Dodge Charger Police Cruiser
I was over at a doctor's appointment in Rochester Hills, and I drove home through Auburn Hills near the Chrysler Tech Center and saw, with my very eyes...the Dodge Charger Auburn Hills Police Cruiser. The officer driving it was nice enough to let me take a couple of pictures...
UPDATE: (01/03/2006) - Allpar Forums has speed tests of the Charger with the 5.7 versus the Ford Crown Vic Police Interceptor...and the Charger blows it away! Check the speed trial results here.
UPDATE: (02/10/2006) - The NYPD will be purchasing 15 Charger Police Cruisers for a summer test to determine the efficacy of replacing their entire fleet! Talk about good news for DCX!
posted by Ray @ 5:49 PM
16 Comments:
Wow, nice. Good luck running from that. We have Mustangs up here on the Highway...
I love the new charger, wish I could afford one.
Some Mopar power!
I have such a love for cars... wonder if they'd let me drive it?
Sweet. We have crappy Impalas (too small) and the ubiquitous crown vic's.
We do have a tricked out Dodge Ram pickup but it's mostly for recruiting purposes. Oh well. Better to have a nice roomy SWAT van than a bunch of Chargers any day I suppose. Next fiscal year though!!
I wouldn't want that thing chasing me...
I used to work over there, and it was interesting to see that everytime a new vehicle came out, within a few weeks, it seemed like the Auburn Hills Police Department had said new vehicle in "cop edition".
I'm guessing they get kick-backs for policing the largest company in Auburn Hills.
I don't think Auburn Hills gets a "kick-back" per se...I think its more that they get "preferrential" pricing from DCX...AND the Auburn Hills PD buys the cars in a show of support for the fact that Chrysler pays a huge chunk of property taxes to the City...and there are probably quite a few DCX employees who now live in Auburn Hills.
Actually Jeremy...now your comment has me thinking...let me see if I can find a copy of the City of Auburn Hills budget.
So I did some digging...and found the following document:
http://www.auburnhills.org/departments/financedept/Approved%20Budgets/2004%20Proposed%20Budget.pdf
it looks like every year a new vehicle comes out...the City of Auburn Hills has an outlay for the new vehicle. For instance...in 2000, they have a capital outlay of $28,496 under "Vehicles". That makes sense...that would be the Dodge Intrepid Police Cruiser. And then in 2002, the city moved their "patrol" vehicles over to a "Fleet Management System" which seemed to be the trend with smaller municipalities. This is a system whereby the City rents/leases their patrol vehicles from a Fleet Management company, and they get X # of vehicles for Y $ every year.
Under this system, I guess that they choose which vehicles they want...and thus the new Magnum and Charger police cruisers.
Nice looking vehicle but it confirms what I once wrote: that it is less a Charger than a modern-day Coronet. Well, at least it isn’t based on an Omni this time.
My department is currently ordering two. One HEMI and one 6cyl. as test models. We currently have fords, but they are so unsafe with the fire threat that we can no longer continue to purchase them. In 2000 Ford released that there had had been more people killed/injured in gas tank explosions in the crown vic than in the pinto when it was taken off the market- yet they are still selling CV's. Charger also passes the 40mph offset crash test with flying colors; as good as the BMW 3's.
More excellent pictures and even video of these Charger Squad Cars at www.ryanpatrickdean.com/ChargerPolice.html
I found your website while searching for something else and decided to respond to some of the comments.
I am the Chief of Police for the City of Auburn Hills. We do not get "kick-backs" of any kind from any one including DCX. We DO participate in their Test Fleet, which means that they give us a small number of new police package models (4) and because of our proximity to their Tech Center we drive 'em and they evaluate how they stand up to police work. And FLEET Managment means a dept of the City that manages all fleet including DPW trucks, fire trucks, etc. We lease from the City. Police cars last about 2 or 2.5 yrs because we drive them 24/7/365 so we take them out of our fleet at about 80K miles. We do buy police fleet under state or county bids from DCX. They are our largest taxpayer so why wouldn't you expect us to purchase their cars at a municipal bid price?
Chief Olko
Thanks for the comments Chief! I totally agree with your lease arrangements. It makes a lot of sense. I think that all governments, whether local, state or national should be buying from their companies first.
I actually commend the City for doing the right thing to both keep the money you spend low and to buy from their biggest business.
Chief you may want to look into leasing more cars and having each officer assigned his own car as a take home car if you live so many miles from the city , thus reducing the milage per shift,and this would allow the cars to last more than 2 to 2.5 yrs more like 3 to 4 yrs saving city money. The officer's take better care of the cars and have more pride in their appearance. Another thing it allows you to see who is abusing the equipement.
take the charger and the vic over some curbs,through a field, over some speedbumps in a pursuit, see what comes out on the other end. a hulking, time-tested and still kicking vic, ready to chase down the next poor sucker... and a wobbly, overpowered phallic extension with 16'' tall windows that needs $8k of repairs to be suitable for the next run.
utility is far more important than speed in most cases.
If you love the Charger with the police package, I have a MY2006 available with under 7,000 miles.
email donnagymotors@gmail.com for additional information about this car.
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