The end of P71?

Is this the end of P71? http://www.carbonmotors.com/

Purpose built police car. I read about it on another car magazine.

At least I won't have to work hard to read the headlights in my rear-view.

imagine when those start coming out of service though

It's like a bangled charger. Yuck.

Wow! I thought the new Chargers looked tough, but this one is MEAN! I guess that was on purpose, though. Love the idea of a good turbo deisel getting decent mileage. 4000 pounds?

It's cool - but I think they missed out on an opportunity. Why so many unique body parts? The tail lights, for example. Make life easier for the police departments and use one design of light that can be used on either side of the car. Better yet, use a generic light that's already in production. Same with the headlights. Make them generic, symmetrical and cheap. Why are there lights in the push bar, where they'll get broken? Make the push bar strong and easily replaceable, not pretty and fragile.

GM needs to build a 4dr RWD Sedan with the LS1. A stripped down G8 in the Chevy platform for example.

Bet you they can buy and maintain a fleet of a half-dozen P71's for the price of one of those...

There a ton of cars better then the P71, it's just CHEAP and DURABLE. That's what makes it great!

P71 wrote: Bet you they can buy and maintain a fleet of a half-dozen P71's for the price of one of those... There a ton of cars better then the P71, it's just CHEAP and DURABLE. That's what makes it great!

Why do you think that? The company claims that they will sell these vehicles for roughly the price of converted standard production cars. The engines are going to be commercially sourced (from something much heavier duty it sounds like), have a longer designed life cycle, and assuming they sell to a similar percentage of police stations will have very similar volumes for tooling. Plus they will have the advantage of being able to build their cars like the foreign companies do, without UAW contracts and legacy costs, that ford has to deal with. I agree with the above posters, that they should have focused more on universal parts, however I think the concept if very good, and really seems to deal with the short comings that the converted passenger vehicle approach has. I do think the Dodge Charger was made to be a cop car, especially with the 20" wheels. Was this the same company working on a taxi as well?

Daniel

Well, look at all the custom components they have to manufacture (body panels, lighting, police equipment, suspension, etc, etc). That kind of specialization is costly. Plus the more expensive engine.

The deal breaker though is non-standard maintenance. When I had a caliper die in my P71 (the only failure in it's first year with me) I was able to locate one in my po-dunk town on a Saturday in less then 10 minutes for less then a case of beer. Ford OEM at that. Imagine if I had some hand-built, special-order car?

P71 wrote: Well, look at all the custom components they have to manufacture (body panels, lighting, police equipment, suspension, etc, etc). That kind of specialization is costly. Plus the more expensive engine. The deal breaker though is non-standard maintenance. When I had a caliper die in my P71 (the only failure in it's first year with me) I was able to locate one in my po-dunk town on a Saturday in less then 10 minutes for less then a case of beer. Ford OEM at that. Imagine if I had some hand-built, special-order car?

True on the custom components, however it's not like Ford bought the P71 from someone, they custom built it also. Everything on the P71 is one off, it's just ford makes a lot of them. This company is banking on the same economies of scale that ford has for the P71 as a model, and the really expensive parts (engine/trans, I would assume brakes, diff, suspension, electronics, seats) they are going to the same OEM's that Ford/GM/Dodge uses.
You probably have a point on maintenace. For the small town doing maintenance on 1 or 2 of these, it would be a hassle as I doubt there will be a carbon motors dealer in every city. However for the larger customers who own 20-30 P71's I doubt that it would have a huge effect as they stock most wear items anyway.

All in all, your probably right, it probably will come out more expensive to purchase, and slightly more expensive to maintain. However, if they are successful and can sell A LOT of them, in the end, a vehicle designed from the ground up to meet the needs of LEO's from the begining will be cheaper to build, maintain, and own. And that's not something The big three can tool right now, or ever it seems, as other than Checkers, I'm not aware of any automotive company (ford/GM/Chrysler etc.) engineering a vehicle for LEO's or Taxi's and not just adapting an existing passenger car. Which is probably why this is coming out.

Actually a whole host of the P71 components are from or are used on other cars. The complete 03-08 P71 brake setup is the same as an 05-08 Mustang GT. All of the dash/switchgear is from other models (same power window switches as a damn 89 Taurus!). The center caps are used on Rangers and E150 work vans. Engine and trans are straight from an F150. That's why Ford can sell them so cheap.

Also, you haven't been able to buy a Crown Vic at all (even non-P71's) since the 07 model year unless it was for a police/service agency or a taxi. Fleet sales only. That's pretty much tooled up as close to handbuilt for the LEO market as you can get.

Did I mention the cheapness? Same rear calipers on an 02-. One is mounted by the rear door (before axle) and the other side is mounted by the rear bumper (aft axle). That's CHEAP.

P71 wrote: Also, you haven't been able to buy a Crown Vic at all (even non-P71's) since the 07 model year unless it was for a police/service agency or a taxi. Fleet sales only. That's pretty much tooled up as close to handbuilt for the LEO market as you can get.

True they are only building them for LEO's now, however to say the P71 was engineered and tooled specifically for the LEO's is a bit of a stretch.

I agree with you that the P71 has some big advantages due to the costs of some of the components are spread over many vehicles that ford makes. I still don't think the Carbon motors car will cost 6x as much as a new 2009 P71, it's probably going to be more like 25-30% more each unit. But, it is designed around a 250K mile service life (LEO P71's seem to be retired in the 100-150K range), and should have lower fuel costs.

Ask the folks at Checker how the commercial car market is.

that car is SICK!

diesel FTW. I want one coming off service.

P71's are retired between 100-150K because of state laws (ala mine and all the other OSP ones have EXACTLY 120,000 miles) that forbid "using them up". Most have a year/mileage thing (10 years or 120K, whichever comes first). In taxi service and unlimited LEO use 300K+ is not even uncommon, most make it to 400K.

cwh wrote: Wow! I thought the new Chargers looked tough, but this one is MEAN! I guess that was on purpose, though. Love the idea of a good turbo deisel getting decent mileage. 4000 pounds?

I went to a lecture at their headquarters (which isn't very big, as they're outsourcing most of the mechanical bits...) and they had explained the reasons behind the design. They'd designed the bodywork specifically for pushing cars off the road, making it easy to wrestle uncooperative suspects into the back, etc. The look kind of reflects the purpose.

A lot of the police add-on equipment is really expensive as it is, around the same price as aftermarket mods or higher. Carbon figures that by building a bunch of cars with it already installed they can bring the costs way down.

Plus they get to profit from the individual component markup versus the Motorola supplier.

Smart move.

I hope it works out for them, it's a cool idea. It's going to be uphill against their competitors and I'm sure they know it.

From what I read, this car company's CEO used to be one of the big guys at Ford (something about either Product Planning or Strategic Development) so he might have some inside scoop on the P71. Plus, the article also mentioned that Crown Vic and all of its variants will be discontinued either in 2010 or 2012 (I don't remember the exact year).

This car will obviously be more expensive than a P71 but they were saying that considering the lives of the LEOs it will save it's worth it (it's their argument not my opinion).

Strizzo wrote: imagine when those start coming out of service though

From what I read once it's out of service it will be returned to this company and never to be sold to the general population. I am not sure how this works financially though since this means that whatever agency is using it will have to forego the residual value of this car.

maybe some kind of super long term lease? idk.

Wally wrote: Ask the folks at Checker how the commercial car market is.

I was thinking of the same thing. Back in the day, didn't the T&LC basically require custom-built vehicles because most production cars didn't meet their specs?

I think that while they look very, VERY cool they are far too aggressive/menacing looking. Cops get enough of a bad rep for attitude. This just makes it look like "they are out to get you".

From what I understand, Ford is getting out of that market entirely. They've already jettisoned some of their muncipal truck sales, such as rescue vehicles and ambulances, and are wanting out of the police car business also. I believe the lawsuits are crippling for them at the moment.

My stepson is a paramedic, and they are no longer shipping them vehicles or in some instances, parts for the ones they have. Chrysler seems to be the new name in town, and are working hard to get this business also.