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8 things you learn while driving a cop car [w/videos]

Let me start off with the obvious: it is absolutely illegal to impersonate a police officer. And now that that's out of the way, I'd just like to say that driving a cop car is really, really cool. Here's the background to this story: Dodge unveiled its redesigned 2015 Charger Pursuit police cruiser, and kindly allowed Autoblog to test it. That meant fellow senior editor Seyth Miersma and I would spend a week with the cop car, and the goal here was to see just how different the behind-the-wheel experience is, from a civilian's point of view. After all, it's not technically a police car – it isn't affiliated with any city, it doesn't say "police" anywhere on it, and it's been fitted with buzzkill-worthy "NOT IN SERVICE" magnets (easily removed for photos, of course). But that meant nothing. As Seyth and I found out after our week of testing, most people can't tell the difference, and the Charger Pursuit commands all the same reactions as any normal cop car would on the road. Here are a few things we noticed during our time as wannabe cops. 1. You Drive In A Bubble On The Highway Forget for a moment that our cruiser was liveried with Dodge markings instead of those of the highway patrol. Ignore the large "NOT IN SERVICE" signs adhered around the car. Something in the lizard brain of just about every licensed driver tells them to hold back when they see any hint of a cop car, or just the silhouette of a light bar on a marked sedan. Hence, when driving on the highway, and especially when one already has some distance from cars forward and aft, a sort of bubble of fear starts to open up around you. Cars just ahead seem very reluctant to pass one another or change lanes much, while those behind wait to move up on you until there's a full herd movement to do so. The effect isn't perfect – which is probably ascribable to the aforementioned giveaways that I'm not really a cop – but it did occur on several occasions during commutes from the office. 2. You Drive In A Pack In The City My commute home from the Autoblog office normally takes anywhere from 25 to 30 minutes, and it's a straight shot down Woodward Avenue from Detroit's north suburbs into the city, where I live. Traffic usually moves at a steady pace, the Michigan-spec "five-over" speed.

Daily Driver: 2015 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat

Daily Driver videos are micro-reviews of vehicles in the Autoblog press fleet, reviewed by the staffers who drive them every day. Today's Daily Driver features the 2015 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat, reviewed by Greg Migliore. You can watch the video above or read a transcript below. Watch more Autoblog videos at /videos. VIDEO TRANSCRIPT: [00:00:00] Hey, everybody. It's Greg Migliore and today I am driving a 707-horsepower Dodge Charger. That can only mean one thing: I'm driving the Hellcat. Naturally, the spotlight feature of this car is the 6.2-liter supercharged Hemi V8. Makes 707 horsepower and 650 pound feet of torque. [00:00:30] Now naturally the engine sounds great and you can hear all of those horses going out the exhaust in back, which I think the Dodge guys have tuned really well. I think it's got one of the more unique sounds in the industry. All that horsepower will do that, but they've tuned it so there's a low kind of growl, and then it burbles and it's angry [00:01:00], it's visceral. I like it. It's intoxicating. It's different than other muscle cars. It's different than European exotics. I think it sounds great. I'm driving in sport right now which allows me to use the paddle shifters. I think it sounds a little better and the shifts of the eight-speed automatic transmission are a little bit more aggressive. For such a powerful car, Dodge did a nice job of tuning it to be actually pretty drivable. I just took a corner right there and the [00:01:30] steering offers you satisfying weight to your inputs. It's a little bit of a heavier steering, especially compared to some of the earlier generation Chargers. It's sporty, but it's not crazy. The design of the Dodge Charger is a critical element. That's why a lot of people buy this car, is it gives them that muscle car heritage look. The Hellcat has some special design cues that are also functional. You've got a couple of extra air intakes up front, keeps everything cool and breathing, the air flowing through; a nice spoiler in back [00:02:00] that helps keep the aero, and the downforce keeps you on the ground. The HID projector headlights really pop, especially at night, and in back you've got the LED taillights that spread out wide across the back end of this car like some of the great Chargers of the past. This car rolls on 20-inch black wheels with a spiderweb design. I think they look good. They're kind of low-key, which I think is great.

Chrysler slows minivan production, hasn't built VW Routan this year

Chrysler has slowed production of its Town and Country and Dodge Grand Caravan minivans this week, Automotive News reports. The Windsor, Ontario plant will cut its three shifts from eight hours each to four hours each in an effort "to align production with market demand," a Chrysler spokesperson told AN. Chrysler also builds the closely related Routan minivan for Volkswagen at its Ontario facility, but has not built a single example thus far in 2013.
Sales of Chrysler's minivans fell 15 percent for the first two months of 2013, and a large part of that has to do with the 26-percent drop of the Grand Caravan alone (the T&C was only down by one percent). According to Automotive News data, as of March 1, Chrysler had an unsold inventory of 24,713 Town and Country models and 18,547 Grand Caravans - a 69- and 43-day supply, respectively.
"No sense running full speed now, then have a lot of vehicles sitting around a few months down the line," Chrysler spokeswoman Jodi Tinson told AN. Full production is expected to resume again on March 18.