Crown Victoria named 'best cop car of all time'

Something I've always wondered -- you think Ford would've had enough sales from fleets/police only to justify keeping tooling/production lines for the CVPI/Panther platform.

Man I'd love a new panther Town Car.
 
The National Park Service used a lot of them.

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When I started in 1995, we had Caprice cars.
Then switched to CVPIs for about 15 years.
Ended my tour of duty with Chargers and Durangos.

- The Chevys were quick and moderately reliable, but handled poorly and rode like crap; that matters when you do 12 hour shifts.
- The Fords were like a piece of granite; impossible to break. Rode well; handled well. Slow, comparatively.
- The Chargers were quick and handled well, but had terrible vehicle quality issues and the infamous cam/follower issue, of which our department suffered several failures over the years. The Durangos were quick, didn't handle all that well (way too heavy), and still had all the joys of FCA quality failures.

I'll take a CVPI any day. Wasn't the fastest around the block, but was super reliable and didn't beat you up over 12 hour days.
 
I’ve been considering a police car for my next car. It definitely would be a Crown Victoria. I want one with the Virginia State Police paint scheme but they are hard to find because most people paint them and they haven’t had many of them in years. I ran into a state trooper at Advance Auto next to my work probably 6 months ago now and he was trying to locate a part for the last remaining Crown Victoria in the fleet at least for this division of the state. It was some sort of fitting. When they do pop up for sale here people want a mint for them. Hopefully I can find a low mileage reasonably priced one sometime. Prefer it to be local department but doesn’t have to be. Unfortunately I think the ideal police cars for the modern times though are the now discontinued Taurus because at least for around here they have them to where they can withstand a 70mph rear end crash. Whenever a car runs into it it’s like running into a solid chunk of steel that won’t deform and you are pretty much going to have a really bad day if your the car that runs into the cruiser because it will absolutely destroy your car and probably just leave a scratch on the cop car.
 
Legal Eagles said:
I do love the panther platform, but the Chevy Caprice was an awesome cop car... I might even say - better - than the Crown Vic?
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That one was rather oddball. It seemed way too big and way too round. Reminded me of "The Homer" car that Homer Simpson designed for his long lost brother's car company. The third generation was the perfect police vehicle. Here's a restored CHP Caprice Classic.

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I heard that the Australian-made (Holden, but rebadged as Chevy) Caprice from 2011-on was pretty good. I still see a few of them in active police service. I think the US version was only available for police sales, although I heard a few retired ones ended up in private hands.

An all-new Chevrolet Caprice Police Patrol Vehicle (PPV) will join the ranks of law enforcement departments across North America in 2011. It’s a modern, full-size, rear-drive sedan that will offer both V-8 and V-6 engines, as well as a host of specialized equipment and features.​
​
Chevrolet made the announcement at the annual International Association of Chiefs of Police convention, in Denver, Colorado. The Caprice PPV will be available for ordering next year and will hit the streets in early 2011.​
 
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