Police Caprice sales off to a steady start

Holden and Chevrolet have sold more cars than they're letting on

Holden's latest export push -- the 'Police Caprice' to be sold in North America as a Chevrolet -- is understood to have gotten off to a steady start even though General Motors executives won't confirm it.

Contrary to reports that only a handful of cars have been sold, the Carsales Network has been told that the order book is "in the thousands, not the hundreds".

At the Detroit motor show last week the former boss of Holden, and current boss of GM in North America, Mark Reuss, said: "We're not going to go into numbers today, but it's good. Better than expected in fact."

Later that week, at a police fleet preview in Phoenix Arizona -- which a small group of Australian journalists gate-crashed for brief ride and drive impressions -- the head of GM's police fleet business Dana Hammer said: "We'd like to tell you but we can't share any [sales] figures today."

GM is being coy because it does not want to show its hand to its rivals -- Dodge and Ford -- who are also vying for a slice of the 50,000 to 70,000 units-a-year police car business.

While some agencies have placed orders for "a solid number" of cars, according to our source, others have ordered only one or two for full evaluation.

Given that an all-new police car is a once-in-20-year event in North America, authorities are making sure they do their homework: that the car performs properly and, most importantly, the purchase and running costs are reasonable.

What became apparent after talking with several police fleet operators at the preview drive is that many agencies will buy only a handful of cars initially and test them for a period before ordering more.

One hurdle is that most police agencies have had budget cutbacks -- and cars are the single most expensive tool-of-trade item.

But, perhaps eventually working in Holden and Chevrolet's favour, during the global financial crisis many agencies extended the life of their Ford Crown Victoria sedans. A number of officers told the Carsales Network that their cars were being kept well beyond their 100,000 mile trade-in limit, some as high as 150,000 miles.

This means that, pretty soon, a glut of cars will need replacing -- and the Caprice may be one of the only options. The Crown Victoria is due to go out of production in August after almost two decades as the cop car favourite.

Some police agencies have ordered a final batch of Fords, but others are keen to make the transition to the next generation vehicle, whatever that is.

"We're confident that once a number of police agencies get their hands on a Caprice PPV and trial it for themselves doing real police work, the car will sell itself," said Hammer. "Word of mouth among the agencies is a very important factor. They place a lot of trust on each other's findings.

"There are 18,000 police agencies across North America, and if all of them only bought one car to trial, that's obviously a lot of cars."

The boss of Holden, Mike Devereux, said GM expected sales would get off to a "slow burn start" but once the car developed a reputation, demand would increase. The first ready-for-duty cars are due to arrive in April and should be on the beat by June.

They will dock at the same San Francisco port that received the Monaro as a Pontiac GTO and the Commodore as a Pontiac G8 in years gone by. There, they will undergo final preparation by Kerr Industries, a specialist police car fit-out company.

The delayed arrival of a V6 version means that Caprice PPV sales are most likely to reach full strength next year.

"We are in this for the long haul," said Devereux. "I know everyone expects us to say this, but we really believe we have the best vehicle out there for police work. We have developed it with their specific needs in mind and, frankly, right now there is nothing else out there that does what this car does, and has the space and features that this car has."

According to independent testing by Los Angeles and Michigan police forces, the Caprice PPV has better acceleration and shorter stopping distances than the Ford and Dodge rivals. The PPV also has a roomier interior with more safety features.

For example, the car can be equipped with a front curtain airbag even when a prisoner partition is fitted because Holden has adapted the curtain airbag from the ute. A full length curtain airbag is standard on detective Caprice PPV models that typically don't have prisoner modules.

The Caprice PPV boot is only marginally smaller than the Crown Victoria's boot -- but significantly bigger than the Dodge Charger's and the Ford Taurus sedan's (Ford's successor to the Crown Victoria police pack due next year).

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