Cop car war heats up

I’m sure a lot of folks in law enforcement will be happy to see this. From what I’ve been reading, not too many were happy that Ford was dumping the Crown Vic.

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Ford Motor Co. is firing back following General Motors’ announcement that it would begin selling a police-only Chevrolet sedan in the United States in early 2011.

That’s just about the time Ford is expected to end production of the Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor, which is currently the most popular police car in America. Ford claims that of the 60,000 to 70,000 police cars sold in America every year, it sells about 45,000.

Ford didn’t provide any details of its new Police Interceptor but promised the car would be revealed to the public in the first quarter of 2010.

“We have heard the repeated requests from the law enforcement community to continue uninterrupted support of the law enforcement community,” said Mark Fields, Ford’s president of The Americas in a company announcement. “Ford is answering the call with the new Police Interceptor — engineered and built in America.”

The current Crown Victoria Police Interceptor is built in Canada.

GM’s Chevrolet Caprice PPV, which is set to compete against Ford’s Police Interceptor, will be imported from Australia. The car is built is built by GM’s Holden subsidiary, which is responsible for engineering rear-wheel-drive vehicles for GM.

Ford’s new police vehicle was designed with input from “Ford’s Police Advisory Board,” Ford said. The car has been under development for the past 14 months, Ford said.

By Peter Valdez-Dapena

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