2011 Chevrolet Caprice PPV
The 2011 Chevrolet Caprice PPV will be sold exclusively to police fleets.

Consumer Guide’s Impressions of the 2011 Chevrolet Caprice PPV

Chevrolet brings back the big V8 Caprice...for John Law only. Still, you’ll want to keep a lookout for this new thunder from Down Under, which should also help arrest General Motors’ financial problems.

What We Know About the 2011 Chevrolet Caprice PPV

Car lovers are mourning the Pontiac G8, the fine Australian-built sports sedan that was dumped along with the Pontiac brand in General Motors’ historic summer-2009 bankruptcy. Company product czar Bob Lutz gave hope for a reprieve, hinting that the rear-drive G8 might continue in retrimmed form as a new Chevrolet Caprice. But GM quickly backtracked, saying it couldn’t keep selling thirsty V8 cars in North America because of tougher new U.S. fuel-economy mandates.

Click here to read our review of the 2009 Pontiac G8.
Even so, the Caprice is coming back after all. The trouble for performance fans is, it’s coming back as a cop car. That means it will be sold only to law-enforcement agencies, and thus won’t affect GM’s ability to meet corporate-average fuel-economy targets (CAFE). Chevrolet says you’ll be seeing it on the street starting in early 2011. I.D.? Caprice Police Patrol Vehicle--PPV for short.

What’s going on here? Several things. First, the law-enforcement market is sizable and thus very attractive right now to mass-market automakers as a way to offset some of the retail sales being lost in this Great Recession. Start up police-car maker Carbon Motors, whose purpose-designed E7 is due in 2011, estimates the U.S. has some 450,000 law-enforcement vehicles in active service, of which about 75,000 are replaced each year. The old-soldier Ford Crown Victoria has pretty much had a lock on this business since Chevy built its last Caprice some 14 years ago, though the Dodge Charger has gotten some of Ford’s sales action since its 2006 rollout. Of course, we’re talking about large, American-traditional rear-drive sedans, which most officers prefer for their space, stamina, and driving characteristics. GM’s only current law-enforcement products are a police-package 2WD Chevy Tahoe and a no-frills Chevy Impala, though the Impala isn’t that favored for police work due to its smaller size and front-wheel drive.

With GM now needing all the income it can muster to pay back federal loans, it’s seizing on the new Caprice cop car as a revenue source it can’t afford to ignore. Even better for GM, the Crown Vic will finally be retired in 2011 (it’s now only for fleet-sale anyway), and it’s unclear what Ford might offer in its place. (The betting is a heavy-duty version of the sporty new Taurus SHO with all-wheel drive and a potent 365-horsepower twin-turbo V6.)

There’s another reason behind the 2011 Chevrolet Caprice PPV. Holden, GM’s Down Under branch, had geared up to supply G8s for several years, not just two (2008-09), so it needs a fill-in product to avoid idling plants and laying off workers. The Caprice cop car puts the excess production capacity to profitable use. Equally important, PPV sales will help GM recoup its investment in the Holden/G8 global rear-drive architecture--a.k.a. Zeta platform--that much sooner.

So much for the whys and wherefores. As for the what, the 2011 Chevrolet Caprice PPV is not simply a police-package G8. For starters, the Pontiac was basically the U.S. version of Holden’s VE-series Commodore sedan, while the PPV is derived from Holden’s flagship Statesman/Caprice, actually the Middle-East-market Chevrolet-branded model. This uses the largest of three Zeta platforms, with a wheelbase nearly 4 inches longer than the G8 sedan’s and corresponding gains in length and weight. The PPV cedes 1.5 inches in wheelbase to the Charger, but has a 4-inch advantage over the Crown Vic. Chevy says that translates into 4 inches more rear legroom for perps, plus greater total interior volume of 112 cubic-feet. The PPV also claims 18.5 cubic-feet of trunk space, about 2 less than the Ford but over 2 more than the Dodge. A full-size spare fits beneath the trunk floor. A pull-down trunk storage tray, suitable for briefcases, first-aid kits, and such, will apparently be available.

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