 page”); of the books checked, only those from 1990 on say the cars were tested with a clean roof; the books give no reason for Ford’s entering the Mustang, and the 1982 book says Michigan ran one because of “specific interest expressed by a number of police agencies” in a smaller “pursuit only” car; and the Diplomat is in these books from 1981, and the first document held in which it has the adjusted low bid is the 1985 scoring sheet. No car named Caprice is tested in these books before 1986; the 1992 test also had two Caprices on different axles, and the 2004 book had already run the same pair of Interceptors; the Intrepid returned in the 2002 test at 135 mph, and 136 was its 2003 figure, while the last Chrysler sedans before it were the 1989 Diplomat and Gran Fury, built before DaimlerChrysler existed, and Dodge stayed in every test after 2002; and cars in the 2012 and later books stopped shorter than the 1993 Camaro’s 127.6 feet, which was the shortest only until then. The Ford page’s 1996 row is the ABS car that ran the test, 135 mph, and its 1998 row is marked as limited; the Chevrolet page now gives the Camaro’s 131 feet for 1995, the Dodge page the 1987 Diplomat’s 12.72 seconds, and the Caprice page the 1995 car’s 136.4 feet; and the Crown Victoria ran 121 to 135 mph from 1990 to 1996 before its thirteen years at 128 to 130 from 1999 to 2011. The 1980, 1982 and 1983 pages print those scores as negative (the 1980 LTD-S −0.636 on the page then, −0.607 in the copy now held; −0.189, −0.304, −0.767 and −0.319), but the database builder read the typographic minus sign as nothing; it now reads it, and the database matches the pages. The 1980 Aspen 318’s −0.471 is now in the database too. Between 1980 and the 1990s fuel economy lost the most weight, while vehicle dynamics, acceleration and braking all gained. Nothing held shows a joint Michigan and Sheriff evaluation; the Sheriff supervised the IACP’s own California evaluation in late 1978, which the hub describes. Adjusted bids are Michigan’s calculation, not something a maker submits; the Fury had the lowest on all four price sheets. The Explorer never topped 113 mph from 1994 to 2008, but it had the lowest top speed in the test only in 1994, 1997, 2000 and 2006; in its other years a Geo Tracker, a natural-gas Crown Victoria, a Tahoe, the Hummer, a Silverado or an F-series pickup had a lower one. The Charger’s 150 was the best by an American police sedan to that point; the Caprices and Chargers of 2012 and later ran faster. The 2006 book says every vehicle in it had a limiter fitted, not where any was set. The 1992 Caprice’s 133 mph was already the fastest sedan figure in these books to that point, so the history page no longer calls the 1994 car the first fast one in fifteen years. A limiter mark says a limiter was fitted, and the figure may report its setting rather than what the car could do. Non-ABS cars were already braked beside anti-lock ones in 1994 and 1995, and the 1994 book says only that its two were “submitted for brake testing only”. The 1995 Caprice came a year before the American B-body Caprice’s last Michigan test, in 1996.

Source: the 1978 book, preface; the 1980 book, preface and pages on the mid-size class; the 1990 preface; the year pages from 1981 to 2026; the database.

Corrected — found while re-checking the 2022 book

A braking record’s end, the best lap average, and the scoring described as current

The 2023 Mustang Mach-E stopped in 122.8 feet, so the Charger’s 123.2 stood until 2023. The cars also still hold the best road-course average: 1:34.39 by the 2012 Charger at Grattan, against the 2019 BMW’s 1:36.60; the records page now heads those tables as lap averages, not fastest laps, and the Charger page and the 2007, 2011 to 2014, 2016, 2017, 2019 to 2021, 2025 and 2026 pages call the figures they quote averages. The 2014.5 all-wheel-drive Charger’s 1:34.75 is the second-best average at Grattan, behind the 2012 Charger’s. The 2015 Charger averaged 1:34.80, so the 2017 EcoBoost’s 1:35.34 was the best car average after 2015 to that point; the 2018 EcoBoost sedan ran 1:35.22 and the 2024 EcoBoost Utility 1:35.17. In 2007 the HEMI Charger averaged 1:37.69 and the Magnum 1:37.65; the Ford Police Interceptor’s 1:40.91 was behind both. In 2016 the 2.0-litre EcoBoost sedan’s 1:42.79 was the slowest car average; four of the motorcycles averaged slower, from 1:48.60 to 1:53.38. The 2015 book prints no scoring method, and the books from 2018 to 2026 print purchasing criteria but no category weights, weighted total or bid adjustment, while the 2013 book still prints the method; the 2022 book says meeting the criteria “does not certify a vehicle as being pursuit rated, rather it justifies a vehicle can perform the job function the MSP requires”, and leaves the choice to each agency. The pages now date the scoring to the books that print it, and describe braking by era: two measured stops before the 1999 book, twelve from 1999, twenty from 2012. Some books print a quarter mile and others, such as 2022’s, do not. The 2022 and 2025 dynamics tables for the electric cars both add three columns: the time of each run and the charge at its start and end. The GT’s two records are car records.

Source: the 2022 book, printed pages 5, 33–34, 51 and 78; the 2006, 2013, 2015, 2018 and 2021 to 2026 books; the 2007, 2012 to 2017 and 2023 pages; the database.

Corrected — braking figures

One 60–0 figure for every year, and the 2006 Expedition’s braking

Every 60–0 figure on the maker and model pages is now the stop from exactly 60 mph at the vehicle’s average deceleration rate, the books’ own formula. For the books before 1991, which print only the measured stops and the rate, it is computed from the printed rate: 165.0, 176.0, 161.4, 148.2 and 151.6 feet for the five cars above. The database and the test results table carry the same figures, marked as computed. The 2006 book’s brake sheet for the Expedition (printed page 82) prints an overall rate of 27.10 ft/s² and a projected 142.9 feet; 25.51 and 149.5 are the figures for the sixth stop on the sheet before it, the Explorer’s. The 2006 page now gives 27.10 and 142.9, and the special-service table, whose column assignment it had marked as unconfirmed, has been checked against the book’s summary and brake sheets.

Sources: the 1978 to 1990 books and bulletins held here, and the database; Michigan State Police, 2006 Model Year Police Vehicle Evaluation, printed pages 80–84.

Corrected — motives the books do not state, and several smaller claims

Sentences that said more than the documents do

The 1994 book describes the Caprice’s 5.7 with sequential port fuel injection and 260 horsepower and does not mention the Corvette; no document held here gives General Motors’ reason for ending the car, so the pages now say only that it left these tests after 1996. The 1996 book says only that the non-ABS Crown Victoria “was submitted for brake testing only”; it was two cars, braked on the morning of 16 September 1995 at 8:34 and 11:36, and the 1994 book and the 1995 bulletin had braked cars both ways, so the pages now say that and no more. The October 1997 bulletin, for the 1998 test, records that Ford advised that its Expedition and Explorers were not designed or intended for pursuit, and that they were not subjected to dynamics testing; the pages now say that, without saying who decided. The December 2002 bulletin, for the 2003 test, calls the 2002 Intrepid the first police-package sedan DaimlerChrysler had entered “in the MSP tests since the Dodge Diplomat in 1989”, and the manufacturers and Dodge pages now quote it. The 2001 book’s preface also records that Michigan “also tested the Dodge Intrepid 3.5L, Durango 4.7L 2WD, and Durango 5.9L 4WD” as prototypes, unpublished, while “DaimlerChrysler is looking at the possibility of re-entering the law enforcement market”; so the Dodge page now says that no Dodge appears in the published results from 1990 to 2001, and no longer describes Chrysler’s or Ford’s market or motives. No document held here gives the Crown Victoria’s or the Volvo’s sales, or the Tahoe’s later share of patrol fleets; Dodge returned to Michigan’s published tests with the 2002 Intrepid, four years before the Charger; in eleven of the thirteen tests from 1999 to 2011 another sedan ran faster than its best, and those pages now say that instead. The Hummer’s 88, 83 and 85 mph are the three lowest top speeds in the archive outright. The September 1994 bulletin is an NIJ TAP bulletin rather than an NLECTC one, the same caption cites the October 1993 bulletin as well, and the six run from 1994 to 2004, so the caption now names both series and drops the span. The 1996 and 2001 books print the 30/20/20/15/10/5 weights; the worked examples in the 2005 report and the 2006, 2009, 2012 and 2013 books use braking 25 and top speed 10 (the December 2004 bulletin still printed 20 and 15), and the 1978 and 1980 books have seven categories, and the hub now says so. In 2019 and 2020 several of the motorcycles were quicker than the Utility to 60 and to 100, and in 2020 both HEMI Chargers ran 149 mph against its 148, so the pages now say car, truck or four-wheeled vehicle. In 1997 the Explorer 4.0 had the lowest top speed and the natural-gas Crown Victoria the slowest 0–60; the Tahoe’s 28.90 seconds to 100 was outside the bulletin’s 28.2, a time the bulletin prints for “each vehicle” but which may not have applied to the Tahoe (see the 1997 entry below). The Police Responder Hybrid Sedan was the slowest vehicle in the 2018 and 2019 tests to 60 and to 100, but not on top speed, where the F-150 was lower. The department’s own counts date the first comparative evaluation to the autumn of 1976, the 1990 preface speaks of testing beginning in 1977, the 1991 test was run in August, and the 1979 results have not been located, so “every autumn” and “ever since” are gone. The full 1989, 1993 and 1995 books have not been found online; that is all that can be said. The 2025 book prints “TBD” for both Durangos.

Sources: Michigan State Police, 1978, 1980, 1990, 1994, 1996, 2001, 2006, 2013, 2018 and 2025 evaluations; NIJ/NLECTC bulletins of October 1996, October 1997 and December 2002; NIJ TAP bulletins of November 1990, October 1993 and September 1994; the database.

Corrected — the 2003, 2013 and 2018 pages, checked against their books

A braking column read from the wrong car, a 2003 lap that was an average, and the 2018 brake surface

The 2003 bulletin gives the Interceptor 26.07 ft/s² over 147.45 feet and then 26.03 over 149.20, a rise of 1.75 feet; the 26.38 and 24.34 are the two-wheel-drive Expedition’s. The bulletin prints only dynamics averages, so the Interceptor’s 1:41.65 is the best average of the year, four tenths ahead of the Intrepid, and whether it ran the fastest single lap is not known. The Intrepid was introduced in 2002, so 2003 is its second year; 2003 was not the closest Ford and Chrysler came on the lap, since their averages were 0.23 to 0.28 seconds apart in 2002 and 0.04 in 2004; the twelve-of-sixteen method was used from 2000 to 2002 and in many earlier years, and the 32-lap method began in 2003. The Impala stopped 15.6 feet shorter than the Ford. In 2002 the Camaro ran 159 mph to the Intrepid’s 135. The 2003 bulletin lists the Hummer as a police-package vehicle. In 2013 the EcoBoost reached 60 in 5.75 seconds against the 6.0 Caprice’s 6.03, and stopped 1.9 feet longer; the 1993 record had already fallen in 2012, and braking under the twenty-stop procedure is not comparable with it; the cars came from Chevrolet, Dodge and Ford, sedans and sport utilities; the BMW won every column shown; the motorcycles braked at the Precision Driving Unit in Lansing; the 2011 Crown Victoria ran 119 mph with the 3.55 axle and 129 with the 3.27 and was the slowest car in a straight line, the Harley-Davidsons being slower still, and the Impala and Tahoe lapping slower; and the 3.7-litre Police Interceptor’s city figure is 18. The EcoBoost also ran the fastest single lap of 2013, 1:34.60. In 2018 the book explains the stops: the brake surface was changed because of construction, with a friction coefficient of .87 against .93. The 4.10 seconds to 60 was the 2008 BMW’s; a Ford Escape Hybrid ran in 2007; the hybrid was slowest to 60 and 100 but not on top speed or lap; the 5.7 Chargers ran 150 mph to the EcoBoost’s 149; the Harley-Davidson ladder spans a Road King and an Electra Glide, the Stage IV with a 107-to-114 cubic-inch kit; the Special Service Police’s spread was 8.42 seconds, against under two for every other car in the book; the best city figure before 2018 was the 1984 Aries’s 25.6; the Impala’s last test was 2016; and the motorcycles’ sheets record up to twenty stops. The book also shows the hybrid at 9.05 seconds to 60 against the 9.0 criterion, and neither it nor the F-150 reaching 120 mph; both are now in the disqualified page’s table of vehicles that missed a minimum but were never named. The Electra Glide was slowest to 100 mph and on top speed; the Victory’s 160.3 is a projected stop, made on a different surface; the 2018 motorcycles braked at the Precision Driving Unit in Lansing; and the Harley-Davidson highlight pages list speed-limited engine downloads for two of the motorcycles.

Source: NIJ/NLECTC bulletin, December 2002, Exhibits 2, 3 and 5 and page 2; the 2013 book, dynamics, acceleration, braking and fuel pages; the 2018 book, pages 2, 4 and the dynamics, acceleration, braking, fuel and motorcycle pages; the 2002, 2004, 2007, 2008, 2011 and 2012 pages; the database.

Corrected — the 2002 page, checked against its book

The 2002 book is now held, and the 2002 page said more than it does

The book, 2002 Model Year Police Vehicle Evaluation Program (Michigan State Police, October 2001), is now held, and every figure in the page’s tables matches it. The 2014.5 Police Interceptor EcoBoost sedan ran a quicker quarter mile, 14.13 seconds, and the motorcycles quicker still; 14.14 was the quickest by a car to that point, 0.11 seconds quicker than the 2001 six-speed Camaro’s 14.25. The book prints ten of each car’s twelve stops and scores the best ten; on that score the 2002 Interceptor, 27.67 ft/s², beat the Camaro’s 27.51, and the Explorer’s 27.47 was the best in the special-service table only. Both Tahoes and the two-wheel-drive Durango reached 60 before the Crown Victoria’s 9.90 seconds. The 2001 book already printed a minimum on most police-category brake sheets, and in 2002, as in 2001, the Hummer and the special-service vehicles have none. The 2005 book records two more yes answers to the fade question, for the Explorer and the four-wheel-drive Tahoe. The book places the Camaro’s transmission failure under its heading for the Monday dynamics test at Grattan, not with the Saturday acceleration and braking runs, and says only that “The test was completed using this alternate vehicle”; it does not link the 2003 Interceptor’s braking to its ABS faults, or the prototype Tahoe to the Tahoe PPV. The pony-car sentence is gone: the Camaro lost on braking to the 2002 Interceptor and was second to last on ergonomics. The 1998 Tahoe scored 238.89, and the page now calls 223.08 the highest police-category score since then. The book never says the cars failed the braking requirement, and the page now says they missed their minimums: the Intrepid’s 25.92 against 25.96 and the 2003 Interceptor’s 25.03 against 25.87, which the test results table and the Disqualified page now record. The 2002 Hummer was slower than the 2001 one on every measure, at 20.03 seconds to 60 and 83 mph. The 2002 book lists a 125-amp alternator for the Impala and 124 for the Hummer, and no document held here gives a civilian Camaro’s alternator rating.

Source: Michigan State Police, 2002 Model Year Police Vehicle Evaluation Program, October 2001, preface and printed pages 5, 11, 20, 28–29, 37–42, 44–47 and 80–91; the 2001, 2005 and 2018 books; the 2014 page; the database.

Corrected — found while adding the 2002 book

Limiter marks read as settings, the Camaro’s package, and three dates

The 1992 book and the 1997 and 1998 bulletins class the Camaro as a special service package car; the 1999 book puts both Camaros in the main field, and from the 2000 bulletin to the 2002 book it is in the police category, and the 2002 book calls it the “pursuit Camaro”. No book held here says who bought it; the 2000 bulletin says Chevrolet offered it “for highway and traffic enforcement use”, and the pages now say that. A limiter footnote says only that a limiter was fitted, so the pages now say the figure may be a setting. The Camaro’s last test was in 2002. The 2002 ergonomics leader was the Excursion, and in the books held here the last sedan to lead before the 2016 Charger was the 2000 Impala. Jeep Cherokees, a Chrysler product, were in every published book from 1992 to 2001; the 2000s page now says Dodge returned in 2002 with the Intrepid, its first police-package sedan in the tests since 1989. Braking went to twenty stops in the 2012 book.

Source: Michigan State Police, 1992, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2012 evaluations; NIJ/NLECTC bulletins of October 1996, October 1997 and October 1999; the 2016 page; the database.

Corrected — the 2012 page, checked against its book

The 2012 page claimed archive records that later tests, or its own book, do not support

The 6.0 Caprice’s 154 mph was the highest top speed any sedan had recorded in these tests to that point, one mile an hour up on the 2000 Volvo S-70 T5’s 153; later Caprices ran 155 in 2014, 2016 and 2017 and 156 in 2015. Its 125.8 feet was the shortest stop in the 2012 test, and the 3.6 Caprice’s 126.2 the second shortest; later Chargers stopped shorter, the 2017 car in 123.2 feet, and so did the Mustang Mach-Es. The 2012 brake sheets score twenty stops, against twelve in the 2009 book, the last earlier one held here, and the 1993 Camaro’s 127.6 feet came from two, so the 2012 page no longer calls any 2012 stop a record over the earlier books; 128.4 feet is in any case longer than 127.6. Twelve to twenty is not a doubling, and the 2012 book does not describe the change; the 2010 and 2011 books are not held. The Charger’s 5.83 seconds was the quickest car in the 2012 test; later sedans were quicker, among them the 2014.5 EcoBoost Police Interceptor at 5.66. Nineteen cars is the largest car field in this archive; 2008 had sixteen. The Kawasaki’s 4.02 seconds to 60 and 8.29 to 100 were the motorcycle bests at the time, and no car tested to 2012 came close; the 2015 BMW reached 60 in 3.99 seconds and the 2020 Yamaha reached 100 in 8.19. The communications superlative is gone: the books for 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011 and 2014 are not held.

Source: Michigan State Police, 2012 Model Year Police Vehicle Evaluation Program, December 2011, printed pages 56, 57–67 and 107; the 2009 book, printed page 34; the 1993, 2000, 2008, 2014 to 2017, 2020, 2022, 2023 and 2026 pages; the database.

Corrected — the 2012 page, checked against its book

Wrong figures, a brake sheet given to the wrong car, and an incomplete list of what went wrong

The naturally aspirated Fords ran 7.75 to 8.19 seconds. The three quickest, 7.75 to 7.77, beat two of the three V6 Chargers (7.81 and 7.93); only the 3.07-axle car’s 7.66 beat all five. The EcoBoost’s 1:35.85 was ahead of three of the four Caprices and 1.95 seconds ahead of the quickest naturally aspirated Ford, the AWD E85 sedan at 1:37.80. The 1:34.39 is an average; the page calls it the best car lap average at Grattan in the archive. The book prints one 5.7 Charger brake sheet, headed only “Dodge Charger 5.7L” with no axle, so neither 5.7 car now carries it, on the page or in the test results table; the page gives the figures in a note. For the E85 twins and second axle ratios the book prints no brake sheet and says nothing more. The third car stopped in 127.0 feet. The book’s page 2 also records the 6.0 Caprice losing ABS and stability control on its last run, and again on a re-run after a fuse was replaced, traced to a wiring harness touching the A/C compressor pulley, and its motorcycle introduction records the BMW’s rear-wheel lift under braking and the Victory Vision’s aftermarket exhaust; the box now lists them all. The book says the E85 Impala logged six timed laps before its half-shaft failure, which it calls sufficient for a timed average, and its dynamics table prints four drivers’ five laps for that car like every other. The book says the slide bolt did not affect the final brake results; it does not say whether the other incidents affected any figure, and it does not compare its incidents with other years. The Road King reached 60 in 5.66 seconds against the Victorys’ 5.86 and 5.93, and covered the quarter mile quicker; the Victorys were quicker to 100. The book says the motorcycles braked on the Precision Driving Unit track in Lansing on 13 September 2011; the cars braked at the Chrysler Proving Grounds on 17 September. The 9.17 is the best rear-legroom mark, and the 4.76 the lowest dashboard mark; the Tahoe scored higher on other items, and the Ford trunk marks of 3.28 and 3.27 are lower. The motorcycle incidents are on page 88. The Utility is not a sedan, and its 128.4 feet came under twenty stops, so the page no longer sets it against the earlier Fords. No pair of otherwise identical cars on different axles is recorded in this archive for 1980, so the axle sentence is cut. The Caprice was absent for fifteen years, 1996 to 2011.

Source: Michigan State Police, 2012 Model Year Police Vehicle Evaluation Program, December 2011, printed pages 2, 34–36, 50–53, 57–67, 71, 88, 107 and 109; the 1980, 1996 and 2011 pages; the database.

Corrected — the 2012 page, checked against its book

Descriptions and verdicts the 2012 book does not give

The 2012 book names neither the Taurus nor the Explorer and does not mention the Crown Victoria; it calls the EcoBoost car “AWD Turbo” in its preface and fuel table and “EcoBoost” elsewhere, and does not give the engine’s layout or number of turbochargers, so the 2012 page no longer calls the cars Taurus- or Explorer-based or describes the engine beyond what the book prints. Its fuel table prints “N/A” for every Ford, with a pointer to Ford’s website for the official figures. Ford sport utilities appear in this archive from 1994 to 2008, and the book does not call the Utility purpose-built. The book names no winner and calls itself “not an endorsement of products”. On its scale 5 is “average”; the communications marks are given by DIT Communications personnel for the difficulty of installing equipment, and the book records no reaction from them. Most of the 2012 communications marks are between 4.4 and 6.3; the two Ford bodies scored 3.28 and 3.27 for trunk access. The limiter statement is unqualified in the books held here for 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2009, 2012 and 2013; the others in that span are not held, and all eight pages now say so. The title page names the Michigan State Police Precision Driving Unit as publisher, December 2011; NIJ and NLECTC appear in its acknowledgements and closing pages, and the source line now names the publisher. Separately, the ergonomics caption now notes that the printed totals for the Caprice (217.14) and the Tahoe (235.88) do not equal the sum of their 28 attribute scores (222.41 and 234.81).

Source: Michigan State Police, 2012 Model Year Police Vehicle Evaluation Program, December 2011, title page and printed pages 1, 2, 70, 71 and 75; the 2003 to 2006, 2009 and 2013 books; the 1994 to 2008 pages; the database.

Corrected — the 2012 test on other pages

The 2012 braking change, told as a doubling and as a record broken

The 2012 brake sheets score twenty stops, against twelve in the 2009 book; that is not a doubling, and the pages now say car braking runs to twenty stops. The third car stopped in 127.0 feet, and the pages now say 127 feet or less. The 1993 Camaro’s computed 127.6 feet came from two stops, and the records page’s list of stops before 2012 does not include it because the 1993 bulletin’s scanned brake table lost its column headers; the records page now says so. The Caprice page, the history page and the article now say the 2012 figures came under a new twenty-stop procedure and are not directly comparable with the earlier ones.

Source: Michigan State Police, 2009 and 2012 evaluations (2009 printed page 34; 2012 printed pages 56 and 61); the 1993 page; the records page; the database.

Corrected — the 2012 test on other pages

Other statements about the 2012 test on the model, year and history pages

In 2012 the EcoBoost sedan was third of the cars to 60 (5.92 seconds) and fifth to 100 (14.50); from 2013 to 2018 it posted the quickest car times to both in every year of this archive, and the 2019 page now says that. The 2012 book calls the new car “Ford Police Interceptor” and does not name the Crown Victoria; the two cars share the Police Interceptor name. The last Explorer in these books before the Utility was the 2008 car, four years earlier, and the braking procedure changed in between; the Utility page now says both. No source held here says who cites 2012 that way, so the Caprice page no longer says so. The naturally aspirated sedans ran 130 and 131 mph and the EcoBoost 148, faster than the Tahoe; the pages now give all three. The book does not say the sedan was purpose-built, and it prints room dimensions, not seating height: 41.1 and 39.2 inches of headroom and 65.2 of shoulder room for the Tahoe, against 39.0, 36.7 and 57.9 for the sedan. The 2012 book gives no reason for its low communications marks. 239.86 beats the 2012 Tahoe’s 235.88, the best total from 2003 to 2014. The 18 and 11 are EPA city labels for the 3.6 Caprice on petrol and the 6.0 on E85. The 2012 book already records motorcycle braking on the Precision Driving Unit track in Lansing. The 2013 and 2014 Chargers also ran 152 mph. The Tahoe’s shaded rows are 2001 to 2004, when it recorded 98 or 99 mph; the books held here from 2003 to 2014 state a limiter for every vehicle. The missing lap averages are in the database and now on the pages: 97.35 and 96.84 seconds for the Caprice, 103.14 and 102.1 for the Tahoe, 102.58, 101.18 and 95.85 on the Crown Victoria page, 101.53 for the 2012 Utility and 98.47 for the 2011 Charger. The 2012 Charger’s 102.74 mph beat the 2010 car’s 101.47 two years later, and the 2010 page now says it was the fastest to that point.

Source: Michigan State Police, 2012 evaluation, printed pages 1, 34–36, 50–53, 70–71, 75, 88 and the vehicle description pages; the 2003 to 2006, 2009, 2013 and 2015 books; the 2008, 2011, 2013 to 2019 pages; the database.

Corrected — the braking change of 2012

The books do not say the twenty-stop braking test is the harder one

The 2009 book scores twelve measured 60–0 stops in two sets of six, each set preceded by two 90–0 heat-up decelerations and the second by a four-minute heat soak. The 2012 book scores twenty full-ABS stops in two sets of ten, separated by a 45 mph drive down and back along the 1.6-mile straightaway. Neither book says which procedure is the more demanding, so the pages now say only that figures either side of the change come from different procedures and are not directly comparable, and the 1999 page now says only that braking changed. The 2012 procedure puts a cool-down drive between the tenth and eleventh stops, and the article now describes both procedures and says the score is the average over the whole run. The Charger page’s table caption also now says that each 60–0 figure is the shortest by any Charger that year, which may be a different version from the row’s.

Source: Michigan State Police, 2009 evaluation, printed page 34; 2012 evaluation, printed page 56; the 1999 page.

Corrected — the 2019 page, checked against its book

Three stopping distances, the Tahoe lap averages, and a passage called new in 2019

The 2019 book prints a projected stop from 60 mph on every brake sheet, and the page now copies them: 141.9 feet for the F-150, 137.5 for the FLHTP and 138.2 for the Stage 2; every other distance on the page already matched. The dynamics score is each driver’s five fastest laps of eight; the book places the reduced power on lap seven or eight, says it made the final laps substantially slower, and footnotes both Tahoe averages without saying they include those laps. The temperature rose from 70°F at 9 a.m. to 88°F at 3:30 p.m. The motorcycles were scored on up to twenty stops: sixteen were recorded for the FLHTP Stage 2 and nineteen for the F 750 GS-P, and among the cars both Tahoes, the 3.3 Utility and the F-150 have nineteen. The book calls the site the Chelsea Proving Grounds. The history and “pursuit rated” section is in the 2018 book almost word for word, so it was not new in 2019. The 1999 book has no history passage of that kind, and the 2019 book gives no date for the change from testing one bidder to testing all. The 2013 book has the unconditional limiter sentence and the 2015 book the caveat; the 2014 book is not held. Ford’s entry included the Responder Hybrid sedan; there was no Police Interceptor sedan. The Utility was the fastest vehicle in the test and the quickest on four wheels; the Yamaha was quicker to 60. The Fords’ stops, 129.4 to 141.9 feet, overlap the Dodge range, and the Tahoes’ are the longest of the cars and trucks; the Yamaha needed 143.3. The hybrid Utility was quicker to 100, not faster.

Source: Michigan State Police, 2019 Model Year Police Vehicle Evaluation Program, November 2018, printed pages 1–4, 33–35, 45–47, 55–66 and 105–113; the 2013, 2015 and 2018 books; the database.

Corrected — the 2019 page, checked against its book

Verdicts the 2019 book does not give, and four missed minimums it does show

The book says LASD tested both Tahoes and that the MSP will accept LASD’s January result for the four-wheel-drive car as meeting its purchasing requirements; it does not say Michigan asked LASD to test, and it says nothing further about the rear-drive car. It says the manufacturers supply vehicles to both agencies and that successful results at both have historically validated the manufacturers’ engineering. No other book held here records such an acceptance; the books for 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2014, 2016 and 2017 are not held. GM declined further retesting after LASD’s 25 October test; GM’s engineers “believed” the cause was the thermal bypass valves, and the same page, now quoted, adds that “GM has no known incidents” of the problem as a result of insufficient cooling capacity. The book says no one fully understands the term, that “pursuit capable” is more appropriate, that there is no sanctioning body, and that neither agency can award it; it prints “performance criteria attached to its purchasing specifications” and says meeting them “does not certify a vehicle as being pursuit rated”. The Utility was tested in the police category, and special service vehicles are already in the 1992 book and the 1997 and 1998 bulletins, so Michigan did not invent the category in 1999; the 1999 book is the first held here to put them in an appendix of their own, with Michigan’s own caveat that they “are not engineered for high-speed or pursuit driving”, and the 2002 book calls the warning the manufacturers’. The prefaces of the 2009, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2018 and 2019 books list only a police category. The book does not say either Tahoe missed the lap criterion. It says the riders had to release front brake pressure and prints the figures with that warning; Ford, it says, anticipated the fuel figures. By the book’s own figures four vehicles missed a printed criterion, which the page had not said: the F-150 (106 mph, so never 110 or 120), the Responder Hybrid sedan (9.24, 15.07 and 26.00 seconds, and 119 mph) and both Durango Pursuits (117 and 118 mph). The book names none of them as out; the page, the test results table and the Disqualified page now record them.

Source: Michigan State Police, 2019 Model Year Police Vehicle Evaluation Program, November 2018, printed pages 1–4, 46–47 and 71; the 1992, 1999, 2002, 2009, 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2018 books; the 1997 and 1998 bulletins; the database.

Corrected — “pursuit rated” across the site

The books say “pursuit rated” has no sanctioning body, not that it means nothing, and they said it from 2018

The 2018 book is the first held here with the section headed “Vehicle Testing History, Pursuit Ratings, and Purchasing Specifications”; the 2015 book has no such passage, and the 2016 and 2017 books are not held. The 2018 to 2024 books say no one fully understands the term, that “pursuit capable” is more appropriate, that there is no sanctioning body or specific criteria, and that neither the MSP nor LASD has the authority or credentials to award it. The 2025 and 2026 books keep the first three points and drop the sentence on authority, and the 2026 book says “pursuit capability”. The books say meeting the criteria “does not certify a vehicle as being pursuit rated”; the 120 mph mark means a vehicle must reach 120, and the books give no reason for leaving out a top-speed figure. GM’s engineers “believed” the valves were the cause; the book does not say either Tahoe failed, and names no place for LASD’s tests. Only Michigan’s own testing is dated to the 1950s, and the book gives no reason for the agencies’ position beyond the lack of a sanctioning body or criteria. At the October retest the rear-drive car lost power on the last lap of its third and fourth runs. Special service appears in the 1992 book and the 1997 and 1998 bulletins, so the article no longer dates the distinction to 1999; the 1999 book is the first held here to put special-service vehicles in an appendix of their own. The article’s title is now “‘Pursuit rated’ has no sanctioning body, and Michigan says so”, and the other pages, the site index and the collector’s guides say the same; its address is unchanged. No ranking of police vehicle tests is in any book held here.

Source: Michigan State Police evaluations, 2015 and 2018 to 2026 (2019 printed pages 3–4); the 1992, 1999 and 2002 books; the 1997 and 1998 bulletins.

Corrected — the 1950s and the four-dollar quotations

The books give no date for the four-dollar quotations, and do not say there were two

The passage first appears in the books held here in 2018, on its fourth printed page, after the preface and general information. It says “the quotations received from manufacturers were only four dollars apart” and that “Years later” than the 1950s the MSP decided to test all vehicles; it does not say how many quotations, and gives no year. The 1976 date comes from the 1980 report, which says the programme was developed in 1976. The pages now give both and do not join them.

Source: Michigan State Police, 2018 and 2019 evaluations, printed page 4; 1980 report, preface.

Corrected — the 2019 test on other pages

Other statements about the 2019 test on the model, maker and history pages

Police sedans stayed in the tests to 2023, and the books do not say what ended them. The 2019 book does not mention the Explorer, and names no winner. Three of its sedans stopped shorter than the Utility’s 131.5 feet (the V6 Charger in 126.9), the Responder Hybrid sedan was rated at 38 mpg combined while the Utility’s figures were “TBD”, and in 2020 the HEMI Chargers ran 149 mph against its 148 and the AWD one lapped quicker; the pages now say so. The fastest Ford in every test from 2019 to 2026 is the Utility; motorcycles were quicker to 60 in 2019, but the Utility’s 150 mph was faster than all of them. The 2016 sedan and the 2019 Utility also ran 150. The Tahoe stops of 2018 to 2020 all cleared the braking minimum, and no book says what was wrong or what changed; the new-generation Tahoe stopped in 127.1 feet in 2021. The Tahoe page now shows the 2019 lap average, 100.58 seconds (1:40.58), with the book’s footnote. The 2000 Camaro’s 160 mph is the highest top speed in these tests; the Utility was the fastest vehicle in its test.

Source: Michigan State Police, 2019 evaluation, printed pages 3, 35, 45–47, 55–66 and 71; the 2000, 2016, 2018, 2020 and 2021 pages; the database.

Corrected — the 2020 page, checked against its book

A stopping distance, the stop counts, the test sites, and four missed minimums on the 2020 page

The 2020 book prints a projected stop on every brake sheet, and for the four-wheel-drive Tahoe it is 144.9 feet; the page and the test results table now use it, as does every other mention on the site, and every 60–0 figure on the 2020 page is now the printed one (the other eighteen already matched). The F 750 GS-P and the FLHTP have nineteen recorded stops, and among the cars the rear-drive Tahoe and the Charger 3.6L RWD have nineteen and the Responder Hybrid sedan eighteen. The book names the Chelsea Proving Grounds, where the cars were braked on 14 September 2019; the motorcycles were braked on the MSP Precision Drive Track in Lansing on 13 September. The 2013 book has the unconditional limiter sentence and the 2015 book the caveat; 2014 is not held. The 8.29 it displaced was the 2012 Kawasaki’s, eight years earlier. The book says the rear tyre “in general” lifted 24 to 30 inches. The 2014 book is not held, so the 2014.5 comparison is cut. The Utility was the quickest car or truck in 2019 and 2020, and its 5.43 seconds to 60 the quickest by a car or truck to that point; the motorcycles were quicker. The book gives no verdict between the hybrid and the 3.3 Utility. Only the summary table prints tenths, for four of the six motorcycles; the data sheets print whole numbers. The electric Mach-Es and the Blazer EV record higher figures in MPGe; among petrol and hybrid sport utilities the 23 and 24 is the best, matched by the hybrid in every book from 2021 to 2025. The BMW had the better lap average, but the quickest single lap printed was the Yamaha’s 1:35.57. The book says the rider had to release front brake pressure, and draws no conclusion about the rates. In 2020 the hybrid sedan missed all three of the book’s acceleration times, so something was given up within the hybrids. The 1987 to 1989 books simply test the Mustangs, and no book held here records an argument about them; the 1998 note on sport utilities records what Ford said about its own vehicles. By the book’s own figures four vehicles missed a printed criterion, which the page had not said: the Responder Hybrid sedan (9.06, 15.45 and 27.91 seconds, and 117 mph), the F-150 (105 mph) and both Durangos (117 and 118 mph). The book names none of them as out; the page, the test results table and the Disqualified page now record them, and the page adds the book’s ergonomics and communications scores.

Source: Michigan State Police, 2020 Model Year Police Vehicle Evaluation Program, October 2019, printed pages 2–4, 37–50, 58–71, 73–74, 92, 98 and 105–111; the 1987 to 1989, 1998, 2002, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2019 and 2021 to 2026 books; the database.

Corrected — the 2020 test on other pages

The Charger’s 0–60 band, “No sedans left”, and a date in an earlier correction

The 2020 Charger 5.7L AWD reached 60 in 5.81 seconds, and the 2012 and 2018 Chargers in 5.83 and 5.86; the band left those cars out, and the page now gives the range of each year’s quickest Charger, 5.81 to 6.53 seconds, and of each year’s fastest, 146 to 152 mph. The 2020 test had five sedans and the 2021 to 2023 tests had Chargers; they now read “The sedans go”. In 2020 the F-150 stopped longer than both Tahoes, and the 2025 page now says the Tahoes were among the worst-stopping vehicles in those three books. The 2021 to 2024 books already print the limiter sentence without the motorcycle clause, so the standing note on top speeds (on the videos and history corrections page) now says from 2021; the 2021 book also prints a “Manufacturer Limited Top Speed” on three specification pages, the first “Manufacturer Limited Top Speed” in the books held here (earlier books name a setting only in passing), and the entry now says so.

Source: Michigan State Police, 1992, 2012, 2015, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 to 2026 evaluations; the 2025 page; the database.

Corrected — the 1999 page, checked against its book

What was new in 1999, a requirement the book does not print, and the report’s disclosures in its own words

The page reproduces the lap sheets but only the braking averages; the acceleration and brake sheets are dated September 19, 1998, and the book gives no date for the dynamics. Special-service vehicles are already in the 1996 book and the 1997 and 1998 bulletins, and the 1996 sheets already set acceleration times by vehicle type; among what is new against the 1998 bulletin are the Police Interceptor name and the written definition in Appendix II, where the book says vehicles able to perform “a variety of police functions, up to and including participating in a pursuit” have “earned the right to be called Police-Package vehicles”. The sport-utility time of 11.0 seconds to 60 is lower than the 1996 book’s 12.3, but the 1997 and 1998 bulletins print one set of times, for “each vehicle”, so when it changed is not known. The 1998 bulletin says drivers were told not to exceed 150 mph “due to the limitations of the test track” and names no place; the 1996 and 1999 books both put the top-speed runs at the Chrysler Proving Grounds. The book prints the 60–0 figure as a projected stop and says performance “may be somewhat lower” once emergency equipment is installed. It prints no distance requirement for 110 or 120 mph (the 1998 and 2000 bulletins give 110 within one mile and 120 within two as an objective), so the Lumina is no longer called a near miss; what the sheets do show is that the natural-gas Police Interceptor missed all three of its printed acceleration times (12.40, 20.85 and 38.21 seconds against 10.0, 17.2 and 28.2) and the four-wheel-drive Cherokee its 0–100 time, and the page now says so and shades both rows. The Cherokee’s brake sheet answers no to “Evidence of severe fading?”, and the book does not say V8. The twelve-lap footnote is in the 1997, 1998 and 2000 bulletins, not in this report, and twelve laps is consistent with its “at least nine”. Sergeant Pokora’s average is the slowest in seven of the ten vehicles and Sergeant Stevens’s in three; the gap between the quickest and slowest driver’s average runs from 0.61 seconds in the Volvo wagon to 2.71 in the Tahoe; the score is the fastest twelve of sixteen laps, which in five of the ten vehicles come from three of the four drivers, and the page no longer gives a reason for the method. The disclosures now use the report’s words: the automatic Camaro’s pads and rotors “required replacement”, the natural-gas car “required refueling”, and Phase II is “probably more indicative”. The 1996 book gives the same reason for braking one Camaro, so the page no longer says the 1999 book explains the bulletins’ single row. There are 28 ergonomics items, and the book does not explain the Cherokee’s scores. The bid adjustment is added to each bid, so the best performer gets the smallest addition, and the method is how the books that print it rank the vehicles. The 185.0 and 184.1 are projected stops under the twelve-stop procedure that began with this book, the Explorer’s with brakes the report says had not been burnished; the page now calls them the longest in this test and adds the three trucks’ ergonomics and city fuel figures. The 7.8-second Camaro time is already in the 1996 book. Most year pages are built from full reports, not bulletins. “Full spectrum” is the October 1999 bulletin’s wording; the 1999 book says “a variety of police functions, up to and including participating in a pursuit” and “will be with us for some time”. The book does not call the Camaros, Cherokees or Volvos police-package vehicles, and the 1997 and 1998 bulletins call the Camaros and Cherokees special service, so the table is now headed “The main field”. The 1980 preface says the programme was set up with the state’s purchasing division, which is consistent with the bid adjustment but does not say it is its origin.

Source: Michigan State Police, 1999 Model Year Patrol Vehicle Testing (NIJ, February 1999, NCJ 173937), printed pages iv–v, 26–29, 32, 34–43, 53, 56–58, 61–62, 71–79 and 83; the 1980 and 1996 books; the October 1996, October 1997 and October 1999 bulletins.

Corrected — the 1999 test on other pages

When the categories began, two missing lap times, and stops compared across procedures

Special-service vehicles are in the 1992 and 1996 books and the 1997 and 1998 bulletins, and the 1996 book already sets acceleration times by vehicle type, so neither began in 1999; the 1999 book is the first held here to put special-service vehicles in an appendix of their own, and the pages now say that. The 1999 book says “the vehicle manufacturers offer” special-service vehicles for agencies that need cargo capacity or other attributes “but do not require pursuit capabilities”, and gives no reason of the kind the 2000 page supplied. It also says vehicles that perform to its standards “have earned the right to be called Police-Package vehicles”, and the article now quotes that; “full spectrum” is the October 1999 bulletin’s wording, for the 2000 test. The 1999 book prints lap averages of 1:25.87 for the Police Interceptor and 1:27.57 for the rear-drive Tahoe, and both pages now show them. The 185.0 and 184.1 are the book’s projected stops under the twelve-stop procedure that began with the 1999 book, the Explorer’s with brakes the book says had not been burnished, and the 173.7 came from two stops; no book says which procedure is harder, so the pages now call 185.0 the longest stop in the 1999 test, and the 1998 page no longer says how long 173.7 stood. From 2001 to 2004 the Tahoe recorded 98 or 99 mph; the 1999 four-wheel-drive Tahoe, a special-service vehicle, had already recorded a limiter-marked 97, and a limiter footnote says only that a limiter was fitted, so the page no longer says the truck did not become slower. The 1996, 1999 and 2001 books are three and two years apart. The Cherokee’s 35.0 is printed on its own sheet, which names no class. 159 mph was also recorded by the 1999 automatic, the 2000 6-speed and the 2001 and 2002 Camaros, the 2001 and 2002 figures with limiter marks, and the records page now says so. The captions now name both braking changes, two stops to twelve in the 1999 book and twelve to twenty in the 2012 book, and the anti-lock brakes article says the 1993 Camaro’s figure stood across the 1999 change as well. The Camaro and vehicles pages now name the books that class the Camaro as special service (the 1992 book and the 1997 and 1998 bulletins); the 1999 book puts both Camaros in the main field. Ford entered four vehicles in 1999 and Chevrolet five, and the pages show those counts (the other per-year counts are in the entry “Several counts across the site did not match the database”). The October 1996 bulletin shows the 1997 Crown Victoria missing all three acceleration times, by 0.05, 0.43 and 0.79 seconds, and the pages now say so. A limiter footnote says only that a limiter was fitted, so the Tahoe page now says the 98 mph figure may not be a measurement.

Source: Michigan State Police, 1999 Model Year Patrol Vehicle Testing (NCJ 173937), printed pages iv–v, 28–29, 43, 71 and 79; the 1992, 1996, 2001 and 2002 books; the October 1996, October 1997 and October 1999 bulletins; the database.

Corrected — “pursuit rated” in the site’s own words

The site called vehicles “pursuit-rated” in its own voice, and the 2005 Tahoe was not the first sport-utility police package

The 2018 to 2026 books say no sanctioning body awards the term, so the site no longer uses it in its own voice. It now appears in quotation marks only where a document held here uses it: the 2002 book’s preface, which calls the prototype “of particular interest because it would be a pursuit rated SUV for the future”, Michigan’s own passage on the term in the 2018 to 2026 books, the manufacturers’ pages in the 2015 and later books, and the December 2004 bulletin, which calls the 2005 Tahoe PPV “pursuit-capable”. Elsewhere the pages say police-package PPV; the 2005 book lists the Tahoe PPV 2WD in the police category and the four-wheel-drive Tahoe as special service. The 2004 bulletin defines a special-service vehicle as one “not designed or manufactured to be used in high-speed or pursuit situations”, and the 2004 page now says that. No document held here says what most of America was buying in 2011, and that sentence is gone. The October 1996 and October 1997 bulletins count the rear-drive Tahoe among their police patrol package cars (they name only the special-service cars and give the number of each), and the 1999 book runs it in its main field; the Tahoes of 2001 to 2004 were special service, and the 2005 page now says so; no document held here gives a reason for the 2005 listing.

Source: Michigan State Police evaluations, 1999, 2002 (preface), 2005, 2015 and 2018 to 2026; the October 1996, October 1997, January 2004 and December 2004 bulletins; the database.

Corrected — the 1996 page, checked against its book

The Caprice’s “last” test, the lap rule, a missed time, and claims the 1996 book does not support

It was the B-body Caprice’s last test; a Caprice 9C1 is in the tests from 2011 to 2017, and no held document says when or why Chevrolet stopped building the B-body. In the 1997 test the Crown Victoria and its natural-gas version were, with the Lumina and the Volvo, the only entries that were neither Camaros nor sport utilities; no document held here describes the national market. The Tracker’s 132.16 is the lowest ergonomics points total in these books (the 2018 and later books print averages), below the 1989 Mustang’s 144.40, but the books graded different numbers of items, and its three blank items are printed as dashes with no reason given. The book describes two measured stops, each after four 90-to-0 heat-up stops, with a four-minute cooling period between them. The Tracker’s requirement column reads “NA”; the Explorer took 49.23 seconds to 100 against the 44.0 printed on its own sheet, and the book does not name it as out, so the Explorer is now shaded and flagged in the database, and listed on the Disqualified page. Later cars cleared bigger margins: the 2006 Charger beat its 0–100 requirement by 10.86 seconds. The book does not mention development, and gives the same site and day, not the same surface. The 5.38 miles is the longest such distance found in the books held here. The book’s rule is at least twelve laps by at least three drivers, scored on the fastest nine or more: four vehicles ran sixteen laps with four drivers and are scored on twelve, and six ran twelve laps with three drivers and are scored on nine. The Cherokee’s front rotors were replaced after four of its twelve laps. The two Camaros were faster and quicker than the Caprice; the book scored only the Caprice and the Crown Victoria, and the Caprice led that comparison in every category. Instrumentation favoured the Caprice by 0.42 and controls the Crown Victoria by 0.13. The video offer is also in the 1990 and 1994 books and the AutoBid text in the 1989, 1994 and 1999 books, and the NIJ offered “limited copies”. The 1990 preface speaks of “since we began testing in 1977”, so the date of the first test is not settled, and the “every fall since 1975” wording is in no document held here. In the 1997 test five of the eleven vehicles were sport utilities.

Source: 1996 Model Year Patrol Vehicle Testing (NIJ, November 1995, NCJ 156220), printed pages iii–vi, 2, 6, 21–31, 34–38, 52–54 and 59; the 1989, 1990, 1994, 1997 (October 1996 bulletin), 1999, 2006, 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2018 evaluations; the 2011 to 2017 pages; the database.

Corrected — the 2001 page, checked against its book

Only the dynamics test moved, the Police Interceptor’s “drive”, and comparisons the 2001 book contradicts

The preface calls Grattan “our new vehicle dynamics test site”; acceleration, top speed and braking stayed at the DaimlerChrysler Proving Grounds, and the speedway is documented in the books from the 1978 test to the 2000 test, more than two decades. The preface names the three prototypes openly and leaves only their data out; the 2002 book records the Intrepid police package’s “official debut”. Each sheet prints its own minimums, and only the Police Interceptor’s 9.75 is to the hundredth. The book lists antennas among equipment that may lower performance, which it says “may be somewhat lower”. The 14.25 was the quickest quarter by a car in the books held here to that point; the 2002 Camaro ran 14.14. A limiter mark says only that a limiter was fitted. The 2001 book does not define the police category. The Interceptor braked better, 26.64 ft/s² to the natural-gas car’s 26.12, and the four-door Hummer was slower than the natural-gas sedan. No 2001 vehicle has a published overall score. The Excursion needed 36.8 feet more, about two car lengths. The Hummer’s 2.36-second lap window is the fifth-tightest of eight, Sergeant Schutter’s laps in it were about 1.3 seconds slower than the other drivers’, and the automatic Camaro’s spread was 2.60 seconds; the 2000 bulletin describes the speedway course as a road course with “hills, curves, and corners”. The preface places the Impala stall under its Grattan vehicle-dynamics heading and says the series was rerun without further problems. Ford’s “drive” request was for the Police Interceptor. The 1989 bulletin and the 1996 and 1999 books describe AutoBid, with “limited copies” free to law enforcement agencies; no held document shows it in every year. The method calls for a minimum of four officers, and the ten evaluators the book names include an officer and a sergeant. 2.30 is the wider margin. The Camaro took 1.80 for rear-seat entry and exit, below the Hummer’s lowest mark, 3.20. The Hummer’s 9 mpg is an EPA estimate, and the Class III note is on its combined figure, printed N/A. The 1996 book lists Halliday as a trooper test driver at Brighton Post; no document says his career was in one unit. The 1990 preface speaks of “since we began testing in 1977”, so the date of the first test is not settled; the 1980 preface is consistent with the bid adjustment but does not say it is its origin. 2000 was the first year of the front-drive Impala; the database has Impalas from 1978. The title page reads “Betsey DeFeyter”; the acknowledgments spell it Betsy.

Source: 2001 Model Year Patrol Vehicle Testing (NIJ, February 2001, NCJ 185562), title page and printed pages iii–vi, 13, 22–25, 31–46, 48–54, 58 and 77–88; the 1978, 1989, 1990, 1996, 1999, 2000 (October 1999 bulletin) and 2002 evaluations; the database.

Corrected — the 1996 and 2001 tests on other pages

Limiter settings, a car length, the natural-gas cars, the road-course move, and the Caprice’s end

The 1996 preface says four of the five limited vehicles reached the speed preset by the manufacturer and the Crown Victoria did not, so its 135 is what it reached; the mark is a double asterisk. The 1996 title page credits Independent Testing & Consulting, not VanDenBerg by name, and the acknowledgments thank him for preparing the report; the testing was done by Michigan State Police drivers. The Crown Victoria is 212.0 inches long, 17.7 feet, so sixteen feet is slightly less than its length, and the 1996 field ran from 133.1 to 154.7 feet, a 21.6-foot spread. Michigan’s 1996 specification asks for anti-lock brakes; no held document gives their price or how departments ordered them, and the book gives the same site and day for the two Crown Victorias, not the same surface. The natural-gas Crown Victoria appears in 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999, and again in 2001; in each of those tests it was the slowest sedan to 60, but not slower than everything: in 1996 the Tracker and the Explorer were slower in places. The 1996 book does not assign the Tracker a category; its requirement column reads “NA”. The 2001 book, the 2004 bulletin and the 2005 book give no contract result; in 2001 the Impala won ergonomics and fuel economy in the main field, the two lightest-weighted categories. Only the vehicle dynamics test moved to Grattan in 2001, and the speedway is documented from the 1978 test to the 2000 test. The 1996 book says the limited speeds were preset by the manufacturer; no held book says who decided to fit limiters or why. The 1996 book names no winner, and no held document says when or why Chevrolet stopped building the B-body, so the pages now say the Caprice left these tests after 1996; no Caprice appears in this archive from 1997 until the 9C1 of 2011. The 1993 Camaro’s 127.6 feet came from two stops and the 2011 Caprice’s 128.3 from twelve; the 128.3 equals the 2006 Magnum’s as the shortest twelve-stop figure in this archive. The Disqualified page now lists the 1996 Explorer’s missed time.

Source: 1996 Model Year Patrol Vehicle Testing, title page and printed pages iii, vi, 2, 9, 29–31, 37–38 and 59; 2001 Model Year Patrol Vehicle Testing, printed pages iii, 22, 31, 50–54, 58 and 60; the January 2004 bulletin and the 2005 book; the 1978, 1993, 1997 to 2000 and 2002 to 2006 evaluations; the database.

Corrected — figures on the 2005 page

The brake sensor, a fuel figure, an ergonomics sum and the ergonomics ranking

The report prints the police and special-service acceleration ladders as two tables in a different order; the page’s order is the bulletin’s. The 2002 book already measured brake stops with a non-contact optical sensor and the 2003 and 2004 bulletins name the Datron sensor; the 2001 book used a fifth wheel. The 3.55 Interceptor’s description page prints 15, 21 and 18 mpg; the description summary and the bulletin’s single Police Interceptor row print 22, and the page and the database now give 21 with a note. Eight of the ten ergonomics columns in the report add up to their printed totals; both Tahoe PPV columns add up to 211.90 against the 210.40 printed. Sport utilities took the top two ergonomics places in 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2002 to 2005, but not in 1992 to 1996 (in 1994 the Explorer tied the Caprice for first), 2000 or 2001, and the Tahoe PPV led the Police Interceptor by 10.51 on the report’s totals and 8.31 on the bulletin’s. The page now also notes that the report’s worked scoring example uses braking 25 and top speed 10, against the bulletin’s 20 and 15. Neither document says which fuel the E85 Tahoe’s 14 and 18 are for; the report’s scored fuel-economy section gives 11.3 mpg city against 14.3, a gap of 3.0, the same basis as the 2006 page’s 11.0 against 14.6.

Source: 2005 Model Year Police Vehicle Evaluation Program (Michigan State Police, October 2004), printed pages 9, 16, 27, 38–41, 43–44, 65 and 71; Michigan State Police Tests 2005 Patrol Vehicles (NLECTC bulletin, December 2004, NCJ 207192), Exhibits 1, 4, 7 and 8; the 2001, 2002 and 2006 books; the October 1996, December 2002 and January 2004 bulletins; the database.

Corrected — comparisons on the 2005 page

The 1999 Tahoe, the Magnum, the Impala’s first appearance and the limiter statement

In 1999 the natural-gas Police Interceptor took 12.40 seconds to 60 and the four-wheel-drive Cherokee 10.88; the Tahoe’s 10.16 was slower than every petrol sedan, wagon and coupe in that test. Both Tahoe PPVs reached 100 mph quicker than the Magnum, in 23.86 and 23.69 seconds, and the four-wheel-drive Tahoe never reached 100; only the Magnum’s projected stop was shorter, 143.4 feet against 144.1 and 153.1. The report attributes the special-service classification to the manufacturers, and neither document gives a reason for it, so the page no longer offers one. Impalas appear in the books from 1978 to 1985; the 2000 bulletin presents the front-wheel-drive Impala as the Caprice’s replacement. The 2003 and 2004 bulletins had already said every vehicle had a limiter, so 2005 was not a change. The Impala was the slowest police-package vehicle to 60 and 100 but lapped quicker than both Tahoes. The four-wheel-drive Tahoe was heavier (5,341 against 5,034 pounds) and differently equipped. The PPV’s six-stop average rose by 0.28 feet and its sheet answers no to severe fading; the special-service Explorer also answered yes; the line on what the designation is supposed to mean is gone. No document held here dates the end of the Crown Victoria. The Magnum was new for 2005 and had never been a police package; the bulletin says it “may be introduced as a police-package vehicle for the 2006 model year”, and both pages now say that.

Source: 2005 Model Year Police Vehicle Evaluation Program, printed pages 1, 2, 15, 20, 27, 34–35, 54, 65, 66, 68 and 70; the December 2004 bulletin, page 2; the 1978 to 1985, 1998 and 1999 evaluations; the October 1999, December 2002 and January 2004 bulletins; the database.

Corrected — the two 2005 Tahoes’ brake stops

Six-stop averages were given as single stops

144.65 and 144.87 feet are averages of each Tahoe’s six Phase I stops, printed in the December 2004 bulletin; Michigan’s report prints the individual stops and each phase’s average rate. On the first stop the four-wheel-drive Tahoe needed 149.2 feet and the PPV 144.6; on the tenth, 166.0 and 139.7; on the last, 185.7 and 151.0. The four-wheel-drive Tahoe’s printed Phase I rate was slightly lower too, 26.67 against 26.88 ft/s². It was braked at 9:06 a.m. and the PPV at 2:05 p.m., both on September 18, 2004, at the DaimlerChrysler Proving Grounds; neither document describes the surface. Phase I follows two heat-up stops from 90 mph, so the brakes were not cold. The special-service four-wheel-drive Tahoe had been tested every year since 2001. In 2005 the special-service Explorer also answered yes to severe fading. The twenty feet is how much one vehicle’s six-stop average grew between phases, not a gap between two vehicles; on Michigan’s scored measure, the projected stop, the two Tahoes ended 9.0 feet apart, and in the database the spread between the best and worst four-wheeled vehicle in each test since 2012 ranges from about 7 to about 48 feet, under a different twenty-stop procedure. Neither document says which components caused the fade, and the two Tahoes also differed in drivetrain and weight, so the article no longer names the parts. The pages now give the averages as averages and credit them to the bulletin, the article prints the report’s rates beside them, and its twenty-feet paragraph compares like with like.

Source: 2005 Model Year Police Vehicle Evaluation Program, printed pages 15, 31–35, 54, 66 and 68; the December 2004 bulletin, Exhibit 5; the 2001 to 2004 evaluations; the database.

Corrected — the Magnum’s body

The Dodge Magnum was counted as a sedan

The 2005 and 2006 books photograph the Magnum as a station wagon with a liftgate, so it is now counted as a wagon: three sedans and one wagon in 2005, five and three in 2006, five and three in 2007, seven and two in 2008. On those counts sport utilities also outnumber sedans on the 2007 page, whose book is not held here, and the count page says so.

Source: the 2005 and 2006 evaluations (vehicle photographs); the database.

Corrected — the 2006 page

The Police Interceptor against the Dodges, the special-service count and the braking comparison

The 2006 preface says five special-service vehicles but lists four, and the book has data for four. The Police Interceptors took 8.63 and 8.93 seconds to 60 and lapped Grattan in 1:41.36 and 1:41.65, behind the two HEMI Dodges but ahead of the V6 Charger (1:41.82), the V6 Magnum (1:42.24) and the Impala; only on top speed was the 3.55 car the slowest in the police category. The 3.55 car was slower to 60 than two vehicles, the HEMIs, and the 3.27 car slower than seven. The special-service Magnum’s projected stop was 142.8 feet, so only the four police-category Dodges were under 134. The 1993 Camaro’s 127.6 is a two-stop figure and the Magnum’s 128.3 a twelve-stop projection, which the site does not compare; the 128.3 was the shortest twelve-stop figure in the books held here to that point. The Dodges’ projected stops ran from 128.3 to 133.5 feet and the Fords’ and Chevrolets’ from 142.4, a gap of 8.9 feet between the groups; each Police Interceptor needed 9.4 to 14.9 feet more than the Dodges. The Impala’s published braking is from its October 7 retest, and the book does not describe the surface. The Charger’s projected stop was 133.5 feet. No document held here says the Police Interceptor won anything by attrition or how long it stayed in production, and the 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2011 books are not held, so those sentences are gone.

Source: 2006 Model Year Police Vehicle Evaluation Program (Michigan State Police, October 2005), printed pages 1, 2, 29, 33–39, 43–51 and 84; the 1993 and 2000 evaluations; the database.

Corrected — superlatives on the 2006 page

Records later books beat, a score the 2019 and later books match, and the special-service Magnum’s ergonomics

The 2000 Volvo S-70 T5 sedan ran 153 mph and the 2012 to 2017 Caprices up to 156, so 150 was the best by an American police sedan in these books to that point. The 15.00-second quarter mile and the 16.24 seconds to 100 were the best by a sedan in the books held here to that point; later Chargers and Caprices beat both. Twenty-stop cars from 2012 stopped shorter than the Magnum’s 128.3, and the site does not compare procedures. The 2019 to 2026 books print scores of 10.00, so the page now calls it the only 10.00 in this book. The two Magnums differ in transmission and axle as well as package, and the book does not say which difference produced which result. The special-service Magnum and Tahoe were scored separately (183.10 and 211.48), and the page now prints the four special-service totals. The 11.0 is the E85 Tahoe’s rating and the 14.6 the petrol Tahoe PPV’s; they are EPA city estimates for two vehicles. The 2005 book also lists two unpublished Magnum prototypes, so 2005 is the Magnum’s first published appearance.

Source: 2006 Model Year Police Vehicle Evaluation Program, printed pages 1, 18–21, 39, 55, 58, 77 and 85; the 2000, 2005, 2009, 2012 to 2026 evaluations; the database.

Corrected — the 2006 test on other pages

The Dodges’ braking, Chrysler “back at the front”, “every record”, the Polara, and the limiter statement

The special-service Magnum’s 2006 projected stop was 142.8 feet, and the 2007 Tahoe PPVs and Escape Hybrid stopped in under 140, so the 2008 page now says police-category Chargers and Magnums against Ford and Chevrolet sedans; the 2006 gap between the groups was 8.9 feet, and fourteen was the gap between the best Dodge and the best Ford or Chevrolet, so the page no longer gives a single figure. The Intrepid was the fastest vehicle in the 2003 and 2004 tests, so the timeline now says what the Charger led in 2006: top speed, 0–60 and the Grattan lap. The 2006 Charger did not lead on braking, ergonomics or fuel, and the 2002 Camaro was quicker; the 2000s page now says only that its 150 mph was the best by an American police sedan in these books to that point. The 2000 Volvo S-70 T5 sedan had already run 153, and no book held here records the 1969 Polara’s 147, so the records and Dodge pages no longer call 150 the end of a 1969 record, and the history page scopes its sentences to the Michigan tests held here. Dodge’s gap ended with the 2002 Intrepid, as the Dodge page already said. The 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011 and 2014 books are not held, so the speed-limiters page now names the books it rests on. The 11.0 and 14.6 belong to two different Tahoes and nothing in 2006 was being corrected.

Source: 2006 Model Year Police Vehicle Evaluation Program, printed pages 2, 29, 32, 35, 47, 55, 58 and 84; the 2002, 2009, 2012 and 2013 books; the December 2002 and January 2004 bulletins; the database.

Corrected — the 2009 page

The motorcycles, the field, the lap margin and “every measure”

The Buell Ulysses returns on the 2010 page; only the G650 XChallenge appears once, and no document held here says when Buell closed. The Buell beat every car, the HEMI Charger included, to 60 (5.15 against 5.96), to 100 (13.58 against 14.29) and over the quarter mile. The 7.56 and 30.02 are the Road King’s; the G650 ran 5.58 to 60 and the book prints no 0–100 time for it, which does not conflict with a top speed taken as the run continues for up to ten miles. The book names every machine on its motorcycle summary and brake sheets, so nothing was inferred. Seven vehicles sat below the HEMI, from 8.37 to 8.84 seconds. The HEMI’s 1:37.08 was 3.28 seconds ahead of the 3.55 Interceptor’s 1:40.36. The 2008 page lists sixteen cars and trucks plus three motorcycles; the 2008 book is not held. The 2009 book thanks General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Harley-Davidson and BMW, so the makers took part with fewer models. The V6 Charger’s projected stop (135.1 feet) was a tenth shorter than the HEMI’s, the Impala’s 17 mpg city beat the Chargers’ 16, and no document says the Charger replaced the Intrepid. The Tahoe PPV was in the field.

Source: 2009 Model Year Police Vehicle Evaluation Program (Michigan State Police, November 2008), printed pages 1, 2, 22, 30, 31, 35–40, 44, 69 and 71; the 2002 book; the 2008 and 2010 pages; the database.

Corrected — ergonomics, fuel and quotations on the 2009 page

The Impala’s ergonomics, the E85 penalty, the scored fuel figure, a quotation and the publisher

The Impala is lowest or joint lowest on 19 of the 28 ergonomics items, including 4.60 for the outside mirrors; the rear-seat items explain about 3 of its 15.67 points behind the Police Interceptor. On the 2008 page the E85 Tahoe was rated 11 against 14, a smaller gap than 2009’s 10 against 14. The E85 cars were within 0.31 seconds of their petrol twins to 60 and to 100, though the E85 Impala was 0.54 seconds slower to 90. The book scores city estimates “to the nearest 1/10th mile per gallon” and does not say which column; the Chargers’ label figures are both 16, but their unadjusted figures are 20.9 and 19.3. The book’s wording is “attainable by each test vehicle within a distance of 14 miles from a standing start”. The 2007 book is not held, and the 2012 and 2013 books already give 14 miles for both. The first E85 vehicle in these books is the 2005 Tahoe. The 2006, 2009 and 2013 title pages name the Michigan State Police as publisher (its Training Division in 2006 and Precision Driving Unit in 2009 and 2013); the 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2011 books are not held, so those pages no longer name a publisher.

Source: 2009 Model Year Police Vehicle Evaluation Program, title page and printed pages 24, 30, 31, 42, 44 and 70; the 2005, 2006, 2012 and 2013 books; the 2008 page; the database.

Corrected — the 2009 test on the 2010 and 2011 pages

The E85 Tahoe’s run, the ergonomics swing, the axle trade, the Harley columns and Buell

In 2009 the petrol Tahoe was the quicker of the pair, 8.40 seconds to 60 against 8.50; the E85 Tahoe was quicker to 60 in every other test here from 2005 to 2011. On the site’s 2008 page the totals were 10.8 to 22.5 points lower than in 2009, so they rose into 2009 rather than falling. In 2009 the 3.55 axle bought 0.05 seconds to 60 and cost 8 mph. The 2009 book names each Harley-Davidson on its summary; the 2010 and 2011 books are not held. In 2009 the V6 Charger had the best car stop, the Tahoe the best ergonomics and the Impala the best fuel figure. No document held here dates the end of Buell.

Source: 2009 Model Year Police Vehicle Evaluation Program, printed pages 30, 31, 35–39, 42, 44 and 71; the 2005 and 2006 books; the 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2011 pages; the database.

Corrected — the 2015 four-wheel-drive Tahoe and the two retests

The Tahoe did lap, the “sixth Ford row” is the Tahoe’s retest, and the book explains both retests

The 2015 book prints two drivers’ laps for the four-wheel-drive Tahoe on 22 September and dashes for the other two; it says the vehicle left the track, that General Motors traced this to a temporary brake torque output difference, and it prints the retest of 23 October 2014 as a labelled row at 1:39.64. That is the row the caption gave to the Utility; the Utility 3.7’s own row is 1:39.58, and its retest was for acceleration only. The Tahoe met every printed requirement, so its row is no longer shaded, and the books held here are not enough to say it was the first four-wheel-drive Tahoe in the police category. The book gives the reason for the Utility retest, loose hose clamps found by Ford’s engineers, and the retest came about seven weeks after the main session. The Caprice’s note is on printed page 3; the book’s summary table and chart print 147 and the retest sheet 156, “Both results are shown in this book”, so 156 is this archive’s choice, not the book’s ruling; on 156 it was faster than the Impala’s 150.

Source: 2015 Model Year Police Vehicle Evaluation Program (Michigan State Police, January 2015), printed pages 3, 38–40, 44–51 and 52; the 2005, 2006, 2009, 2012 and 2013 books; the database.

Corrected — records and details on the 2015 page

The braking “record”, the motorcycles’ acceleration, projected distances and unheld years

31.04 was the highest twenty-stop rate in these books to that point; the 2016 and 2017 Can-Am Spyders, the 2017 Charger and the 2023 and 2026 Mustang Mach-Es beat it under the same procedure, and the site does not compare procedures. The Caprice 6.0 (30.54) out-braked the 2.62-geared V6 Charger (30.35). The 2012 Kawasaki Concours reached 100 in 8.29 seconds, and the 2019 and 2020 Yamahas and BMWs were also quicker than 9.14; the BMW’s quarter mile is the best of those printed, and the 2018 and later books print no motorcycle quarter mile. The Spyder’s projected 126.1 feet was 17.2 shorter than the Road King’s 143.3, and the book says nothing about leaning. Every sheet prints its projected 60–0 distance, and the page now uses those. The communications items were graded by DIT Communications personnel. The report calls the factory-supported performance version the FLHTP Special. The 2014 book is not held and the Ford sedan was not last in 2013, though its rear-seat scores were low then too. The 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011 and 2014 books are not held. The quickest car was an all-wheel-drive EcoBoost sedan, and the Charger 3.6 3.08 led two braking columns; no document says how the Utility took over. Only the 5.7-litre Charger was all-wheel drive. The 2015 Tahoe row’s 135.6 is the four-wheel-drive car’s, and the Utility row’s 132.5 the EcoBoost’s.

Source: 2015 Model Year Police Vehicle Evaluation Program, printed pages 2, 21, 58–72, 73–76, 80, 97, 103 and 108–116; the 2012, MY2019, MY2020, MY2023 and MY2026 books; the database.

Corrected — motorcycle and braking records on the 2007, 2008, 2011 and 2016 pages

Records that later tests beat

The 2015 BMW R 1200 RT-P ran the quarter mile in 12.51 seconds at 116.08 mph, so the 2007, 2008, 2011 and 2016 quarter-mile figures were not the best in this archive; the 2007, 2008 and 2011 figures were the best to that point. Before 2007 the highest trap speed was the 2001 six-speed Camaro’s 103.48 mph, not the 2002 Camaro’s 102.48, and the MY2023 Mustang Mach-E later reached 60 in 3.93 seconds against the 2007 BMW’s 4.44. The 2016 BMW’s 109.83 mph was 2.34 mph slower through the traps than the 2011 Kawasaki’s 112.17, not faster. The 2008 BMW was quicker than in 2007 to 60, to 100 and over the quarter mile, but its trap speed (108.27 against 109.5 mph) and braking (27.86 against 28.38 ft/s²) were lower. The 2012 Kawasaki reached 60 in 4.02 seconds and 100 in 8.29, with later motorcycles also under ten seconds to 100. The 2011 Caprice’s 30.19 ft/s² is the highest any police sedan recorded under the twelve-stop procedure, matched by the 2006 Magnum wagon; sedans tested under the twenty-stop procedure from 2012 recorded higher rates, including the 2015 Chargers’ 31.04 and 30.95, and the two procedures are not compared here. The 2017 Can-Am F3P recorded 32.57 ft/s², so the 2016 Spyder’s figure was the best to that point; no car in the books held here has beaten it. The pages now give these as records to that point.

Source: the 2001 book (acceleration summary, printed page 32); the 2012 and 2015 books (motorcycle summaries, printed pages 107 and 103; the 2015 Charger sheets, printed pages 64–65); the MY2023 and MY2026 books; the 2006, 2007, 2008, 2016 and 2017 pages; the database.

Corrected — figures on the 2025 page

The 2025 motorcycle times, the projected stops and the top-speed method

The book’s motorcycle data sheets print four runs and their average, and its method says the averages are scored: BMW 4.03 and 9.36 seconds, Electra Glide 5.34 and 20.14, Road Glide 5.49 and 18.25, the figures its charts also print. Its summary page prints each machine’s first run, and the page had copied that. The BMW’s brake sheet prints an overall rate of 26.99 ft/s², the same as its second ten stops, and a projected distance of 143.18 feet, which matches the twenty stops’ average of 27.04; the page now gives 143.2 and says why. The book prints a projected stopping distance from 60 mph for every vehicle; the pages now give those. The Blazer’s 128.2 feet is the shortest projected distance of the year, not a recorded stop: the shortest single stop was the 3.3-litre Utility’s 119.81 feet. The 1980 Gran Fury’s stops, 172.2 and 182.5 feet, were measured under a different procedure and are no longer set against it. The book takes top speed on a single run after the fourth acceleration run; it describes no two-way average.

Source: Michigan State Police, 2025 Model Year Police Vehicle Evaluation Program, December 2024, printed pages 37, 63 and 78–89; the 1980 page; the database.

Corrected — wording on the 2025, motorcycles and Chevrolet pages

Claims about 2025 that the books do not support

The book says the charging time “would showcase the vehicle’s capabilities in a best-case scenario”; it does not say “fairest”. It prints the Blazer’s battery levels but gives no reason for its lap position. The BMW motorcycle was quicker to 60 than the Blazer, so the margin is over the next car. In the 2022 and 2023 books most vehicles also stopped exactly on a printed limit (eleven of fifteen and fifteen of sixteen), and the 2026 book prints the field again. The exception for certain motorcycles is in the 2015 and 2018 to 2020 books held; the 2016 and 2017 books are not held. Caprices and Crown Victorias were tested together from 1986 to 1996 and in 2011, twelve tests, not thirty years. In 2025 the cars’ brake test is placed on the straightaway east of the oval, while the motorcycle pages name only the Chelsea Proving Grounds; the 2026 book puts both on the same straightaway. The books record what was submitted for testing, not what a maker sells; the Chevrolet page now says what Chevrolet enters.

Source: the MY2025 book, printed pages 4, 35, 53 and 86–89; the MY2022, MY2023 and MY2026 books; the 2015, 2018, 2019 and 2020 books; the database.

Corrected — the 2026 page

Dates, drivers and descriptions on the 2026 page

The book dates acceleration, top speed and braking 13 September 2025 at Chelsea and vehicle dynamics 15 September 2025 at Grattan. For the cars, Sergeant Davis drove the acceleration and top-speed runs and the brake sheets name Sergeant Looney for Phase I and Sergeant Mazurski for Phase II; Trooper Morris rode the motorcycles. Each acceleration sheet prints one starting time, temperature, wind speed and direction for a vehicle’s four runs. Communications is the book’s second objective, the “relative difficulty” of installing communications and emergency warning equipment, scored by Michigan Public Safety Communications System personnel; the Blazer EV ties the F-150 at 8.71, joint eleventh. In 1993 the automatic Mustang’s 17.3 mpg city was better than either Camaro’s, and the scanned braking table cannot be assigned car by car; the Camaros were quicker to 60 and 100, faster and quicker round the road course. The book does not attribute the BMW’s 0.77 seconds, the two machines ran at 10:49 a.m. and 12:53 p.m., and same-engine Mustang pairs differed by more (1.69 seconds to 60 in 1991). The book does not describe the Ram’s 6.4-litre engine as a V8 or the Honda’s as a twin. The NT1100P is the first Honda in these books. The Road Glide and the Honda also ran below their printed limit (119 against 120), making seven exceptions; sixteen is the number of specification pages. The book notes the electric vehicles were charged for about forty minutes between runs. The pages now say so.

Updated 22 October 2026. A clearer scan of the 1993 bulletin shows its braking table with column headings, so the 1993 stops can now be assigned car by car; see the two 1993 entries below.

Source: Michigan State Police, 2026 Model Year Police Vehicle Evaluation Program, printed pages 3, 48–54, 64–77, 79, 83–86 and 101–115, and the specification pages; the 1993 and 1991 pages; the database.

Corrected — the 2026 Mach-E GT’s stop and other braking records

Braking records are now given for the twenty-stop procedure

The 122.45 feet is the book’s projected stopping distance; the same sheet prints measured single stops as short as 116.75 feet. Braking procedures changed from two stops to twelve in 1999 and to twenty from the 2012 book, and the site does not compare records across them, so the pages now call it the shortest projected stop by a car under the twenty-stop procedure. The Mach-E GT weighs 4,952 lb, less than several vehicles in its test. The 2023 Mach-E’s 122.8 feet came before it. The 2017 book is not held, so the Can-Am F3P’s figures rest on this archive’s 2017 page.

Source: the MY2026 book, printed pages 64 and 77; the MY2023 book; the 2012 and 1999 books; the 2017 page; records page.

Corrected — claims on the 1993, Ford, Charger, Mustang, makers, motorcycles, Tahoe, timeline and what-Michigan-tests pages

Field size, firsts and wording that went past the documents

The 1993 automatic Mustang’s city fuel figure was better than the Camaros’. The 2012 book tested nineteen vehicles and six motorcycles, the largest field in the books held here, and the 1987 book eleven vehicles; 2026’s eighteen include five motorcycles. The 2026 Mach-E GT is a four-door crossover, one of five Ford entries that year, and no held document gives Ford’s market share. No document gives a maker’s reasons for not returning, and Honda and Ram are in the latest book. The Explorer and Police Interceptor Utility line runs from 1994, with as many tests as the Tahoe’s. The 2016 and 2017 books are not held, so the Charger’s two top-speed distances cannot be checked against them. Communications scores installation difficulty; it does not record what anyone liked, and no document gives a purchasing figure.

Source: the 1993, 2012, 1987 and MY2026 books and pages; the database.

Corrected — the specifications page, 2026 entries

The 2026 specifications were cut short

The book prints “SALES CODE: TBD” for the Ram in full. All sixteen 2026 specification entries have been transcribed again from the book’s specification pages, with every field the page shows given in full.

Source: Michigan State Police, 2026 Model Year Police Vehicle Evaluation Program, specification pages, printed pages 12–45 and 92–98.

Corrected — the 1997 page

What the October 1996 bulletin does and does not say

The bulletin names no site; the 1996 and 1999 books put acceleration, top speed and braking at Chrysler’s proving ground and only the dynamics on the 1.635-mile road course. No document held here gives fleet purchases. Only ten vehicles were braked; the 6-speed Camaro is not in the braking table. The Camaro’s second stop, 27.97 ft/s², was also harder than eight of the other nine first stops. The 1993 Camaro’s figure comes from two stops and later procedures are not compared with it; several twenty-stop figures from 2012 on are shorter. The bulletin prints one set of times for “each vehicle”, while the 1996 book set sport utilities 44.0 seconds to 100 and the 1999 book set the Tahoe 32.0, so whether the Tahoe was held to 28.2 is not settled; it also missed the 25.0 ft/s² braking floor, which has no class split. The 1996 book names no winner; it prints category scores only for the Caprice and Crown Victoria and leaves the total and bid columns blank. The lap-scoring sentences are on pages 1 and 2. Besides the Crown Victorias, the Lumina and the Volvo, the field held two Camaros and five sport utilities. The bulletin counts the Tahoe among the police package cars only by number. The tests of 1978 to 1985 in the books held here had no Caprice either. The pages now say so.

Source: NIJ/NLECTC, Michigan State Police Tests, 1997 Patrol Vehicles, October 1996, pages 1–4; the 1996 and 1999 books; the database.

Corrected — 1997 on the Tahoe, Caprice, Chevrolet, Camaro, Crown Victoria, Dodge, makers, 1998, 2000, 2010, 2019, decade and what-Michigan-tests pages

Claims about 1997 and after that the documents do not make

The 6.0-litre Caprices of 2012 to 2017 ran 154 to 156 mph and the 2012 E85 6.0 153. Sport utilities were tested in every held year from 1992. The 1997 Tahoe’s 161.4 feet is the bulletin’s projection from its average rate; its two measured stops were 163.6 and 164.2 feet. No held document says why Chevrolet stopped building the Caprice (the 2000 bulletin says only that it was discontinued after the 1996 model year), why makers entered what they did, or what departments bought; the books record what was submitted. In 1997 the Crown Victoria missed all three acceleration times. The scores are combined ergonomics and communications marks, not preferences. By 2024 the books held here have Tahoes and no police sedan. The 2000 figure is the shortest under the twelve-stop procedure to that point, which is not compared with the two-stop 1993 figure. The 1997 Tahoe took 28.90 seconds to 100 against a time the bulletin may not have applied to it. Several of the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s years are held as federal bulletins or a scoring sheet, not full reports. The pages now say so.

Source: the October 1996 bulletin; the 2000 bulletin; the 1992, 1996, 1999, 2012 to 2017 and MY2024 documents; the database.

Corrected — the 1989 page

The 1989 braking table labels its columns, and the Caprice’s ergonomics score is 189.60

Table 5 of the October 1988 bulletin has five columns, each labelled with the car and its engine: the Chevrolet Caprice 5.7L-TBI, the Dodge Diplomat 5.2L-4BBL, the Ford Crown Victoria 5.8L-VV H.O., the Ford Mustang (manual) 5.0L-PFI H.O. and the Plymouth Gran Fury 5.2L-4BBL. The Diplomat and the Gran Fury share a body and were both braked. Every stopping distance and deceleration rate on the page was already in its car’s row, so no braking figure has changed; the page now says the columns are labelled, and shows the table itself. Table 6 gives the Caprice 189.60 ergonomics points, not 189.50 (the digit is partly damaged in the scan); the Diplomat and the Gran Fury, at 190.20, still had the highest score.

Because each column names its car and engine, the five 1989 braking results now belong to those cars in the test results database, and the Crown Victoria, Caprice, Ford, Chevrolet, Dodge and Diplomat and Gran Fury pages give the 1989 stopping distance from 60 mph, computed from each car’s average rate as for the other books of the period: Diplomat 147.1 feet, Crown Victoria 5.8 148.4, Caprice 5.7 148.8, Gran Fury 148.9 and Mustang 158.4. The 1993 page no longer calls the 1989 assignment provisional.

Source: NIJ TAP Alert, Michigan State Police Test 1989 Patrol Vehicles, October 1988, NCJ 113947, Table 5, printed page 3, and Table 6.

Corrected — the 1993 page

The Mustangs were not the only cars without anti-lock brakes, and the 1993 braking table can be read

A clearer scan of the same bulletin prints the braking table with its column headings. It has ten entries, among them a Crown Victoria and a Taurus braked without anti-lock brakes as well as with them, and it marks the automatic Mustang “Non-ABS”; the bulletin does not say whether the non-ABS entries were separate cars. Its lap table marks anti-lock brakes on every car it lists except the two Mustangs; the 2.56-axle Caprice is in the acceleration and fuel tables only, so the bulletin does not say whether it had them. The averages run from the automatic Camaro’s 30.34 ft/s² down to 22.76 for the Taurus without anti-lock brakes; the 6-speed Camaro, the 5-speed Mustang and both 5.0 Caprices are not in the table. The page and the database now carry every stop. The column headings also confirm which Camaro is which; the 6-speed’s 147.1 mph is its “highest speed recorded before test equipment failure”. The 5-speed Mustang was behind both Camaros at every step to 100 mph. The automatic Camaro had the highest recorded top speed and the lowest lap average in the test; its 154.0 mph and 30.34 ft/s² are the highest in this archive’s results to that point, and its lap average the lowest on the 1.635-mile course to that point, where the number of laps averaged differs from year to year. The 1991 and 1992 automatic Camaros already had the 5.7-litre engine, and the 1987 Mustang ran 139.6 mph. The bulletin prints no figures for the 110-mph distance or the panic stop, so the three sedans are described as inside the three acceleration times; its braking qualification is the panic stop and brake fade, and its lap method is at least 12 timed laps scored on the fastest of at least nine. The ergonomics totals combine the officers’ ratings with the communications marks, and the Mustang’s 170.33 was the lowest of the eight. The bulletin does not use the words LT1, modular, front-drive or aero, does not date the test, does not say the two 5.0 Caprices were otherwise identical, and does not mention a full report; the Mustangs are the last in this archive’s results before the Mach-E of the 2022 book. The page now says what the bulletin shows.

Source: NIJ Technology Assessment Program bulletin, October 1992, as published in The Police Chief, February 1993, pages 45–47 and 50, Tables 1 to 5; the 1987, 1991 and 1992 results; the database.

Corrected — the Mustang and anti-lock brakes articles, the 1990s, 1992, 1996, 2026, archive, timeline, Camaro, vehicles and records pages

The 1993 Mustangs and the 1993 braking table, on other pages

The 1993 bulletin marks anti-lock brakes on every other car in its lap table but not on the Mustangs, and its braking table, legible in a clearer scan, calls the automatic Mustang “Non-ABS” and brakes a Crown Victoria and a Taurus each way, 9.7 and 15.7 feet apart from 60 mph at their average rates; the five-speed Mustang is not in it. The books and bulletins held here make that comparison in five consecutive tests, 1992 to 1996, with gaps of about 6 to 16 feet; the 1996 pair is still the widest of the eight. The 1993 stop of 127.6 feet is the automatic Camaro’s, and it is the bulletin’s own figure from the average rate. The bulletin does not name the LT1, and the 1991 and 1992 automatic Camaros already had the 5.7. It prints no 110-mph distance or panic-stop results for the Taurus. The automatic Mustang’s 17.3 mpg was better than either Camaro’s, so the Mustangs were not beaten in every column. The 6-speed Camaro’s 147.1 mph is its “highest speed recorded before test equipment failure”. No Mustang appears in this archive’s results between 1993 and the Mach-E of the 2022 book, so the pages say the 1993 cars ran their last test “in these books”. Braking figures from different procedures are not ranked together: the records page now lists the two-stop figures before 1999, led by the 1993 Camaro, separately from the twelve-stop figures of 1999 to 2011, and the vehicles page says its braking columns mix procedures. Two Ford braking entries join the test results, which now hold 658 entries; because the bulletin does not say whether the non-ABS entries were separate cars, the record and site-index pages now count entries rather than vehicles, and the counts in the entry on the books for 1978 to 1994 are updated with a note. The pages now say so.

Source: NIJ Technology Assessment Program bulletin, October 1992, as published in The Police Chief, February 1993, Tables 1 to 5; the 1991, 1992, 1994, 1995 and 1996 results; the database.

Corrected — the 1983 page

The Crown Victoria S and the 1981 Malibu were not averaged the same way

The 1981 book averages all twelve laps (three drivers, four laps each); the 1983 book averages the 12 fastest of 16 (four drivers). On the 1983 book’s averaging the gap is two tenths; on all 16 of its laps the Crown Victoria S averages 91.09 seconds, 0.72 behind the Malibu. The page now says so.

Source: Michigan State Police, 1981 Model Year Patrol Vehicle Testing, Table 2; 1983 Model Year Patrol Vehicle Testing, page 4 and Table 2.

Corrected — the 1983 page

The Mustang’s lap, the Reliant’s fuel figure, and claims the 1983 book does not make

Table 2 prints lap averages for three cars that were not scored: the Mustang 1:28.31, the fastest of the test, the Reliant 1:34.58 and the Fairmont 140 1:37.68; the page and the database now carry them, and the Crown Victoria S’s 90.59 is the best of the five scored cars. Table 6 prints the Reliant at 23.6 mpg and the Mustang’s figure as a whole number, “supplied by Ford Motor Corporation”. The Fairmont 140’s run sheet reads 50 °F. Every figure the page uses is legible, and the book prints no hardware sheet for the Caravelle. The preface counts all fifteen cars, the Mustang included, as “police package cars”; it says the Mustang, Fairmont 140 and Reliant were tested for acceleration, top speed, braking and vehicle dynamics, and the Impala 229, Diplomat 225, LTD 302-CFI and Fairmont 200 “only for acceleration”; five cars were timed only to 90 mph. The Information Center gave Michigan “a small contract to help defray the additional cost” of testing the four- and six-cylinder cars. The fuel-injected LTD also missed the 0–100 requirement, and the Disqualified page and the database now list it. The bids were unopened, so there was no award. The specification lists the brake sequence among its qualification standards but sets no figure for it, and the book records the panic stop as “observational information only”. The book says only that the Canadian cars “have a different emissions package”; the two Impalas also differed in rated horsepower, transmission and test weight. The LTD had the AOD in 1981 and 1982 as well. The September 1981 specification already required power door locks; the 1983 specification asks for a speedometer “calibrated” to ±3 mph, routes the roof wires down the corner post without saying what they were for, and asks for seats in “cloth, or combination of cloth and vinyl (blue)”. Table 1 gives the Diplomat and Gran Fury the same length, wheelbase and height. The book names neither the Special Service package nor the Highway Patrol, and its superlatives cover only this test; the 1984 book’s fuel-injected mid-size LTD beat every scored car to 60, 80 and 100 mph.

Source: Michigan State Police, 1983 Model Year Patrol Vehicle Testing, October 1982: preface, pages 4, 10 to 15 and 18 to 19, Tables 1 to 8, Appendices A to C; the 1981, 1982 and 1984 books; the database.

Corrected — 1983 on the Mustang article and the timeline

The 1983 Mustang’s margin, its lap, and the police-package wording

The Gran Fury’s 120.0 mph was the next-fastest, twelve miles an hour slower; seventeen was the margin in seconds to 100. The 1983 preface counts the Mustang among its “15 police package cars”; it was not scored, and of the fifteen only eight, the Mustang among them, were braked and ran the pursuit course, where its 1:28.31 was the fastest lap average of the test. The 1983 book says nothing about the Highway Patrol.

Source: Michigan State Police, 1983 Model Year Patrol Vehicle Testing, October 1982: preface, Tables 2 to 4.

Corrected — the 1982 page

The Mustang, the smaller cars, the wind, and claims the 1982 book does not make

The book’s introduction calls it “the fourth in a series of publications”, reproduced by the IACP’s Technology Assessment Program Information Center for interested police departments; the Mustang passage is in its preface. It ran the Mustang “Because of specific interest expressed by a number of police agencies in a smaller ‘pursuit only’ type of car”, with Ford’s cooperation, and did not publish its figures “Because it was not a ‘police package’ vehicle, and also because of its limited use in most police applications”, inviting readers to call. It says nothing about the California Highway Patrol or a Special Service package, and the first Mustang figures in these books are in the 1983 book. The eleven run sheets record winds of 6 to 16 mph. The book sets no braking minimum and records the panic stop as “observational information only”. Its text names the LTD and Gran Fury as the indistinguishable pair, but its Figure 1 labels the Gran Fury and Diplomat, and the times agree with the figure. It counts the five six- and four-cylinder cars among its “eleven police package cars”, says they “were tested only for acceleration and top speed”, and says the Information Center gave Michigan “a small contract to help defray the additional cost” of testing them. Table 7 prints the six-cylinder Malibu at 20.8 mpg, now on the page and in the database. Every digit in the scan is legible. Table 1 gives the Diplomat and Gran Fury the same length, wheelbase and height and says nothing of their interiors; it labels the weight line “Weight-Test” without saying what it includes. Of the cars whose figures the book publishes, the Gran Fury had the highest top speed. With no bids, the book prints category scores and totals but no award. The 1982 test had a single class. The Impala led the Gran Fury on dynamics, ergonomics and fuel economy, but not on braking. The equipment list is the bid specification’s: it describes the roof plate and “at least three” wires without saying what they were for, allows the spotlights an “‘A’ Pillar or other approved mount”, and asks for upholstery in “cloth, or combination of cloth and vinyl (blue)”. The book does not say what its scoring shows beyond the weights it applies.

Source: Michigan State Police, 1982 Model Year Patrol Vehicle Testing, March 1982: preface, introduction, pages 4, 6 and 11, Figure 1, Tables 1 and 3 to 9, Appendices A to C; the database.

Corrected — 1982 on the timeline, Mustang, 1993, 2016 and Disqualified pages

Why the 1982 Mustang went unpublished, the four-cylinder cars, and the two cars left unscored

The 1982 preface ran the Mustang because of “specific interest expressed by a number of police agencies”, “with the cooperation of the Ford Motor Company”; it gives its reasons for not publishing the figures (see the entry above) and offered them to readers who called. No Michigan book held here dates the Highway Patrol’s first Mustangs. Six of the eleven cars went through the full evaluation, and four were scored. The 1982 book counts a four-cylinder Dodge Aries and Ford Fairmont among its “eleven police package cars”, run for acceleration and top speed only; nothing held here records why Ford entered the 2016 car. Its Table 8 lists the Fairmont 255 and Malibu 305 with raw scores, but Table 9, which computes the weighted scores and totals, leaves them out, as its rule that a car missing a minimum “is eliminated from consideration” requires; the database notes now say so.

Source: Michigan State Police, 1982 Model Year Patrol Vehicle Testing, March 1982: preface, page 17, Tables 8 and 9; the 1983 book; the database.

Corrected — the 1981 and Disqualified pages

Two lap averages the 1981 book prints, and claims it does not make

The book’s introduction calls it “the third in a series of publications” of police patrol vehicle test results, the first covering the 1979 model year, which the IACP’s Technology Assessment Program Information Center reproduced for interested police departments; the 1978 book had already shared its results with other law enforcement agencies (see “Claims that were already wrong, found while checking every page against the new books”). No document held here says what emissions rules or downsizing did to these engines, or describes a malaise era. Table 2 prints twelve laps for both cars, averaging 1:38.48 for the LeSabre and 1:33.50 for the Fairmont 255; the book says every 1981 car completed the twelve laps, and the two are left out only of the competitive evaluation tables. Both averages are now on the page and in the database. By the book’s figures the LeSabre also missed 0–60 and 0–80 and never reached 105 mph, and the Fairmont 255 also missed 0–80 and needed 4.60 miles to reach 105; the Disqualified page now lists them, and the book does not name the Fairmont as eliminated any more than the LeSabre. The book says only that the six-cylinder cars “were also evaluated”, and that the Information Center gave Michigan “a small contract to help defray the additional cost” of testing them. It does not say what its test weights include, and it does not connect the LTD’s equipment with its top speed. It states the policy as paying “as much as five percent more” than the average for a car that scores well; in its tables each car’s total weighted score is multiplied by five percent of its class’s median bid ($380.44 full-size, $383.51 mid-size), although the full-size table’s footnote prints the mid-size median, $7,670.10. Its reasons for the weights are that vehicle dynamics is “a critical performance characteristic” and fuel consumption “a major consideration for any police department”; it gives none for the other four, and none that refers to the oil shocks. Table 1 gives the LeBaron and Diplomat the same length, wheelbase, head and leg room, but interior volumes up to 0.7 cubic feet apart. The equipment list is the bid specification’s: it describes the roof plate and wiring without saying what they were for, allows the spotlights a “Pillar or other approved mount”, requires the speedometer to be “calibrated”, and asks for a seat “60-40 preferable, or 50-50 acceptable”, cloth or cloth-and-vinyl upholstery, and armrests “without ash trays or ash tray to be made inoperable”. The LTD’s 116.4 mph was the highest in this test; the book compares it with no car outside the test. The LTD was the shortest of the five full-size cars, at 209.3 inches, and lighter in test weight than the St. Regis and Gran Fury; the book does not use the name M-body. It does not say which emissions specification its St. Regis met.

Source: Michigan State Police, 1981 Model Year Patrol Vehicle Testing, November 1980: preface, introduction, pages 5, 8 and 18–19, Tables 1, 2, 9, 10 and 11, Appendix A; the database.

Corrected — the 2000 page

Misread tables, the Volvo’s engine, lap scoring, and claims the 2000 bulletin does not make

The bulletin says Volvo’s engineers developed a new chassis tuning design “Working with the California Highway Patrol”; it names no test site and prints the engine only as a 2.3-litre turbo, with no cylinder count. It says the Caprice was discontinued after the 1996 model year; the bid price enters the final score and ergonomics is worth 10 of 100 points. Only the automatic Camaro is in its braking table, with no reason given, and no roof equipment is mentioned. The Police Interceptor “features a 130-mph speed limiter”; its 129 may or may not reflect it. Table 4 has the Impala ahead of the Interceptor at 40, 70, 80, 90 and 100 mph; Table 5 has four others also stopping harder in their second phase, among them the Camaro (28.25 to 28.82) and the Explorer (21.32 to 23.49). The Explorer was 35.45 seconds behind the quicker Camaro. The 1999 book noted the Fords’ brakes were not burnished; the 2000 bulletin says nothing of it. The bulletin’s Table 6a gives the Impala’s and the Interceptor’s wheelbases as 110.5 and 114.7 inches, 4.2 apart. The Cherokees’ average rates rose from 24.17 and 22.34 ft/s² in 1999 to 25.58 and 25.23. The 1994 and 1996 books scored some vehicles on nine laps, and from the 2003 test twenty of thirty-two count. The 1998 bulletin gives “the limitations of the test track” as the reason for the 150 mph instruction. The bulletin has eight pages; the full report it offers is not held. In 1998 a police-package Volvo S-70 also beat the Crown Victoria. No document gives fleet purchases. Table 7 prints the 6-speed Camaro at 18/29/22 and the 4WD Cherokee at 16/21/18, now shown separately. The pages now say so.

Source: NIJ/NLECTC, Michigan State Police Tests, 2000 Patrol Vehicles, October 1999, pages 1–7; the 1994, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2001 and 2003 documents; the database.

Corrected — the 2004 page

The Tahoe’s acceleration, the axle trade, and what the 2004 bulletin says

The two Interceptors are listed by axle ratio and printed with different weights. The bulletin reports what Ford and DaimlerChrysler representatives “state” and “indicate”, not when; DaimlerChrysler entered a new police vehicle for 2005. It is a bulletin, and it calls the course only a “2-mile road racing course”. The 0.11-second spread is the smallest among the cars in the database. The Tahoes (217.40) and the Explorer (210.98) scored higher on ergonomics than the Impala. The bulletin says “All vehicles are equipped with electronic speed limiters”. Both Interceptors (8.44 and 8.25 seconds) and the Intrepid (8.56) reached 60 before the Tahoe’s 8.58; only the Impala (9.00) was slower. The 3.55 axle gained 0.19 seconds, and Ford had stated only that it would improve acceleration and reduce top speed to 119 mph; the car reached 118. The page now also gives the bulletin’s full acceleration ladders and fuel economy. The pages now say so.

Source: NIJ/NLECTC, Michigan State Police Tests, 2004 Patrol Vehicles, January 2004, pages 2–8; the December 2004 bulletin; the database.

Corrected — 2000 and 2004 on the Camaro, Charger, 2010, 2000s, archive and Disqualified pages

A limiter mark the 2000 bulletin never prints, and two other readings

The 2000 bulletin’s tables mark no limiter for any vehicle, not even the Police Interceptor, which its text says had one, so the missing mark is weak evidence that the Camaro was unlimited, and repeated figures can point to a limiter without proving one. The Camaro is a two-door. In 2004 Ford stated only that the 3.55 axle would reduce top speed to 119 mph. The bulletin says Volvo’s engineers developed the chassis tuning while working with the CHP. The 2000 Cherokees were police-category entries and missed the bulletin’s times (the 2WD at 80 and 100 mph, the 4WD at all three) and its 120 mph mark; the 1999 book had set them 11.0, 21.0 and 35.0 seconds, so whether those times applied is not settled, and they are now listed, flagged and muted with that hedge. The pages now say so.

Source: the October 1999 and January 2004 bulletins; the 1999 book; the database.

Corrected — the 1998 page

What the 1998 bulletin says about limiters, the full report and the field

The bulletin says ten vehicles were “equipped with an electronic speed limiter”; it does not say whether any figure is the limiter’s setting, or who set it, and two of the ten are Subarus. Five vehicles carry no limiter mark: the two Camaros, held to 150 mph “due to the limitations of the test track”, the Tahoe and both Volvos. Limiter marks appear in the books held here from 1992, not first in 1998. The bulletin gives no reason for the Lumina’s gain, no dimensions, and no dates for individual stops. The Expedition’s 151.0-foot projected stop is the sixth-longest of the thirteen printed; the Tahoe’s 173.7 is the longest. The 1994 test had higher ergonomics and communications totals. The bulletin lists the full report as forthcoming and says what it contains only as “complete data”; it is not held, and the 1996 book names no winner and leaves its bid columns blank. No held document gives sales figures or calls the test a benchmark. The Volvo S-70 T5 was a police patrol package sedan in the same test and cleared every time and the braking floor; Camaros were tested until 2002. The pages now say so, and the 1998 page now records that the bulletin states its lap scoring two ways on the same page.

Source: NIJ/NLECTC, Michigan State Police Tests, 1998 Patrol Vehicles, October 1997, pages 1–8; the 1992, 1994 and 1996 books; the database.

Corrected — the top-speed article, the articles and research indexes, and the 2017, Tahoe, Ford and Disqualified pages

Limiters read as settings, a move the documents do not record, and two 1998 rows

The 2016 and 2017 books are not held; the 2015 book prints distances to 100 and 120 mph but not to top speed, and the site treats the 2016–2017 Charger and Caprice figures as evidence of a changed limiter setting, not documentation of one; the 2017 Charger is a later model year of the same model, not the same car. The 1998 bulletin says only that a limiter was fitted. No held document records the tests moving: the 1996 and 1999 books both put top speed at the Chrysler Proving Grounds, and the 1998 bulletin names no site. The 1998 bulletin prints every top speed as a whole number, limited or not, so round figures, short distances and repeated figures are signs, not proof. The 1998 and 2004 stops were made under different procedures, two stops and twelve. The 1998 document is a bulletin, and the car whose brake test stopped was the natural-gas Crown Victoria; it also missed 80 and 100 mph (19.88 and 36.47 seconds) and reached 104 mph. The pages now say so.

Source: the October 1997 bulletin; the 1996, 1999 and 2015 books; the database.

Corrected — the 1998, 2000, 2003, 2012, 2018 and Disqualified pages, and the sixteen-feet article

Projected stops, the 1998 field and its wording, and a 2018 comparison

The 1983 test also had fifteen vehicles, and the 2012 test nineteen vehicles and six motorcycles. The 1998 bulletin marks those speeds as from vehicles fitted with an electronic speed limiter and does not say what the vehicles could otherwise reach or who chose the setting; it says evidence of brake fade is evaluated, not that none was allowed. The 1998 bulletin, like the 1997 one, prints the stopping distance from 60 mph “based on average deceleration”, the 2000 and 2003 bulletins print projected distances, and the 1996, 2012 and 2018 books print projected stopping distances; the 2018 page now gives the printed figures, which changes the PI Sedan FWD to 133.2. The 2000 figure is the shortest under the twelve-stop procedure to that point, not compared with the two-stop figures before it. The 1998 bulletin prints one set of times for “each vehicle”, and the 1999 book set the Tahoe 32.0 seconds to 100, so whether 28.2 applied to the Tahoe is not settled; it also missed the braking floor. The 2018 Tahoes were 8.5 and 12.6 feet longer. The pages now say so.

Source: the 1998 (October 1997), 2000 and 2003 bulletins; the 1983, 1996, 1999, 2012 and 2018 books; the database.

Corrected — the about, history, timeline, Dodge, Chevrolet, Caprice, Tahoe, makers, archive, research-index, 2010s, specifications and corrections pages

Sources for two outside facts, mislabelled rows, and what the documents do not say

The Polara’s 147 mph is not from a Michigan document held here; it is now attributed to Edwin Sanow and John Bellah’s history of Chrysler police cars. The Michigan books record which makers entered vehicles, not what they built, and no held document gives a maker’s reasons for an absence; the 2000 bulletin says the Caprice was discontinued after the 1996 model year. The books held here do not say where the 2011 to 2017 Caprice was built; that is now attributed to Government Fleet (13 January 2017) and GM Authority (1 July 2017), and nothing held here says why the car is or is not quoted. All three Tahoe stops are the four-wheel-drive car’s. The 2015 BMW ran 141 mph first. The books for 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2014, 2016 and 2017 are not held, and several other years are bulletins or a scoring sheet; the Crown Victoria’s last test in the database is 2011. Many books print a test weight rather than a curb weight, so the column now says it may be either; most car weights before 2014 were never extracted into the table, which now says so. The seventeen motorcycle cells held the label of the next field; the weights printed in the 2009, 2012 and 2013 books now replace seven of them, and the other ten, from books not held, are blank. The pages now say so.

Source: Sanow and Bellah, Dodge, Plymouth & Chrysler Police Cars 1956–1978 (not held here); Government Fleet, 13 January 2017; GM Authority, 1 July 2017; the 2000 bulletin; the 2009, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2019 and 2026 books; the database.

The 2000 test page

The 2000 Explorer was the slowest to 100 in its test, not in the archive

The 2000 page called the Explorer’s 49.02 seconds to 100 mph “the slowest figure in the archive by a wide margin”. It was the slowest in the 2000 test, more than eleven seconds behind the Expedition. Across the archive nineteen vehicles with a recorded time took longer, the slowest the 1983 fuel-injected LTD Crown Victoria at 69.01 seconds.

The 1997 test

1997 was not the first test without a Caprice

The archive hub called 1997 “the first test in the programme’s history with no Caprice in it”, and the 1997 and 1998 pages, the 1990s page and the timeline called it the first test without one. The 1978 to 1985 tests in the books held here have no car named Caprice either; the 1984 and 1985 Chevrolets are Impalas. The pages now call 1997 the first test since 1986 in the books held here with no Caprice.

The 1978 test page

The best braking car in 1978 was not disqualified

The Michigan archive’s 1978 page said the best stopper in that year’s test, at 25.1 ft/s², had been disqualified for other reasons. By that page’s own table, the car was the Pontiac Catalina, and it was not disqualified. The two cars that were, the Buick LeSabre and the Ford LTD II, braked at 21.1 and 19.2 ft/s².