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1. what? no six? at all?
2. Rear roof line has the same problems as the Charger.
3. Will be rejected by fleet managers and patrolmen for the same reason the Charger was: It is not a P71.
Interesting to see what price point they are going for. With city budgets strapped for cash (and talk of California being the first “Failed State”), I think the General will have a hard time competing with the P71 pricewise. Most of its tooling costs were likely written off cirka 1998! That leaves Ford with most of the cost associated with building the CV as variable cost, meaning they can probably slash their prices way below GM, and still make a buck or two.
The Coprice arrives just as the P71 CVPI goes out of production. The competion: Tahoe, the D3 Taurus, and the Charger, assuming Dodge is still around then.
This is GM’s first opportunity in a long, long, timeto do something right for a change. Please, PLEASE, don’t %^$# it up!
Unlike P71s and previous 9c1s, I don’t see these becoming taxis in their second life. Usually ex cop cars can be picked up for a song, I wonder how these will be on the used market?
+1 on the v6
It will be interesting to see how this stacks up against Carbon Motors’ product.
At 1:35 the movie says it will be available “eventually” with a V6. That’s what NYPD would order…
Well the Australian base vehicle (WM Statesman/Caprice) is available with a 195kW 3.6L V6 and the smaller wheelbase VE Commodore (upon which that is based) has just had it’s 3.6L V6 upgraded to direct injection and 210kW with a 3.0L V6 190kW option now made available. I imagine the new 3.6L will make it in the WM too shortly.
Edit: Wiki tells me these latter two are the same engines offered in the 2010 Buick LaCrose
Best of luck to Chevy. The police have been waiting for a new rwd Caprice since the last one was discontinued in 1996.
If Ford moved the Crown Vic tooling to Mexico, they could produce this car indefinitely at an even lower cost. It would be very difficult for Chevy to compete on price since their car is imported from Australia and they are likely still paying off the development costs.
The P71 is being discontinued, so it is no longer a factor.
The Charger looks poised to take over the Vic’s market, they are everywhere here in Arizona and well established in the civilian market.
That is unless the launch of the redesigned Charger is badly delayed due to the parts dispute or if Chrysler goes belly up again.
GM could take a huge bite out of the market with this car. Not only because it’s an excellent car for this application but also because of the memories of the last RWD Caprice and it’s brand name (one GM hasn’t managed to tarnish beyond saving).
Nice car! no interior pic? I love police car…
Is there a time line for the elimination of the P71? I know Ford had intended to stop production of the Ranger and close the St. Paul factory but demand never dropped low enough and Ford has continued to delay the elimination.
I have a hard time believing that Ford will not continue producing the P71 as long as it is profitable to them. But then again, didn’t they recently say that Canadian labor costs were their highest?
I’m sure Officer Hernandez doesn’t appreciate his first name being spelled incorrectly.
Just like how the Panther platform was slated for cancellation back in the mid 90s until Ford caught wind of the imminent demise of the B-Body, I predict that miraculously the P71 will live on, either from an eleventh-hour reprieve of STAP or like an earlier commentator mentioned, Hecho en Mexico.
It will get the necessary upgrades like the 3V 4.6L to keep it barely competitive with the 6.0L Caprice.
Typical GM shortsightedness, they would sell these, I believe, in strong numbers to the general public as a civilian model. That just makes too much sense; oh yeah, I forgot, Fritz isn’t much on rebadging.
The police have been waiting for a new rwd Caprice since the last one was discontinued in 1996.
Yes, but this is not neccessarily the car they’re asking for. If it’s anything like the Charger, the mechanicals (especially the suspension) aren’t as ox-cart robust as the CV or prior Caprice. The roofline and seats are likely pretty cramped, too.
Were I a police department, I would be thinking long and hard about picking up an orphaned platform that’s being hocked in North America by a company whose strategic vision horizon is six weeks just to keep an Australian production line humming. Even if the CV is discontinued, the support for it will likely be stronger than this car will ever be.
If Ford moved the Crown Vic tooling to Mexico, they could produce this car indefinitely at an even lower cost. It would be very difficult for Chevy to compete on price since their car is imported from Australia and they are likely still paying off the development costs.
There’s no point to moving the CV’s production: the cost to reengineer the plant would dwarf the meagre profits Ford makes from the platform.
The Charger looks poised to take over the Vic’s market, they are everywhere here in Arizona and well established in the civilian market.
Police fleet managers in North America really are spoiled: they’ve basically had two or three incredibly crude cars to pick from for a very, very long time. I think that era is coming to an end as the development cycle for fleet darlings no longer makes financial sense. You don’t see many Checkers anymore for this reason.
Back when you could leverage the civilian market and development cycles were long, it was easy to keep cars like this around and make money on them. If Ford, who has (had?) a lock on this market can’t make money on what has to be the lowest-cost platform outside of the Tata Nano and is giving up, I’d be very suspicious of what GM or Chrysler (or one of the purpose-built platforms) can commit to. I think the next decade will be very painful for fleet managers; they’ll have to think, commit and take risks, and that at the end of it all you’ll see far more heterogenous fleets (a la Europe) and a significant change in rank-and-file police behaviour on the roads as they adjust to not being able to PIT or curb-hop any more.
This car is a non-starter. Good as it might be, it’s not going to make GM any money, and I’d expect it to disappear in a year as corporate ADHD exacts it’s yearly toll.
Time to memorize a new headlight pattern.
Hahaha…. Jeff Puthuff +1
I’m really interested in seeing one of these bad boys in real life: Carbon Motors only builds cop cars.
http://www.carbonmotors.com/
Good looking car. I’d consider a civilian version. Our local police all use V-6 powered cars unless they have a Crown Vic.
OK, obvious question: if they’re bothering to import the car, why not sell civilian versions? A high-performance big car would be a nice niche for Chevy right now.
Several things:
Firstly, WHY are ford phasing out the Crown Vic? I mean police forces around North America are using them and will undoubtably continue to buy them if they are produced.
Secondly, if Ford are phasing out producing the Crown Vic – WHY not replace it with something else? WHY hand over a large market segment to Nationalised GM?
Thirdly, I guess this would make a good replacement for a Crown Vic, but does it have a body on frame construction like the CV? If not it’ll cost a f*ck load to repair every time cops have to use their cars in any ‘serious’ way.
*Edit*
This Carbon Motors Corporation car may give the chevvy a run for its money:
“The Carbon E7 has received overwhelming praise from law enforcement agencies at the local, state, and federal level represented by almost 300 agencies placing production slot reservations for over 11,000 vehicles.”
My neighbor is a state trooper who runs an unmarked Charger and he hates the thing. He said the Crown Vic he had before the Charger was 100 times better all around. He had an Impala before the CV and ranks the cars CV, Impala, Charger. I guess if you live in a car 8 hours a day it doesn’t take long to figure out which of those you have driven over the past few years is the best.
@psarhjinian – the Caprice is significantly bigger in every direction than a Crown Vic. It’s a LWB car with about a meter of rear leg room (about three feet between the squab of the cushy seats that would likely be ripped out for a smaller and safer easy hose out back seat with no seams). That would still leave heaps of room for barriers and so on AND have room for folks in the backseat. I’ve been in the back seat of a Crown Vic taxi many times and that’s positively cramped compared to even the short wheelbase version of this car.
The car is HUGE. It has huge comfy seats, easily able to cope with my 150 kg body (and thus would cope with both tall and “stout” cop frames). I think you’ll like it if you get to try one.
Unlike most sedans which have frankly hilarious trunks, this is a true five or six body boot, more if they’re dead. You’ll be able to get a lot of stuff in there.
The suspension is designed to cope with atrocious Australian roads. The only roads I found in the US as bad as our *standard* roads were upstate NY roads with potholes that were roughly car sized. Your roads are track smooth compared to ours. There is no doubt in my mind that the suspension in this car, besides being IRS and actually able to keep up with WRXs and MX-5s around bends, would stand up to the sort of abuse you see in Cops and World’s Worst Drivers.
Lastly, the SWB version of this car makes up ~ 100% of all Australian police cars (not divvy vans though – they’re typically Falcon utes with a custom prisoner enclosure). They have a special suspension pack (FE1.5) and calibrated speedo (you can tell if you’re doing 97 or 98 km/h without squinting), amongst many other changes, like dash space for laptops and police equipment. Holden know how to make a police pack.
For anything that doesn’t require serious off roading (and even then, it’s used widely out in the bush), this car is a much better choice than a SUV.
Andrew
Be interesting if this coaxes Ford into doing that long overdue parts bin update of the CV and extending it through CAFE in 2016, but I am not holding my breath.
Only way I can see then making money on this by offering retail also, if they can the ancient WImpala and market this as their NA RWD Impala and leave most of the old W-body sales for the new Malibu. As it stands right now the new Malibu is actually hurt by the WImpala since it directly competes with it, and the ancient WImpala offers more car for less money between those two.
Purchasing agents consider a number of factors other than price. It is true that Ford could cut the price of the P71 and still make some $$$. And purchasing agents would consider MPG, tire and part replacement costs, ease of repair and other factors before dropping the P71s for an unknown quantity.
What other factors? Where I live, Chevy police packages are despised by the rank and file because they and their duty belts cannot get comfortable in them. Downtime is also a consideration. The rank and file absolutely drive the **** out of the Chevys to get them out of service ASAP.
However, they like the Fords.
Also, I have heard from sources that the Chrysler products are simply not reliable as police vehicles. I would bet that the Chevys and Chryslers have more downtime than the Fords. This is an expense because another vehicle must replace them. Moreover, I can assure you that Fords, with the space underhood and underneath, can be worked on easily, except for the sparkplugs closest to the firewall.
There’s another factor–marketing. I believe that there is a halo effect around each P71 the public sees on the road. A marked P71 leaves an impression in the minds of motorists. “If the police buy those cars, they must be tough.” On the other hand, it is true that a certain segment buys only on appearances. Nothing Ford can do to the Panther will grab those people as customers.
Ford seem to be one of those companies that got rid of the deadwood and actually has intelligent management. Suppose the P71 abandonment story is just a ploy? GM and Chry. will pour billions into developing a new cop car, Ford will throw a new front clip onto the P71, drop the price, and keep the market.