Chicago Places Order For 500 New Ford Police Interceptors

[Moby Vic]

Originally Posted by jpd80

Thanks for your positive comments Moby Vic,
I can understand that this is a watershed moment for North American police departments who hold
the Crown Victoria in high regard, it was a vehicle that started out as a regular production large Ford
but ended up being tailored to police needs and became their dependable and robust "office".
No wonder that Ford continued forward selling as many CVs as PDs would take right up to the end,
that was a brilliant move IMO, that shut the door on competitors and gave Ford the gap they needed to
establish the new PI sedan and Ute.

That's not quite right. The Crown Vic became the nation's police car mostly by default.

When the downsized 1979 LTD was introduced (the first of the Panther chassis), it was Ford's new full-size car, yet it was smaller than the midsize LTD II (which hadn't been downsized, and was soon replaced by the Fairmont). It was offered as a police vehicle then.

Ford was the first US manufacturer to offer a dedicated police vehicle, starting in the 1950 model year. The fullsize Ford was offered as a police vehicle pretty much every year after that. Prior to that, even dating back to the Model T days, Fords were popular as police cars. At first this was because they were cheap, but when the V8 was introduced for 1932 it was because they were cheap and had excellent performance.

Back to the Crown Vic, though, in the '80s Chrysler had popular police cars in the Diplomat and Gran Fury. The Chevy Caprice was also popular. The Mopars died off in 1988, I think.

Ford and Chevy ran neck and neck until the LT1 Caprices debuted for 1994. From 1994 through 1996 the Chevy Caprice was popular, especially with highway patrol agencies. Many police still consider the 1996 LT1 Caprice the best police car ever built.

But Chevrolet decided the profit was in trucks, and killed the Caprice to expand truck production. So for the 1997 model year, Ford was the only game in town for a RWD police sedan.

It wasn't until the Charger debuted (I can't remember the model year, but I'm thinking it was 2005) that Ford had any RWD competition. The Chargers were much more powerful than the Crown Vics, but have horrible visible and tiny trunks.