The ex-cop car will be cool again Posted 2010/04/04 @ 10:00 PM By Myles Kornblatt
No ex-cop car will ever be as cool as the Blues Brothers’ Bluesmobile, but we’re about to start seeing some cars that will get close.
Right now decommissioned police sedans aren’t a particularly hot auction item. Most of these are Ford Crown Victorias, and they are not much fun. Sure they have a big V8 engine and an upgraded suspension, but the Crown Vic just isn’t cool. The proof is in the auction bids where the ex-police SUVs (Tahoes and Expeditions) usually fetch a higher price after similar use. The problem for the Crown Victoria is that it is hard to have a good image when the majority of the other Vics out there are used as taxicabs and in retirement communities.
But now the Crown Vic is going away, and the whole market is changing.
The first sign of this change is already in play. Dodge has been providing police packages for its Charger since 2006. The first wave of these decommissioned cars are starting to hit the civilian auction blocks. Unlike the Crown Vic, the Charger has a much more youthful image, and many of these ex-police cars have the desirable 5.7-liter Hemi V8.
Chevrolet is coming back to the rear-wheel drive cop car game next year by bringing over a new Caprice from Australia. While the last Caprice suffered from the same image problems as the Crown Vic, this time it will be different. General Motors is only importing the Caprice as a police car, so there will be no consumer sales until these cars are decommissioned and go to auction. Plus since this will be a close cousin to the recently departed Pontiac G8 GT (the Caprice rides on a lengthened wheelbase of the G8’s platform and they both use the 6.0-liter V8 engine,) it should be a decent car to drive. The bottom line is the Caprice PPV will be a 355 hp (optional) large sedan that is only available through very specific channels -- the perfect recipe for an instant classic.
Then there is the dark horse in this race, the Carbon Motors E7. Carbon has been showing off its purpose-built police car for a few years. It is easily the meanest looking car of the bunch, and since Carbon wants to buy back any worn-out cruisers, the E7 is the least likely vehicle to fall into private hands.
The reality is a small company like Carbon will have a lot of challenges keeping control of its cars. It will take a lot of manpower and logistics to not only keep track of every municipality that purchased cars, but also the difficulty of running a used parts network for bought-back cars. Another problem will likely be keeping enough capital on hand at all times to buy back the cars. This all leads to at least a few cars that will inevitably escape Carbon’s net, which will make each car a likely collector’s item (even if it only comes with a 3.0-liter diesel engine.)
There are still many other cop car packages out there such as the one Ford is preparing for the Taurus or the one Chevrolet offers for the Impala. But the bread-and-butter rear-wheel drive cop cruiser market is about to heat up. Resale value has always been an issue when police organizations look at purchasing a fleet of vehicles, but possibly for the first time, this calculation will include the expected strong market demand.
Now all I have to do is get the band back together.
