The Car Shopping Round 27: Municipal Decisions
Setting: The year 2000, in the city of Tatum Heights.
The Tatum Heights City Council has just approved a vehicle renewal millage with the goal of replacing several dated vehicles in their Police Department. At present the city is using a fleet of older Police Cruisers due to limited budget. Our newest Police cars are three 1991 Petoskey Gran Romeros which were picked up at a large discount since they were going out of production. Our goal is to replace as many vehicles as possible within our budget, but also to make sure that they are improved over our present fleet. Our vehicles currently consist of:
Two 1978 Petoskey Romeros
Five 1980 Petoskey Gran Romeros
Fifteen 1985 Petoskey Gran Romeros
Three 1991 Petoskey Gran Romeros (Identical to the 1985 model year only these are in better condition since they’re newer)
The Millage has granted us an operational budget of $250,000 to use towards acquisition of new Police vehicles. This means you will be balancing quality vs. quantity as our goal is to replace as many cars as we can, however also to make sure we have decent cars to use. We will be testing the cars close maneuverability as well as durability and ability to hold up in a pursuit. As mentioned above, the City of Tatum Heights has had to deal with very restrictive budgets and despite this millage, that is still the case today. Therefore not only are we looking for good cars, but ones that have relatively low service costs as well.
Here is a rough breakdown of what I am looking for:
Must have at least 4 doors.
Driveability is a factor as the cars should be forgiving when driven hard.
Sportiness is not on the top of my list, so long as the car is capable in a pursuit scenario.
Comfort is also on the lower end of priority within reason, we don’t need luxury cars, but on the other hand our boys in blue do work long shifts and would appreciate something that is at least decent.
Practicality and Utility are also factors to consider as the cars will need to carry hardware at times (barricades, speed cameras and such)
Reliability is a major priority for both engine and the car in general. With most of our fleet being considerably old, breakdowns are more common than we care to have. The more reliable, the better.
Safety is also a high priority in case our officers are involved in a dangerous pursuit.
Fuel economy also sits high on the list as fuel costs for municipal fleets is a considerable expense.
Environmental Resistance is something to be considered as we may end up hanging on to these new cars for a while.
Individual vehicle prices will be based on 10% markup.
I will leave the rest to your judgement, just bear in mind that Tatum Heights (A fictional community, unless there’s one that actually exists somewhere) is a suburban community with access to the freeway. Think about what would be involved in maintaining a fleet of vehicles and base your designs off that.
For reference I have included the Gen II Gran Romero Interceptor (1985-1991)
El Rushbo - Gran Romero.zip (109.0 KB)
Deadline is Saturday, December 3rd.
Entries must be named as follows:
Car model: CSR27 - username
Car trim: any
Engine family: CSR27 - username
Engine variant: any
Good luck to everyone.