It’s none of the above. The general public has switched to SUVs in large numbers, and now police agencies are following suit. Dodge offers a Durango for police use, and the Chevy Tahoe is performing law enforcement duties, but Ford’s Explorer-based “Police Interceptor Utility” is today the country’s top-selling patrol vehicle.
Ford hopes to maintain that sales lead when a redesigned version, to be based on the 2016 Explorer that was introduced at the Los Angeles Auto Show in November, comes to market.
We’ll admit, we were skeptical that patrol officers would embrace Ford’s replacement for the highly-regarded Crown Vic, and we expected the top seller to become one of the other manufacturer’s rear-drive sedans. And if an SUV were to rise to the top of the heap, we would have guessed that it would be the body-on-frame Tahoe, not the unibody Explorer.
Among the users of the Police Interceptor Utility is the California Highway Patrol, nationally known since the days of Broderick Crawford’s big Buick sedan. Times are ever changing – even if the color scheme has not.
