The first vehicle I ever owned was the old cop car from my small town in Central Illinois, spray-painted solid navy and stripped of its lights to remove any confusion between future drivers (like me) and the real 5-0. This was 1997, and the make and model of the vehicle was this gigantic 1990 Chevy Caprice Classic—a true boat with a grumbling V8, spotlight, and disconnected override switch underneath the dash on the left-hand side of the steering wheel.
That automobile had muscle, boy, and that made it a heck of a first car. We stuck a CD player in it, hung handcuffs from the rear-view mirror, and even invested in a vanity license plate that read “CHIPS.” Had my little sister not wrecked it the first week I left home for college, I’d probably still be driving that hoss around today.
The point is that I can tell you first-hand how awesome cop cars are to drive, and I even had a much older one with most of the sweet features stripped away. The cop car of the future—Dodge’s 2011 Charger Pursuit—would absolutely blow my old Caprice out of the water. Recently, Dodge released the first photo of the upgraded ’11 model along with a few details, so now we really getting to see the vehicle that’s about to put all Portage used cars to shame.
For one, it’s only a handful of rear-wheel-drive large sedans left on the market, and the fact that it boasts a V8 along with those credentials makes it even rarer. For the special police version of the vehicle, there’s upgraded suspension, heavier-duty breaks, and both front and rear stabilizer bars. The wheels are 18-inch and made of steel, the tires are special performance tires, and there are even two “police-only” settings on the car’s Electronic Stability Control system.
In all, it’s a beast of a car that’s going to make policemen that much more formidable on American streets. Maybe, some teenager 8 or 10 years down the road will inherit a Charger when police forces move onto some other newfangled model from Portage. Used Jeep Wrangler dealerships may suggest otherwise, but who wants to pass on a former cop car? If that teenager is lucky, he won’t have to get a phone call from his little sister someday that the car has been in a wreck, because nobody wants to see a good Charger die, especially when this particular good Charger is just now coming to life.