Taking a break from all the depressing political and economic hope and change going on, I thought I'd talk about something completely different.
An Atlanta based start-up, Carbon Motors, wants to build police cars from the ground up. Currently, a city police department buys a passenger car, then has it modified by one or more after market shops in order to turn it into a police car. Carbon Motors say they can build a hi-tech "purpose-built police car" for about the same cost as a fully outfitted, modified car.
They will use a European built (my guess Mercedes-Benz) diesel capable of propelling the car to a governed top speed of 155MPH. It'll do 0-60 in 6.5 seconds and a quarter-mile in 14.5 seconds. It is specially designed to do PIT maneuvers. It also can come with license plate cams that read the plates and tell the officers in the car if the car is reported stolen or expired. You can read the spec sheet here.
They haven't yet got a factory built, but they say they've narrowed the site to five states.
I bet cops all over the country are in drool mode over this car. Can't say as I blame them.
VW
As I cop, this is, on its face, a great idea. Fire departments nationwide utilize specific-built vehicles that one can customize to the needs of the department or job. Historically cop cars were more readily customized than other vehicles. In the last 20 years, however, this "customizability" has fled the auto industry.
There is one huge and glaring problem, however: this is a good idea applied about, again, 20 years too late. Couple that with an elitist promotional staff (I personally encountered a Carbon rep at the San Francisco car show in late 2008) who evidently don't know HOW to sell their car, and you have a recipe for disaster.
I discovered, if their information is correct, that this is an ALL-NEW vehicle and not a vehicle predicated upon the chassis of some other vehicle. That means this is a startup company from the ground up. Imagine starting an ENTIRE new vehicle company in THIS economy, which features only ONE vehicle in its inventory.
Good damned luck, Carbon. You wankers.
BZ
Posted by: Bloviating Zeppelin | Wednesday, March 04, 2009 at 06:14
Yeah all of that aside. Wouldn't it be fun, though? come on, admitit.
Posted by: Glenn Cassel AMH1(AW) USN RET | Wednesday, March 04, 2009 at 21:53