The Times-Union
ALBANY, N.Y. — For the Geek Squad, they ain’t. Gone are the staid Chevy Caprices, and going are the steady Ford Crown Victorias. Both squarish sedans were police cruiser staples for two decades, but the city Police Department is adding a dashing, more muscular new look to its motor pool: the Dodge Charger.
Thirteen of the sleek sedans with 368-horsepower Hemi engines will replace about a dozen Ford Crown Victorias headed for retirement this year.
The new cruisers will join 13 already assigned to the patrol division and eight other unmarked Chargers, said Detective James Miller, a spokesman for the Department of Public Safety.
So far, Albany is the only large urban department in the area to embrace the change.
The State Police -- which briefly assigned another muscle car, the Chevy Camaro, to interstate patrols to help nab speeders -- say they have no plans now to switch from the Crown Victorias to the Chargers, which can go from 0 to 60 miles per hour in 9.6 seconds.
Troy bought two, one assigned to the police and one to the fire chief. But complaints about the cramped condition of the back seats has city Director of Operations Bill Chamberlain preparing to buy four new Crown Victoria Police Interceptors this year, he said.
Schenectady bought one for use in DWI patrols but scrapped it after it was rear-ended by a drunken driver, said police Sgt. Eric Clifford.
In buying the Chargers, Albany police join departments from Auburn Hills in Michigan, which patrols the streets immediately around Chrysler headquarters and were among the first to adopt it, to the Interior Ministry of Kuwait, which, according to Chrysler, ordered 150 of them last year in part because of the “image of strength and power” they project.
“The opinion here was that the Charger was superior ... in pretty much every facet,” Miller said, citing its brakes, electrical system and transmission and “overall reliability.”
The exact price the city is paying for the vehicles was not immediately available Monday.
The starting price on the state contract through which the city buys its fleet is $18,644 and goes up with additional features, including the bigger engine, according to the state Office of General Services.
Miller said a study by the North Carolina Highway Patrol found the V-8 more fuel efficient than the V-6 engine.
According to EPA, the Chargers get 16 mpg in the city and 25 on the highway, better than the Crown Victorias and a shade worse than the Chevy Impala, a smaller car of which the city has 21.
The city still has 51 Crown Victorias in service, making up the bulk of the fleet.
Nationwide, Ford cites registration statistics that show the Crown Victoria dominates the market with some 46,492 cars registered, or a 71 percent share of the police car market, compared to 9,466 Impalas and 9,556 Chargers.
Copyright 2009 The Hearst Corporation