Michigan test archive
Police car tests of the 1980s
The last of the big sedans. 10 Michigan State Police vehicle tests, transcribed from the reports, bulletins and other documents held here.
The decade finds the programme at its most familiar: rear-drive V8 sedans, carburettors, and a qualification bar every car had to clear to bid. A Plymouth Gran Fury takes the 1980 full-size class at 124.6 mph. A Dodge Diplomat is disqualified by a quarter of a second and comes back from the dead the following year. And a Ford Mustang turns up in 1982 as a twelfth car whose numbers Michigan declined to publish — then runs 132 mph the following year and changes what a police car is allowed to be.
These are also the years when the bar itself moves. Michigan tightens the entry requirements between the 1983 and 1984 books and again in 1987, loosens them in 1988 and tightens them again in 1989, and each adjustment reshuffles the field. Reading them in order is the clearest way to understand that the winner of any given year is as much a product of the standard as of the car.
The tests
| Model year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1980 | The Gran Fury takes the full-size class at 124.6 mph; a Volare damaged on a warm-up lap is the mid-size adjusted low bidder |
| 1981 | Five full-size sedans, four mid-size V8s, and a Buick that could not reach 100 mph |
| 1982 | Six V8s in one class, a K-car curiosity, and a Mustang whose numbers were not printed |
| 1983 | The Mustang’s 132-mph debut, a propane-fuelled Canadian Plymouth, a slant-six Diplomat |
| 1984 | Thirteen cars, two Mustangs, four cars scored, and a book printed before the bids were opened |
| 1985 | No test book; the scoring sheet, bid record and a draft specification are held; four sedans scored, and the Diplomat with the adjusted low bid |
| 1986 | Fourteen cars and the first port-injected engines in these books; a five-speed Mustang runs 137 mph |
| 1987 | The bar goes up: two 139-mph Mustangs, and a quarter of a second ends the Diplomat’s bid |
| 1988 | The Diplomat comes back from the dead; a 5-speed Mustang runs 6.90 seconds to 60 |
| 1989 | Fuel injection reaches the 350 — and the carburetted M-bodies still clear the bar |