The vehicle
Dodge Charger Pursuit
Fifty-three entries across eighteen Michigan tests. The fastest American police sedan in these books in its first year — and then spent seventeen years getting better at something else entirely.
The Dodge Charger Pursuit arrives in 2006 and immediately does the thing everyone remembers: 150 mph, the fastest any American police sedan had run in these books: 8.8 better than the 1994 Caprice’s 141.2, and eleven better than the last Caprice’s 139 in 1996. (It was not the fastest sedan Michigan had timed: a Volvo S-70 T5 ran 153 in 2000, and the 2000 Camaro, a two-door, 160.)
Then the top speed stops moving. What changes over the next seventeen years is the braking, and that is the more interesting story.
Every test
The principal car each year, with the best braking figure any Charger recorded that year. Axle variants and E85 cars are in every Charger entry.
| Year | Vehicle | 0–60 s | Top mph | Best 60–0 ft | Lap s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | Dodge Charger 5.7L HEMI | 6.52 | 150 | 130.1 | 97.96 |
| 2007 | Dodge Charger 5.7L HEMI | 6.53 | 148 | 131.9 | 97.69 |
| 2008 | Dodge Charger 5.7L HEMI | 6.24 | 148 | 142.1 | 97.94 |
| 2009 | Dodge Charger 5.7L HEMI | 5.96 | 146 | 135.1 | 97.08 |
| 2010 | Dodge Charger 5.7L HEMI | 6 | 146 | 137.9 | 96.9 |
| 2011 | Dodge Charger 5.7L HEMI | 6.24 | 146 | 133.2 | 98.47 |
| 2012 | Dodge Charger 5.7L (2.65 axle) | 5.95 | 152 | 127 | 94.39 |
| 2013 | Dodge Charger 5.7L (2.65 axle) | 6.12 | 152 | 128.5 | 96.02 |
| 2014 | 2014.5 Dodge Charger 5.7L (2.65) | 6.12 | 150 | 126.5 | 95.8 |
| 2015 | Dodge Charger 5.7L (3.08 AWD) | 6.32 | 149 | 124.7 | 94.8 |
| 2016 | Dodge Charger 5.7L (2.62 RWD) | 6.48 | 150 | 125 | 96.67 |
| 2017 | Dodge Charger 5.7L (2.62 RWD) | 6.17 | 149 | 123.2 | 97.12 |
| 2018 | Dodge Charger 5.7L (2.62 RWD) | 6.31 | 150 | 132.9 | 97.39 |
| 2019 | Dodge Charger 5.7L AWD | 5.87 | 149 | 126.9 | 97.1 |
| 2020 | 2021 Dodge Charger 5.7L RWD | 6.06 | 149 | 127.2 | 96.77 |
| 2021 | Dodge Charger 5.7L RWD | 5.91 | 140 | 127.2 | 96.3 |
| 2022 | Dodge Charger 5.7L RWD | 6.15 | 139 | 129.7 | 96.43 |
| 2023 | Dodge Charger 5.7L RWD | 6.01 | 140 | 129.6 | 96.33 |
The top speed never really moved
Across the fifteen tests from 2006 to 2020 the fastest Charger’s top speed sits between 146 and 152 mph, and the quickest Charger’s 0–60 between 5.81 and 6.53 seconds. Fourteen years of development, and the headline figures land in the same narrow band the car arrived in. In the sixteenth test, 2021, the V8 car stopped at 140 mph, where the 2020 page records the same model-year car at 149. The book does not say why. In 2022 both Chargers stopped at 139, which the book calls a practical top speed, below a printed limit of 140; in 2023 both reached 140.
That is the same pattern as the Crown Victoria’s thirteen flat years — and for a related reason. Past a point, these numbers stop describing the car.
The clearest proof of that in the archive
Michigan does not only record the top speed. It records how far the car had to run to reach it. Two consecutive tests of the same Charger:
| 2016 | 2017 | |
|---|---|---|
| Top speed | 150 mph | 149 mph |
| Distance to reach it | 13.28 miles | 1.45 miles |
Thirteen and a quarter miles to reach 150, then a year later a mile and a half to reach 149. The 2016 and 2017 books are not held here, so what changed between the two runs cannot be checked against them; the limiter evidence is set out in the full account.
A car that needs thirteen miles to reach its top speed has not got a top speed. It has got a ceiling it is crawling up to.
What actually improved
Set the braking column against the speed column and the real development becomes obvious.
| Period | Best 60–0 |
|---|---|
| 2006–2011 (twelve stops) | 130.1 ft, and as long as 142.1 in 2008 |
| 2012–2023 (twenty stops) | 123.2 ft in 2017, under twenty stops |
In 2017 the Charger recorded the highest deceleration rate any car had posted to that point, 31.44 ft/s². The 2026 Mustang Mach-E GT has since managed 31.62, and the 2023 Mach-E 31.54. The only other vehicles that have stopped harder in the books held here are two three-wheeled Can-Am Spyders, in 2016 and 2017.
Where it sits in the record
| Figure | Vehicle | Year |
|---|---|---|
| 152 mph — fastest recorded (also 2013 and 2014) | Charger 5.7L (2.65 axle) | 2012 |
| 5.81 s — quickest to 60 | Charger 5.7L | 2020 |
| 123.2 ft — shortest 60–0 by a Dodge, and the highest decel rate to 2017 of any car in the archive | Charger 5.7L (2.62 RWD) | 2017 |
| 1:34.39 — best Grattan lap average in the archive | Charger 5.7L (2.65 axle) | 2012 |
No Charger entry carries an individual limiter footnote, but every book it appears in states for the whole field that the vehicles were equipped with electronic speed limiters. So the Charger was limited; what the books held here up to 2020 never say is where, and the 2016 car’s thirteen-mile run to 150 is the clearest sign of one. The 2021 book prints a Manufacturer Limited Top Speed for the V6 all-wheel-drive car, 140 mph, and the car ran exactly 140; the 2022 and 2023 books print 140 for both Chargers.