And, golly, is it a touching scene. The Richmond (Indiana) Palladium-Item reports that the small town of Connersville is tooling up its effort to become the future home of Carbon Motors, makers of the E7 purpose-built police car. “A crowd estimated at 1,000 people attended a community prayer service Sunday night at Spartan Bowl, praying the 1,350 jobs Carbon Motors could generate will come here,” reports the P-I. Paging Norman Rockwell!
Connersville is competing for the Carbon Motors contract with Braselton/Pooler in Georgia; Plymouth, Michigan.; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Greenville/Spartanburg in South Carolina. Carbon’s investment would likely reach $350 million and could directly and inderectly add as many as 10,000 new jobs to the local economy. In the video above, Connersville mayor, Leonard Urban, explains why he thinks Carbon will become a profitable business. “After being mayor for about 15 months,” he says, “I’ve learned that police and fire get just about anything they want.” Post-9/11 and Katrina, he explains, federal money has flooded into local police and fire budgets. Urban and Carbon figure much of that money could go towards more efficient, purpose-built cop cars.
Two thoughts. First, as much as I would love to see an Indiana-headquarted auto company again (none since Studebaker closed in 1963, and Auburn-Cord-Dusenberg failed to make it through the depression), I cannot imagine why any start-up manufacturing company would want to venture into UAW territory. Connersville has had a long Ford presence that was eventually spun off into Visteon.
Second, this effort sounds doomed from the start. Checker could not make it with taxis. They never had a new model after about 1958, even though they soldiered on into the early 1980s. Is this “purpose-built police car” going to be really that much better than Old Vic that will cost about 1/4 of what the new one will probably sell for? Just asking.
I agree. They just don’t have that kind of scale. How are they going to beat a Fusion Hybrid?
The only way they could possibly succeed is to stay away from the UAW, preferably in a right to work state.
wsn,
Police car. Not meter maid car.
Will the parts be delivered via a Wells Fargo wagon and assembled using the “think system”?
jpcavanaugh : Is this “purpose-built police car” going to be really that much better than Old Vic that will cost about 1/4 of what the new one will probably sell for? Just asking.
Carbon hasn’t released pricing yet, but I gathered it’s about 50% more than a pre-wired CVPI with none of the aftermarket stuff. Considering how tight local/state budgets are and will be in the future, I wouldn’t hold my breath on Carbon.
It’ll be way more cost effective to reuse the cop add-ons from an old CVPI into a new one. No matter how much better the Carbon performs, who actually wants to use their tax money to pay for the premium?
It looks like they a modern Tucker targeted at the Cop Market.
It is easy to create a paper tiger of a company. Put up a website with some nice photoshops images, create a one off prototype, pump out the Press Releases and Viola! you are a car company.
Tesla at least has the benefit of technophile millionaires who are willing to tolerate delays and price hikes.
Assuming for a minute that Satan is Providing Sleigh Rides and they actually get this thing into production Ford could crush them like Capt. Drago in Rocky 4. For a relatively modest engineering investment they could hybridize the drive train in the existing P71.
I thought Carbon was dead from the last time I checked out their website. I wonder what happen to the manufacturing plant that was “underway” outside of Atlanta with the city in full support. Pooler is my bet if this project gets anywhere unless they have shifted their engineering to get off the shelf parts from Ford or someone else.
RedStapler According to their website Ford was in ful support of the project, no money just happy they would take the cop car burden off their hands. I’m not sure how true that really is, BUT Ford is(according to them) providing powertrains so they would be getting something out of it.
They might have a chance if they can be price competative with the full integrated police package but they still have a long road ahead of them. Price isn’t the only challenge, police departments would have to maintain something completely new and be trained to fix it and keep it running. And if it sucks up departments maintence budget with expensive parts and down time they will die a quick death.
The location may not be as dumb as some think. There’s going to be a lot more unemployed autoworkers in the very near future.
Carbon’s betting that the police Charger and Crown Victoria options will die soon and they can get a few big contracts. They’ve been developing the car with several large agencies, and if they can get a fleet in New York, Chicago, or L.A. changed over, they’ll have a fighting chance.
Or, Ford will decide that routinely announcing the demise of the Crown Vic is a bad business practice and crush them like Capt. Drago in Rocky 4. :)
Hippo :
May 6th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Police car. Not meter maid car.
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The hybrid Fusion will make a better police car or meter maid car or “insert your type of car here” than what this new company can offer.
From everything I’ve read, they are aiming at a price point close to those of the Crown Vics and Chargers, but the cars should last longer and have better mileage and performance. The fact that they are purpose-built (with input from cops) means there are fewer compromises. I hope they succeed and would like to see them around here (but not behind me).
The hybrid Fusion will make a better police car or meter maid car or “insert your type of car here” than what this new company can offer.
A front wheel drive car like the Fusion will make a pretty good meter maid car, very much like the Impala, but front wheel drive cars still make crappy cop cars. Unless you like buying CV joints in 6-packs.
I always thought a purpose-built LE ride would be a good idea for a (healthy) automaker to pursue. Its a lucrative niche market that along with VIP limos for El Presidente, etc. could be based on a single heavy-duty sedan platform.
Some of the features on this car sound somewhat contrived though based on their website. The thing can somehow detect dangerous biological and radiological signatures? That’s kind of a broad statement.
I kinda get why they’re in Indiana with the potential of the UAW getting all up in their crawlspace though. These guys aren’t trying to sell cars to normal buyers, they’re trying to sell cars to the government…almost makes you want the UAW on your side.
Current Federal regime loves the UAW, look at the Chrysler deal and Government Motors. Uncle Sam’s loan from Uncle Mao is going to fund tons of fuzzmobiles for the locals, I wonder what percentage of cop cars at this point are purchased in some way with Federal grants? Even seriously crazy rides like old M113 APC’s – still with .50 cal – are being bought with Federal grant money for local cop shop’s SWAT teams. Some UAW-on-factory action makes sense in that context.
Isn’t there a law stating that any domestic manufacturer opening a plant in the US has to be unionized? It’s the foreign manufacturers that aren’t shackled by unions.
The UAW might want you to think that, but there’s no such law.