Cop car crazy

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The world's biggest police conference, the International Association of Police Chiefs, is part motor show, part gun show and, if you take into account the thousands of dazzling red and blue lights everywhere, part disco. There are cars and armoured vans that have so much equipment hanging off them they look more like something out of Transformers.

The Denver (Colorado) based show is an opportunity for emergency services suppliers to display their wares to top ranking police from around the world -- and across North America -- from colour coded handcuffs (bracelets in police speak), to torches with video cameras in them.

I didn't volunteer for the Taser demonstration, and couldn't find the secret service display (they were too good) but I did happen to notice that, in the food hall, the queue was longest at the donut stand.

But absolutely the single biggest sales push this year was in the police car market.

The Ford Crown Victoria, the prince of police cars for the past two decades, is going out of production in the next 12 months. With up to 70,000 new police car sales each year in North America (according to Holden's stats), the rivals and likely candidates have suddenly come out of the woodwork.

Chevrolet lost a lot of the business -- and handed it on a silver shield to Ford -- when a few years ago its Impala sedan switched from a tough rear-drive car to a mild-mannered front drive that resembles the previous generation wide-body Honda Accord. Since then police have dabbled with the Dodge Charger (the twin under the skin to the Chrysler 300C) and a range of Ford, Chrysler and GM SUVs.

About a year ago the LAPD's deputy chief Charles Beck came to Australia for a police conference, saw what the locals had with the Holden Commodore, and lamented that it was a shame there wasn't such a vehicle in the US. Someone helpfully pointed out that the Commodore was on sale in North America as a Pontiac, and the early stages of what was unveiled yesterday had begun.

The course has changed a little since then. Holden quickly discovered that the police wanted more room than even the Commodore had. The Statesman was the ideal candidate therefore; compared to a Crown Victoria it is slightly shorter in overall length but roomier inside and also has a massive boot. The Statesman (or Chevrolet Caprice as it will be known) can also easily out-pace and out-manoeuvre the aging Ford Crown Victoria, the elder statesman of the police car class.

Then again, it ought to. The Crown Vic was poised to enter its third decade of production before Ford decided to put it out of its misery.

How do we know this? Because Holden isn't just a pretty face. It has been working on the Police Caprice for 12 months.

If you're good at maths you'll realise that this has been in motion since before Holden knew that the Pontiac deal would be axed along with the brand. Remember the comments from the sharp Holden spokesman saying that Holden was looking at "other export opportunities". Now we know what he meant.

Oddly enough, even though the vultures were out to pick on the Ford's carcass at the show, few of the domestic American brands until recently seemed interested in chasing a business worth 70,000 cars a year. That's chicken feed in North America -- at least it was before the Global Financial Crisis.

But 70,000 cars to Australia and Holden is a big deal. Indeed, as we reported yesterday, Holden could end up exporting more sedans to cops than it sells to the public locally.

When Holden boss Alan Batey told the Carsales Network at the show that "all systems are go" on the Police Caprice, that means Holden is going to develop a police pack even though it has not signed one order from a police agency.

It shows how confident Holden is that the deal will go ahead -- and how important it is to succeed.

Holden needs this deal to further secure the future of the long wheelbase Statesman and Caprice for both Australia and the Middle East. Remember the Ford Fairlane? Yeah, thought you might have forgotten about it...

It's a brutal business, as the show clearly demonstrated with its cut-throat competition and, on some stands, no-photo policy.

The most interesting part of the show for me was the coincidental placement of the GM stand adjacent to a company called Carbon Motors (not the best name in this emissions-aware climate, pun intended). Carbon had a slick display, and its brochures were Best in Show.

Some ex-Ford guys set up Carbon Motors, an independent company, and designed a purpose-built police car from the ground up. It's an impressive effort, and an impressive concept car, with lights integrated into the roof (front and side), built-in ram bars and a really clever police-friendly (and prisoner-friendly) cabin.

Carbon Motors rightly dubbed it the Police Car of the Future, and said it's going to be built in Indiana from 2012.

But if the world's biggest car makers can't get the business model to work on 70,000 units a year, how is this small specialist brand going to do it? I was excited by the Police Car of the Future, until I did the maths.

Truth is few brands can make the sums add up -- except Holden. Literally a few metres across the carpet on the GM stand, the covers came off the real police car of the future: the Chevrolet Caprice.

I wish I was there to see the looks on the neighbours' faces, but I was busy taking part in a riot shield demonstration by a man wearing a khaki kilt.

Images: Holden's Gary Carroll and Alan Batey with the Chevrolet Caprice, and National Safety Agency chief Des Bahr, LAPD Deputy Chief Charles Beck, Holden boss Alan Batey, and Holden Police Caprice manager Gary Carroll at the police conference in Denver yesterday

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