Northeast Ohio Police Add More Muscle To Cruiser Fleet

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Police agencies in Northeast Ohio switched in the last three years from mostly using the Ford Crown Victoria — a big, heavy car that typically gets poor gas mileage — to smaller, more powerful cars that manufacturers modified from their two-door muscle car counterparts.

After Ford stopped making the Crown Victoria Police Interceptor, which dominated police fleets for decades, car companies started updating their cruisers to model muscle cars, like the Dodge Charger. The Charger, which Fiat Chrysler bills as a four-door muscle car, is used by more than half of the area police agencies.

The Charger cruiser reaches 60 miles per hour about two seconds faster than the Crown Victoria, gets about four more miles to the gallon, and costs about $2,500 more than the 2008 Crown Victoria Interceptor, according to Motor Trend magazine.

Despite the better gas mileage, the newer cars are costlier at $700 and $3,300 more than the 2008 Crown Victoria. The Charger has capabilities of driving 102 miles per hour in a quarter-mile stretch and reaches 60 miles per hour in 5.6 seconds. The base model costs about $31,000. Other area agencies chose to replace its aging fleet with the Ford Police Interceptor, also a muscle-car type that some officials say provide more power than the Charger. The Interceptor is the fastest of the three new cruisers, reaching sixty miles per hour in 5.3 seconds. That cruiser’s base model costs about $29,000.

Michigan State Police testers found the 2014 base-model Chevy Caprice timed the fastest of the three cruisers during their annual evaluation. It took an hour and 36 minutes to get around a two-mile track 32 times. The Charger followed at one hour and 37 minutes, and the Ford Interceptor came in third at one hour and 38 minutes.

They also found the Charger gets the best gas mileage, with 27 miles to the gallon on highways. All three base models average eighteen miles to the gallon in city driving and the Police Interceptor and the Caprice get 26 miles to the gallon on highways, the state police report says. 

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