Police Department contemplates life after the Crown Vic

CEDAR RAPIDS - The Police Department and many other law-enforcement agencies across the nation have had a long love affair with Ford's Crown Victoria patrol car.

The affair is coming to an end. Ford is going to stop making the Crown Victoria, the police model of which is called the Crown Victoria Police Interceptor.

Police Chief Greg Graham and Dennis Hogan, the city's fleet services manager, told a City Council committee on Tuesday that the Police Department along with the City Council now will have to figure out what patrol car to purchase to replace the department's mainstay.

The department expects to have three choices: Ford's New Generation Police Interceptor, which Hogan said will be an all-wheel drive Ford Taurus; a Chevrolet Impala; or a Dodge Charger.

The Linn County Sheriff's Office now uses the Impala, and Hogan said the Iowa State Patrol uses Fords, Chevys and Dodges.

Chief Graham said his preference would be for the department to purchase a final nine Crown Victoria cars this budget year while it prepares to study which of the three vehicles to purchase in the next budget year to start to replace the department's 75 Crown Victorias.

Graham said the department's officers will have a big say in what he recommends because they have to work in the cars. “It's their office,” he said.

For now, it's too soon to know.

Hogan said he had just returned from a trade show where he had a chance to look over the police version of the Impala and to see a prototype of Ford's next police car.

He said he likes the room of the Impala and he said he particularly liked Ford's plan to offer an all-wheel drive car. All-wheel drive might be safer for the officers and the public, Hogan said.

But he said it's too early to know what will be on the market. Chevy and Ford might also react to Ford and offer an all-wheel drive model, he said. Also, the new Ford is a little smaller than the Crown Victoria, but he said Ford noted that the actual car, which begins production next July, may be larger than the prototype.

Hogan said the Ford Crown Victoria now has 55 percent of the national law enforcement market, and he surmised that Ford is shifting to a new car in hopes of upping that percentage.

Most Cedar Rapids squad cars typically run 20 hours a day, and in years passed, have been ready to unload at three years or 85,000 miles, Hogan and Graham said.

In the upcoming transition, the department will have a declining mix of Crown Victorias as it purchases a new version of a squad car.