28 August 2011

R.I.P. Crown Vic'


From the Cop side:  I just heard the sad news the other day.  It was very sad news.  Yeah, I know if you work in police work as long as I did you are going to hear a lot of bad news.  But to fully understand the magnitude of this loss you have to go back in time and see why I feel this way.  The loss I’m talking about is that Ford Motor Company has announced that they are going to stop make the Crown Victoria Police car. 

Yeah, I know they’ve said that a few times in the past, but I think they mean it this time.  And now you ask why would the CI Roller Dude be so upset over the loss of a car from the production lines in Detroit? 

Well, like I said, you have to go back in time and see some of the crap we had to drive as police cars.  When I started in 1979, the department I worked for had a small fleet of cars, so we used most of them 24 hours a day.  We had for the most part Chrysler products with large V8 engines.  These old cars still used carburetors and Chrysler over came the lack of power by making the engines really big.  I mean big ass engines compared to what we use today.  440 Cubic Inches!
Circ 1980s Dodge Diplomat POS

Then Detroit was forced to install lots of smog controls in the California cars and made the engines much smaller to save fuel.  So what the cops ended up with was a piece of shit for a patrol car.  The only way we won in pursuits was by good driving and the bad guy crashing.  Some of those shit cars had a top speed of 85 Miles Per Hour!

As the 1980’s moved along, the Chrysler patrol cars got worse and worse.  I remember getting on the highway going Code 3 to an emergency with my foot glued to the floor--- and getting passed by a transit bus.  Old VW beetles could out run our cars then. 

Then, in the early 1990’s Ford came up with a better patrol car.  Yeah, at first they still were not that great, but they were comfortable. 
Circa 1991 Ford Crown Vic



Then they got better and better.  I loved them.  They could go fast and handle well and they were comfortable enough to ride in for a 12 hour shift…and carry all the crap we needed in the trunk.  Fire extinguisher, first aid kits, flares, computer, body armor, entry tools and devices, spare paperwork, lunch, and whatever else you needed. 


Now, they are going to retire the Crown Vic.  Ford says it’s going to make the Taurus car into a cop car.  Well, good luck. 

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Sad news indeed. After a hundred years or so, you'd think that the American car companies would produce a car WE want to drive, instead of the ones THEY want us to drive. God knows the technology exists. Japan knows the technology exists, which is why it's still in the market. "Too Big To Fail" has forgotten how to compete.

CI-Roller Dude said...

I do know a bit about motor vehicles... I gave up on Made In America cars after years of buying Detroit products that failed. Ford, Dodge and GM--- all had major failures. Now I own Toyotas and have had zero problems.

Coffeypot said...

Toyota's make be a better car, but a Crown Vic IS a cop car. RIP, CV.

Anonymous said...

1. Anyone who prices reliability uses Japanese rolling stock.
2. The Japs steal good European designs and re-engineer them for improved reliability.
3. The greenies have gotten their agenda pretty well institutionalized.
4. Their smaller, more fuel efficient fleets aren't going to matter much, if my guess is correct.
5. Mr Obama's reelection will be a green event of another sort: a big green light to a bunch of bad actors.
6. When the the Iranians start blocking the Strait of Hormuz (and maybe the Shat el Mandeb through their Yemeni buddies), gas will go to 9 or 10 bucks a gallon.
7. Nobody will be driving much of anything.
8. Promise you, the contingency folks at the puzzle palace are sweating big bullets over that one.
9. Mr. Sunshine I am. And wondering how I can scare up 41k for a crappy Chevy Volt -just in case.
V/R JWest

el chupacabra said...

Taurus? Oh, good grief. Once the Carbon Motors E7 diesel gets ramped up it will shut everybody else down regardless.

I used to do ride alongs with cop buds in some bad areas. How bad you ask? Even though 2 officers would be assigned- they rode in different units to back each other up. It presented a better display of force and if one unit was disabled the other could push it out.

One unit was lead and would crash out cars they were chasing. They had a name I don't recall- crasher, smasher? etc. and that car would be pushed ahead of other units to take out guys who ran. They literally looked like demolition derby rejects.

The Crown Vics were loved like no other and kept way beyond normal service life.

CI-Roller Dude said...

CP, I actually e-mailed Toyota and suggested that they build a US Spec police car.

Mr West, and still so many people drive gas guzzlers in the US...and you can't trust crazy radicals anywhere to not screw up gas prices.

El C, so true. Even a Crown Vic with a 150,000 miles will still run strong if it was taken care of... the trick is doing regular maint and keeping the danm oil full.

anon said...

Might want to go back to horses? I think chariots are really cool too : )