Cop cars' last generation

LAKELAND — It'll have a “cop motor … cop tires, cop suspension and cop shocks,” but unlike Elwood Blues' superpowered “Bluesmobile,” the police cruiser of the next decade is not likely to be an American sedan.

It's hard not to notice American cop cars are increasingly cop SUVs as U.S. manufacturers drop four-door, mid- and full-size sedans from their lineups. Ford will end production of its Taurus-based Interceptor Sedan in March and Chevrolet discontinued the Caprice in 2017.

In the coming years, there may not even be an American-made sedan for manufacturers to equip with police packages, said Lakeland Fleet Manager Gary McLean. He expects Dodge will drop its Charger police sedan eventually and go all in on its Durango patrol vehicle, an SUV. Dodge has not confirmed this shift, but it remains a hot topic within municipal fleet circles.

And though the heavy, steady American cop car — once a V8-motivated, rear-wheel drive road warrior — has left behind its big power plant and rear differential over the last two decades, the across-the-board switch to truck-like patrol and pursuit vehicles signals the end of an era.

Francis Hart, the fleet supervisor for the Polk County Sheriff's Office, said the world has changed and cop cars are changing with it.

"When you look back at the old big hunks of metal we had and the big motors, it was good for then. Now, we don't have use for a motor that big.”

Now, he said, there are more people, denser traffic, “and the old days of rompin' it and rollin' it are over.”

“The green is the thing, now,” he said. That is, both the environment and the dollar.

Police departments across the country seem to be supporting the shift, with 80 percent of Ford's police fleet sales last year coming from the Police Interceptor Utility, an Explorer-based SUV, according to the industry publication Government Fleet Magazine.

“They love the (Ford Interceptor) Utility, and they love the (Chevy) Tahoes, as well,” McLean said. “We know it's a good police package, a good platform for the police to operate out of, but we have bills to pay and we have to answer to our budget.”

The taller, roomier vehicles are popular with Lakeland's cops, McLean said, but for a division that maintains 208 marked police vehicles — about 250 police vehicles in total — the higher cost is something to notice.

Currently, an equipped, marked police car costs the city about $42,000; the SUVs are about $5,000 more, and McLean expects the prices to go up. That's why he recently recommended to the City Commission to purchase 16 new vehicles ahead of the replacement schedule at a price of $47,500 each. The move saved the city about $80,000, he said, based on available advanced pricing information.

“We're not looking forward to the future,” McLean said, adding that the market for cop cars is in a bit of a turbulent period as the major manufacturers are changing their offerings.

At one point, the Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor, a V8-powered land yacht, had reigned as the iconic American police cruiser in every corner of the country until it was discontinued in 2011.

“We all loved the Crown Vic, we wish they still made them,” Lakeland Police Chief Ruben Garcia said. “That was as much of police culture as the radio, or the shield or a firearm.”

But the SUVs have been successful, he added. “They're pretty durable,” Garcia said, which is a strong selling point when maintenance is coming out of your budget and backup cars represent a real cost. “At minimum these things roll for 12 hours.”

Further, the SUVs give officers a bit more wiggle room within their rolling offices. Cops now carry a lot more equipment than they used to, Garcia said, and body armor makes things even more cramped.

Still, “I never would have seen us having this number of SUVs 10 years ago,” Garcia said. Before, the SUVs would be saved for special units like K9s.

“The current Taurus and Chargers — it's hard to put two people in it with all the gear in it,” Garcia added. “The SUVs afford a little more comfort and safety.”

Further changes may emerge in the coming years, if not with the SUV form factor, but with the motors.

Ford is keeping a Taurus-based police sedan in the lineup, a hybrid gas and electric version, but Garcia said it's not likely he'd recommend Lakeland becoming an early adopter until the big agencies across the country add their stamps of approval.

But in tight municipal budgets, some departments have taken the plunge into more untested waters — forgoing the spendy police packages entirely for in-house add-ons, or in at least one department, by looking to foreign manufacturers.

The lack of dedicated police packages by Japanese and Korean manufacturers would give Lakeland pause, McLean said, but some departments have different standards.

Arkadelphia, Arkansas, a town of about 11,000 people, made auto press headlines when it purchased the first of its hybrid-powered Toyota Camrys in 2010 to replace an aging fleet of Crown Vics. Initial skepticism gave way to support, according to a number of auto press reports and a short documentary about the shift, and the city completed the transition by 2016.

As for Lakeland, “we'll look at it downrange,” Garcia said. “We don't always want to be the ones to test the technology. That gets expensive.”

Deputies in Dodge sedans hold out

Polk County primarily runs the Dodge Charger — the last standard gasoline engine sedan in the Big Three American manufacturers' police lineups — and will as long as it can, said Hart, the Sheriff's Office fleet manager, but he sees the dominance of the police SUV coming.

The Polk County Sheriff's Office maintains between 600 and 700 vehicles in the “pursuit” category, Hart said.

“It's a lot of vehicles and a lot of hard-use vehicles,” Hart said. "The Chargers proved to be a good platform for us.”

The sheriff has made affordability a priority, he added, and each Dodge Charger costs about $27,000 to equip and put on the road. They lack the expensive video systems Lakeland equips in its cruisers, significantly cutting cost.

When the department was evaluating vehicles in 2016, it came down to the offerings of Chevy and Dodge, and the department went with Dodge because of the better cabin room, Hart said. And it ended up being a good choice, too, because Chevy stopped building the Caprice patrol car soon after.

That was another wind indicator, he said. And while Hart doesn't get sentimental about the end of the police sedan, he doesn't look forward to the price jump.

"I was really shocked the Big Three are going to get out of the big sedan business," he said.

“I think manufacturers are going to push us into SUVs and hybrids and it's going to be a big increase in the cost of business,” he added.

And though the department has shown itself willing to adopt some rare fueling technology — many Polk County cruisers have been equipped to run on propane — he's still reluctant on electric and hybrid-electric models.

For an agency that runs between 1 million and 1.2 million miles each month, fuel costs are a big concern, but so is reliability and the cost of maintenance, he said.

“There's a lot of promises made on those, but I'm with Ruben (Garcia),” Hart said. “I think I'd like to sit back and wait a while.”

Allison Guinn can be reached at 863-802-7592 or aguinn@theledger.com.