Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, May 18, 1995                   TAG: 9505180027
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

GM DECISION WILL LEAVE ONE PLAYER IN PATROL-CAR GAME

Virginia State Police and local police departments will have to get used to having a single source of big, rear-wheel-drive patrol cars.

Law enforcement officials now face buying patrol cars from Ford Motor Co. or switching to front-wheel-drive cars. That's in the wake of General Motors Corp.'s announcement Tuesday that it will stop making big, rear-wheel-drive cars following the 1996 model year.

Many police departments prefer the big models because they can accommodate larger, more powerful engines and handle better at higher speeds, said Douglas Dix, state police property and finance officer.

Most of the 1,800 vehicles in the state police fleet are Chevrolet Caprices, Dix said Wednesday. The Caprice is one of the rear-wheel-drive cars that GM will stop manufacturing next year when it converts its Arlington, Texas, plant solely to production of pickup trucks.

Along with the Caprice, GM will cease making the Buick Roadmaster and Cadillac Fleetwood at the Texas plant, the only factory producing those models. GM last year sold fewer than 200,000 of the big cars, once a company staple, while trucks sales were higher than ever before, reaching nearly 2 million.

Robert Harper, general sales manager of Berglund's Chevrolet and Buick dealership in Roanoke, said his company sells five to seven of the big cars a month at prices of around $24,000 for the Caprice and $28,000 for the Buick.

"That's something we hate to lose," he said.

The biggest impact of the decision, however, will be on the supply of police cars, Harper said.

Berglund supplies Caprices to the Roanoke Police Department, which buys 15 to 20 new cars each year. Roanoke Police Chief David Hooper said the department will have to deal with front-wheel-drive vehicles when and if the rear-wheel-drive cars are eliminated.

GM's move had been rumored, but Harper said the last thing he had heard was that the carmaker wasn't going to discontinue the bigger models. He said he wasn't sure how his customers will react to the news.

The state police's Dix said only Chevrolet and Ford dealers qualify to bid on patrol-car contracts under current specifications that call for rear-wheel-drive cars. Chevrolet dealers offering Caprices have won the contracts every year since 1989 with the exception of 1992.

A few Ford Crown Victorias from 1992 and 1988, years when Ford dealers had the successful bids, still are in the fleet, Dix said.

Ford has no plans to discontinue its rear-wheel-drive cars. In fact, Ford spokesman Joel Pitcoff said GM's decision offers Ford a chance to increase its business.

During 1994, Ford sold 103,000 rear-wheel-drive Ford Crown Victorias and 97,000 Mercury Grand Marquises, representing 10 percent of the company's total car sales, Pitcoff said. The company also sold 120,000 rear-wheel-drive Lincoln Town Cars and 209,000 Ford Thunderbirds and Mercury Cougars, slightly smaller rear-wheel-drive models.

Rick Johnson, a sales manager at Magic City Ford in Roanoke, said the rear-wheel-drive cars have been good sellers for his company. The Crown Victoria, formerly called the LTD, was redesigned a couple of years ago, and the Thunderbird is scheduled for a makeover in a few years, he said.

Ford sells quite a few Crown Victorias to municipal police departments, and some departments now are buying the front-wheel-drive Ford Taurus with a package of police options, Johnson said.

Chevrolet also offers a front-wheel-drive police car in its Lumina line. Chrysler Corp. hasn't offered a police car for 10 years, Dix said.

Dix said that one day the state police may have to switch to front-wheel-drive cars, but for now his department hopes it will be able to take bids from both Ford and Chevrolet dealers in 1996 for rear-wheel-drive cars.

The state police replaces its cars when they reach 105,000 miles, or on average about every three years, Dix said.

Staff writer Diane Struzzi contributed information to this story.