Brownwood Police will soon start transitioning to a whole new line of police vehicles.
The Ford Crown Victoria for years had the market for police cars cornered. These Crown Victoria models are no longer being manufactured by Ford after this year. The Dodge Chargers are the newest make of vehicles being used in law enforcement, and the city will slowly transition their patrol car fleet over to the Chargers according to Brownwood City Manager Bobby Rountree.
Chevy Impala and Ford Taurus models are currently being redesigned for law enforcement purposes. Rountree stated, however, that the city will opt to buy the Chargers in the coming years due to their proven record rather than being the “guinea pigs” for the newly designed models.
The current fleet of patrol cars consists of Crown Victorias, and each year the City of Brownwood’s budget includes funds for purchasing three new patrol cars. As these cars were replaced in the past, transferring equipment from the old patrol cars to the new ones saved the city money by not needing to purchase new equipment. Now that they will change models, not all the police equipment will fit in the new Chargers due to size and design differences. Rountree said because of this, when the city purchases a new patrol car; it will cost approximately $8000 more per car than the Crown Victoria models.
“Next (fiscal) year, the city will buy two Crown Vics and one Charger,” stated Rountree. “The following years we will purchase three Chargers because Crown Vics will no longer be available.”
The plan is to eventually replace the entire fleet of patrol cars to Chargers over time.
The City of Early has had good experiences with their Chargers as patrol cars according to Rountree. The Brown County Sheriff’s office also has Chargers in its fleet.
Photo: A Brownwood Police car that was involved in an accident in May and will have to be replaced.
