Michigan test archive
Police car tests of the 1970s
The decade the programme was built — and the one the archive can barely reach.
This is the thinnest decade on the site, and the reason is worth stating plainly: the published record barely exists.
Michigan’s comparative evaluation programme began in 1976. Its first comparative evaluation, of the 1977 models, has not been located (the 1990 preface says instead that testing began in 1977, which, read as a calendar year, would make the 1978-model test the first), and the Michigan State Police have said they do not hold complete reports from the 1970s. The earliest book held here is the evaluation of the 1978 models, written in November 1977, and its preface already shares the results with “other law enforcement agencies” and the manufacturers. Of the next test, run in October 1978 on the 1979 models, only the title page, method, schedules and maps survive here: no results.
So this page carries one full test year and part of another, and around them the documents that explain how the programme came to exist at all.
The tests
| Model year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1977 — by the department’s own counts, the programme’s first comparative evaluation, run in the autumn of 1976 (the 1990 preface speaks of testing beginning in 1977). Not located | |
| 1978 | The earliest results here — a 440 Plymouth Fury at 132.7 mph, the Buick and the Ford eliminated on acceleration, and the Fury the adjusted low bid on all four price sheets |
| 1979 | Schedules and method only, no results: the test of October 1978, with five cars on its schedules |
What else the decade produced
The testing record is almost empty. The research record is not — the 1970s are when the federal government took the police car seriously for the only time in its history, and most of what it produced went straight into an archive unread.
| Year | What |
|---|---|
| c.1970 | Wayne State University measures the 1969 Ford and Plymouth and builds the centre console every American police car now has |
| 1973 | The National Bureau of Standards prices a patrol car — the police package cost $400, the big engine $67 |
| 1974–77 | The federal government builds a prototype police car with a database in the boot, lines up twenty more for New Orleans and Dallas, then cancels it |
| 1975 | The Los Angeles County Sheriff runs its own test — and a compact Nova beats every full-size car in it |
| 1975 | RAND writes a program to work out how many patrol cars a department needs, in 240 kilobytes |
| 1976 | Michigan’s comparative programme is developed, by the 1980 report’s account; the books from 2018 on say the change from testing only the cheapest car followed quotations four dollars apart, and give no year |
| 1978 | The National Bureau of Standards surveys emergency lighting and titles its first section “The Present Chaos” |