Capsule Review: Ford Police Interceptor

Derek Kreindler
by Derek Kreindler

Unlike most of the TTAC community, I am something of a Panther agnostic. To me, the venerable rear-drive Ford sedans are like cigarette ads in back issues of Car and Driver – a quaint relic of an era where “Occupy” was something you saw on the door of an airplane bathroom – because the Occupant was trying to suck down a Camel Light .

One generation above me may have fond memories of big, rear-drive V8 sedans with acres of rear leg room and questionable crash safety. For my cohort, the Pavolovian response that comes from the “doors open” warning chime is forever liked to another Ford fleet sedan – the Taurus- as well as the green-on-tan two-tone Explorer Eddie Bauer, chariot of choice for Baby Boomer “co-parents”. For that generation in need of a family car, The Taurus Wagon was an afterthought, since wagons carried with them the connotations of unhappy childhoods in parochial small towns devoid of health food stores, aerobics classes and people willing to engage in knee-jerk rejection of traditional values. Instead, the SUV was a clean sheet of paper, and it suggested that one was wealthy enough to have some kind of summer home that could only be accessed via the all-terrain prowess of the SUV, while wearing Eddie Bauer clothing.

What does my pseudo-sociological digression have to do with police cars? Not much. But I am going into this with an open mind. I’m not particularly wedded to the idea that a police car must be rear-drive, with body-on-frame construction and a V8 engine. I can confess that I’ve always wanted to drive at speed with lights and sirens blaring, and when Ford invited me to do just that, I accepted immediately.

Ford made two Police Interceptors available, a Taurus-based Police Interceptor and an Explorer-based Utility Interceptor. Both had all-wheel drive and the naturally aspirated V6 – the EcoBoost 3.5L engines were nowhere to be found. It ended up being a moot point, since we were only permitted to drive it on a cone-course “handling loop” in a medium-size parking lot. No driving on real roads, no putting it through our own paces.

Showing off the capabilities of the D3 platform on a mini-autocross is about as useful as letting Adele compete for Britain’s floor exercise squad, and even then, the slow speeds and sweeping corners made it difficult to glean much about the cars. Both felt relatively stable, with the Utility Interceptor feeling pretty well composed in light of its vehicular anti-Christ crossover nature. Steering on both cars felt fairly numb, likely a boon on the highway. Ultimately, this event is a carefully controlled way to give us a few thrills without revealing too much about the cars. There are PR and law enforcement types on hand, but a critical appraisal of the new PIs is going to happen right after a historic peace accord surfaces in the Middle East.

The most noticeable changes came just from sitting in the cars themselves. Even at 5’10 and 175 lbs, the civilian Taurus feels uncomfortable and cramped when sitting in the driver’s seat. The Police Interceptor does away with console-mounted gear lever and the absurdly high plastic console pieces that make knee and legroom as scarce as Manhattan real-estate. The cloth seats, with far less padding and bulk than the regular Taurus, free up plenty of room for our nation’s Finest to stretch out, or accommodate larger-sized bodies. If the civilian Taurus came with this configuration, complaints about a lack of space would evaporate, though asinine criticisms about a column shifter would likely deafen out the real world advantages of this setup. The real test would have been to requisition a Kevlar vest and gun belt, but nobody in the right mind was willing to lend me one for “evaluation purposes”, lest I take my “pretend cop” act a little too far.

The big problem with press events like this is that evaluating the car in such a specific environment really tells us little about the car. I decided to consult with resident Panther expert Sajeev Mehta for some additional (admittedly biased) context. Sajeev felt that the Tahoe, rather than the new generation PI, Charger or Caprice would end up becoming the next police vehicle, due to its simplicity and size. I think Sajeev is partially right – I suspect that the Utility Interceptor will find favor among a number of departments – and the California Highway Patrol is apparently one of them. The Taurus will likely make a fine detective’s car, but as Sajeev notes, “…In any place where pickup trucks are common (fly over states) there’s no f*****g chance this water’d down Volvo will ever catch them, when a nut is behind the wheel.” Chicago’s Police Department is buying a number of new Ford PI’s – coincidentally, this is where Ford is building the new PI – while some Canadian departments are buying them as well, ostensibly due to the AWD capabilities among other criteria.

Any law-enforcement readers of TTAC are invited to send in their thoughts to expand on my brief, stage-managed drive of the new Ford Interceptors. As far as I can tell, the Utility Interceptor might make a nice basic SUV in a few years, once they begin to be retired from police departments. But take a step back, and so far it looks like the void being left by the Crown Victoria hasn’t quite been filled yet, and may not be for some time.








Derek Kreindler
Derek Kreindler

More by Derek Kreindler

Comments
Join the conversation
3 of 67 comments
  • 86SN2001 86SN2001 on May 30, 2012

    FWD patrol vehicles and FWD-based AWD patrol vehicles have no business being patrol vehicles. The Taurus and Explorer will make terrible police vehicles. Ford really loves throwing markets they absolutely dominate (Police/ambulance/etc). The Taurus and Explorer will be far more expensive to own due to being far less durable than the Crown Vic. That is just a fact. PDs may just as well just get TDI Passats. At least then, they would have the fuel savings to look forward to.

    • Luvmyv8 Luvmyv8 on May 30, 2012

      History has shown FWD police cars to be failures; anybody remember the K-car 'scout' packages? The NYPD actually ran these. Didn't stick and they went back to the M body Gran Fury. Those really weren't true 'police package' cars, they were meant for detectives and non patrol duties. Next we have the Chevrolet Celebrity.... yup, they existed. The 2.8 wasn't enough and again, not really a true 'cop car'. The first real heavy duty, true police package FWD police car was Ford Taurus- '90-'95. Those had the 3.8 V6, all the auxillary coolers, cooling slats in the grille, heavy duty steel wheels, beefed up suspension and brake components, ect. On paper these looked good, they performed equally with the Caprice and Crown Vic (pre LT1 Caprice and pre "aero" Crown Vic) However, durability was an issue, the trans axles just didn't hold up to the punishment dished out to police cars. It became such an issue Ford gave up on the idea and discontinued the idea when the 'new' oval faced Taurus debuted. Also Chevrolet offered up a sad sack Lumina police package, though it was mostly ignored. Next up was the Dodge Intrepid (early '00s) those had the 3.5 H.0 V6 and like the Taurus, was a true police package. Put this way, the brakes literally caught on fire, even while not on patrol duty. That didn't help matters. The CHP also tried a few different ideas, Toyota sold them '91 Camrys for evaluation; didn't make the grade. They also tried Volvos in the early 00's. Those caused quite a stir. These worked, but didn't catch on due to price and parts and service logistics. The FWD Impala though has done well and they seem to hold up, think half the NYPD fleet are the Impala and they seem satisfied with them.

  • Danwat1234 Danwat1234 on Aug 06, 2012

    With all the needless idling that cops do and city driving patterns, they should have gone with at least a mild hybrid solution so the engine shuts off when they are looking for speeders, even though the computer is on and the electric motor is ready to go. Seriously I bet the fleet’s fuel bill would be cut by a third or more. I think that many cops never shut off the engine! At least from the article it looks like it has a smart alternator.

  • Ted “the model is going to be almost 4 inches longer and 2 inches wider than its predecessor”Size matters. In this case there is 6” too much.
  • JMII Despite our past experience with Volvo my wife wants an EX30 badly. Small, upscale, minimalist EV hatch is basically her perfect vehicle.
  • Dukeisduke Is the Volvo EX30 even on sale yet? It was pulled from the NACTOY awards because they were having software problems with the vehicle.
  • Wjtinfwb If you've only got 5k to spend on transportation, I cannot imagine a worse way to spend it than on a GM orphan from Sweden that's 15 years old with 150k on the clock and limited plus expensive parts availability and dwindling techs who'd even want to work on it. Go find a similar vintage Camry or Accord with 150k miles or even a Ford or a Chevy, whatever. Hell, even an old Jaguar is less of a crapshoot than a Saab. At least you can still get parts.
  • Kwik_Shift Brands that were considered from China include BYD, Dayun, Great Wall Motors, Maxus, Nio, Omoda/Chery, Seres, XPeng, and Zeekr. KG Mobility from South Korea also made the list of candidates.That's a lot of car companies from there ready to head here.
Next