Arizona Police Buys Two Dodge Challengers For Patrol Duties

Prescott Valley PD gets additional backup from a pair of Dodge Challenger R/Ts.

Dodge Challenger police car Prescott Valley PD

Anton Andres

By: Anton Andres

Sep 12, 2021 at 8:51am ET

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By now, most folks are pretty much used to the headlight patterns of a Ford Police Interceptor Utility or a Dodge Charger Pursuit. That said, some departments go out of their way to have different cars in their fleet just to make life trickier for speeders. The Prescott Valley Police Department is one of them.

Recently, the aforementioned police department acquired a pair of Dodge Challenger R/T units to help them crack down on reckless drivers. And to make these cars more difficult to spot, these cars will report for duty in plain clothes. It doesn't help that the cars they got were painted silver and grey, either.Per the Prescott Valley Police Department, the Challengers will be specifically assigned to, "aggressively enforce hazardous driving," basically looking out for reckless drivers and those going excessive speeds. Both cars report to the department's traffic unit and carry out other duties as well. These include daily enforcement, traffic accident response, along with other special details such as speed enforcement, bicycle and pedestrian safety, we well as impaired driving (or DUI) enforcement.

But why the need for a patrol car like this? According to the department, they have seen more incidents of aggressive driving and excessive speeding. They even have their own statistics, stating that there has been a 290% spike of excessive speed citations. Oh, they're also including the reports of reckless drivers from civilians as well.

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Granted, this isn't the first time a police department has used a Challenger for speed enforcement. Florida seems to have a fondness for these particular Mopars, seeing action in Broward County and donning the state's Highway Patrol uniform as well. There are other Challengers that were either donated or confiscated and subsequently became part of the police fleet. The Prescott Valley Police Department is now among those who have Challengers in their motor pool.

So what are the speeders up against? The Challenger R/T packs a 5.7L Hemi V8 that's good for 375 horsepower (280 kilowatts) and 400 lb-ft of torque (542 Newton Meters). It's practically the identical to the Hemi-equipped Charger Pursuit, which somewhat makes the unmarked Challenger redundant. Then again, the latter is a far less obvious police vehicle. But if the R/T still can't keep up with a fleeing perp, there's always the good ol' Motorola.

Sources: Prescott Valley PD, Prescott Valley PD via Facebook

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