Michigan test archive
2001 Michigan State Police Patrol Vehicle Test
The program leaves the speedway for a road course, an AM General Hummer is entered as a police car, and three Chryslers are tested in secret.
Sixteen vehicles were evaluated in September 2000, and the tests had moved house. After a quarter-century of lapping Michigan International Speedway’s 1.635-mile infield configuration, vehicle dynamics ran for the first time at Grattan Raceway near Belding — a two-mile road course. The acceleration, top speed and braking work stayed at the DaimlerChrysler Proving Grounds. Every lap time on this page is therefore on a different course from every lap time before it, and the two cannot be compared.
The entry list is the reason this year is remembered. Alongside the Police Interceptor, the Impala and the two Camaros, Michigan tested an AM General Hummer with a 6.5-litre turbo-diesel — and tested it in the police category, not special service. It took 18.55 seconds to reach 60 mph, 49.27 to reach 80, never reached 90 at all, and topped out at a governed 88. Around Grattan it lapped in 2:00.97, twenty-four seconds a lap slower than a Camaro. It returned 9 mpg. It scored 144.43 on ergonomics, the lowest total in this archive. It is, by a distance, the slowest vehicle Michigan has ever put through the police-category tests.
And three vehicles ran that you will not find in the book. DaimlerChrysler submitted a Dodge Intrepid 3.5 and two Durangos as prototypes, not available for any police operation at the time, while the company considered whether to re-enter the law enforcement market. Their data was handed to the manufacturer at the test site and deliberately not published. Michigan says so openly in the preface — which is how we know the Intrepid police package was being quietly measured a full model year before anyone could buy one.
Acceleration, top speed, quarter mile and braking
| Vehicle | 0–60 (s) | 0–100 (s) | Top speed | 110 in | ¼ mile | Brakes (ft/s²) | 60–0 (ft) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chevrolet Camaro (6-speed) | 5.77 | 13.35 | 159 ** | 0.30 mi | 14.25 @ 103.48 | ‡ | ‡ |
| Chevrolet Camaro (automatic) | 5.87 | 13.93 | 159 ** | 0.33 mi | 14.31 @ 101.55 | 28.81 | 134.4 |
| Ford Police Interceptor | 8.70 | 24.61 | 129 ** | 0.67 mi | 16.64 @ 85.43 | 26.64 | 145.4 |
| Chevrolet Impala | 9.20 | 25.40 | 124 ** | 0.71 mi | 17.02 @ 84.33 | 27.50 | 140.8 |
| Jeep Cherokee (2WD) | 9.18 | 30.93 | 111 ** | 1.77 mi | 17.12 @ 80.25 | 25.55 | 151.5 |
| Jeep Cherokee (4WD) | 9.71 | 34.53 | 111 ** | 2.31 mi | 17.43 @ 78.60 | 25.60 | 151.3 |
| Ford Crown Victoria NGV | 12.14 | 37.02 | 123 ** | 1.37 mi | 18.81 @ 76.98 | 26.12 | 148.3 |
| AM General Hummer | 18.55 | never reached | 88 ** | never reached | 21.25 @ 63.35 | 22.56 | 171.6 |
Gold row: the 6-speed Camaro’s 14.25-second quarter mile at 103.48 mph is the quickest quarter in this archive, and it reached 110 mph in three tenths of a mile. Both Camaros ran 159 — and both carry the speed-limiter footnote, so 159 is what Chevrolet permitted, not what the car had left.
The muted row is the Hummer, and it deserves to be read in full rather than laughed at. It needed 18.55 seconds to reach 60 mph — more than three times the Camaro’s 5.77 — then 49.27 seconds to reach 80, and never saw 90. Its quarter mile took 21.25 seconds at 63.35 mph, and it stopped from 60 in a computed 171.6 feet. A vehicle governed to 88 mph was entered in the category defined by the ability to conduct a pursuit.
Elsewhere the sedans hold station. The Police Interceptor is half a second quicker to 60 than the Impala and five miles an hour faster on top; the Impala stops nearly five feet shorter. The natural-gas Crown Victoria returns after Ford skipped it in 2000 and is again the slowest car with four doors — 12.14 to 60 — though it is worth noting it out-braked the petrol Interceptor and reached 120 mph, which it had never managed before.
Vehicle dynamics at Grattan Raceway — every lap, every driver
Sixteen timed laps per vehicle, four drivers — Sergeants Flegel, Clark, Wilson and Schutter — with the score being the average of the fastest twelve. The course is a two-mile road-racing configuration; the 1.635-mile speedway infield used since the seventies is gone.
| Vehicle | Driver | Lap 1 | Lap 2 | Lap 3 | Lap 4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chevrolet Camaro (automatic) | overall average 1:36.76 | ||||
| Flegel | 1:36.53 | 1:36.93 | 1:36.43 | 1:36.82 | |
| Clark | 1:37.07 | 1:36.09 | 1:35.83 | 1:37.12 | |
| Wilson | 1:37.32 | 1:36.84 | 1:37.26 | 1:36.88 | |
| Schutter | 1:37.61 | 1:38.06 | 1:37.96 | 1:38.43 | |
| Chevrolet Camaro (6-speed manual) | overall average 1:37.01 | ||||
| Flegel | 1:35.72 | 1:37.74 | 1:37.62 | 1:37.42 | |
| Clark | 1:37.11 | 1:36.76 | 1:36.41 | 1:36.16 | |
| Wilson | 1:37.12 | 1:36.98 | 1:37.33 | 1:37.91 | |
| Schutter | 1:39.95 | 1:38.37 | 1:37.78 | 1:38.85 | |
| Ford Police Interceptor | overall average 1:42.58 | ||||
| Flegel | 1:41.85 | 1:41.96 | 1:42.50 | 1:42.18 | |
| Clark | 1:42.60 | 1:42.44 | 1:43.30 | 1:42.93 | |
| Wilson | 1:42.98 | 1:42.62 | 1:42.79 | 1:43.10 | |
| Schutter | 1:43.47 | 1:43.01 | 1:44.14 | 1:43.73 | |
| Chevrolet Impala | overall average 1:43.59 | ||||
| Flegel | 1:43.41 | 1:43.76 | 1:43.50 | 1:43.00 | |
| Clark | 1:44.54 | 1:43.32 | 1:43.40 | 1:43.42 | |
| Wilson | 1:43.86 | 1:44.17 | 1:44.12 | 1:44.22 | |
| Schutter | 1:43.82 | 1:43.97 | 1:43.69 | 1:43.94 | |
| Jeep Cherokee (2WD) | overall average 1:45.02 | ||||
| Flegel | 1:44.96 | 1:45.81 | 1:44.82 | 1:45.15 | |
| Clark | 1:44.73 | 1:44.66 | 1:45.21 | 1:45.21 | |
| Wilson | 1:45.58 | 1:45.03 | 1:44.79 | 1:45.12 | |
| Schutter | 1:45.76 | 1:45.44 | 1:45.15 | 1:45.55 | |
| Jeep Cherokee (4WD) | overall average 1:46.16 | ||||
| Flegel | 1:46.85 | 1:46.43 | 1:45.87 | 1:45.08 | |
| Clark | 1:45.26 | 1:45.18 | 1:45.98 | 1:45.77 | |
| Wilson | 1:46.24 | 1:45.40 | 1:46.75 | 1:46.91 | |
| Schutter | 1:46.90 | 1:46.45 | 1:46.99 | 1:46.51 | |
| Ford Crown Victoria NGV | overall average 1:49.18 | ||||
| Flegel | 1:48.59 | 1:48.29 | 1:49.09 | 1:48.98 | |
| Clark | 1:49.07 | 1:49.51 | 1:49.63 | 1:49.05 | |
| Wilson | 1:48.99 | 1:49.43 | 1:49.96 | 1:49.52 | |
| Schutter | 1:49.97 | 1:50.32 | 1:50.11 | 1:50.68 | |
| AM General Hummer | overall average 2:00.97 | ||||
| Flegel | 2:00.59 | 2:00.79 | 2:00.93 | 2:00.47 | |
| Clark | 2:01.63 | 2:01.00 | 2:00.97 | 2:01.25 | |
| Wilson | 2:00.89 | 2:01.54 | 2:01.33 | 2:00.20 | |
| Schutter | 2:02.16 | 2:02.56 | 2:02.30 | 2:02.06 | |
The Hummer’s laps are the most consistent set on the page — every one of its sixteen falls inside a 2.36-second window, from 2:00.20 to 2:02.56. There is nothing to explore in a vehicle with no performance margin; all four drivers simply drove it flat and got the same answer. Compare the Camaros, where the spread between the quickest and slowest lap is over four seconds because there was something to find.
What went wrong during testing — the report’s own disclosures
The Impala stalled. The engine cut out during one of the acceleration series. The driver returned to the pits; Chevrolet personnel and MSP staff between them could not determine what had caused it. The series was rerun without further trouble, and the rerun figures are the ones published.
Ford asked for the Explorer to be tested in “drive.” The report grants the request and then notes plainly that this is contrary to the vehicle manual’s own recommendation of running in overdrive during pursuit applications.
The Jeeps were driven in “3” rather than overdrive, and the 6-speed Camaro made its top-speed run in fifth gear.
AutoBid was unavailable. The fleet-selection software built on these test results was undergoing major revisions and was not released for the 2001 model year — the first gap since it appeared in the late eighties as an MS-DOS program shipped free to any agency that wrote in on letterhead. The report says a new version was expected for 2002.
Ergonomics, communications and fuel
| Vehicle | Ergonomics & communications | EPA city (mpg) |
|---|---|---|
| Chevrolet Impala | 213.58 | 19.5 |
| Ford Police Interceptor | 211.28 | 15.8 |
| Chevrolet Impala 9C3 (unmarked) | 209.55 | 19.5 |
| Ford Crown Victoria NGV | 208.37 | 15.0 |
| Jeep Cherokee | 180.47 | 15.6 (2WD) / 15.0 (4WD) |
| Chevrolet Camaro | 160.87 | 16.6 (auto) / 18.4 (6-speed) |
| AM General Hummer | 144.43 | 9.0 |
Gold row: the Impala tops the ergonomics table again, by 2.30 points over the Police Interceptor — a narrower margin than the 0.17 of the previous year but the same result, and it does it while returning nearly four more miles per gallon in the city. The unmarked 9C3 Impala, scored separately, lands third.
The Hummer’s line-by-line scores are the most brutal in the archive. It took 3.20 out of ten for left-rear-quarter visibility, 3.40 for the rear window, 3.60 for ease of entry and exit and 3.70 for the outside mirror controls. Its 9 mpg city figure carries its own footnote: as a Class III vehicle it is not tested to the normal EPA requirement, so no combined figure exists.
Two things this book settles
“Doc” Halliday. The acknowledgments list the vehicle test team member by his full name and nickname — Sgt. David “Doc” Halliday — which ties the Sgt. David Halliday named as program contact in the 1999 report to the Halliday credited in the modern Michigan test books. Same man, one long career in the Precision Driving Unit.
The program’s own start date. This preface calls 2001 the 25th year of conducting the tests; the 1999 report called that year the 23rd, and the 1996 report called itself the 20th annual evaluation. All three count back to a first evaluation covering the 1977 model year. The oldest book in this archive settles it: the 1980 report’s preface states that the programme “was developed in 1976 by the Policy Development and Evaluation Section of the Michigan Department of State Police, in cooperation with the Purchasing Division of the Michigan Department of Management and Budget” — written three years after the fact, and agreeing with all three later books. The NIJ’s “every fall since 1975” is the outlier and, on this evidence, wrong.
The same sentence carries a second founding fact: the programme was built jointly with the state’s purchasing division, not by the police alone. That is where the bid adjustment comes from, and why these are procurement documents rather than road tests.
What 2001 settled
The program moved to a proper road course, and in doing so drew a line under the era every earlier page in this archive belongs to. Grattan Raceway is two miles of hills and corners rather than an oval’s infield, and from this year the lap times measure something different. Anyone comparing a 1:36 here with a 1:20 from 1998 is comparing two different tests.
The other thing 2001 settled, it settled by accident. An AM General Hummer was entered in the police category and needed 18.55 seconds to reach 60 mph, ran out of breath before 90, lapped twenty-four seconds off the pace and scored the lowest ergonomics total ever recorded. Nothing about the result was close. But the exercise was still worth doing, because Michigan’s whole method rests on measuring what a manufacturer claims rather than arguing about it — and the numbers on this page are the reason nobody had to.