If you’re looking to get in trouble with the law in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, you might need to watch out for ten very silent Toyota Camry police cruisers, as opposed to those noisy V8 Crown Victorias you’re probably used to seeing.
So yes, this is actually a real advantage for the Arkadelphia Police Department. Sneaking up on bad guys can be somewhat difficult in a regular cruiser, though with these Camry Hybrids, those types of issues might become a thing of the past.
Other benefits obviously include the usage of less fuel and getting more mpg, which is mainly why Arkadelphia PD replaced 10 of their aging Crown Vics with these brand new Camry Hybrids.
“I was dead set against it,” explained veteran officer Don Cleek. “To me a police car’s supposed to be rear wheel drive, V8 and can go through ditches.” That’s a valid argument, except that once Chief of Police Al Harris decided to give the Camry Hybrids a try, the officers that ended up driving the Toyota realized that they were doing just as fine a job as the Crown Vics, while also getting about 27 mpg (8.7 l/100km) in all-city driving – compared to 12 (19 l/100km) to 14 mpg (16 l/100km) on the Crown Vics.
Thanks to the fuel savings and significantly lower maintenance costs, the city of Arkadelphia is saving itself about 3% of its annual budget, which is no small feat.
Check out the video in order to see some behind the scenes footage of how all of this came to be and also some interesting “testing” going on between the Crown Vics and the modern-day Camry Hybrid.