When you think about classic 1980s TV shows and films, it’s always the hero cars that spring to mind first. Vehicles like Michael Knight’s KITT, Colt Seaver’s Fall Guy truck and The A Team’s van.
But the cop cars and government agency cars in those shows got almost as much airtime, maybe more if you think that they outnumbered the hero cars in every episode. And probably eight times out 10, those cars were Dodge Diplomats.
The boxy Diplomats, and their Plymouth Gran Fury doppelgängers were everywhere on TV in the 1980s, and according to this YouTube video from My Old Car, they were just as popular with real life police forces.
One of the reasons some forces likes the Diplomat was that it was shorter than the Ford Crown Victoria and Chevrolet Caprice alternatives, making it more manoeuvrable in chases. It certainly can’t have been because the Diplomat was quick.
Related: Ford Has The Police Vehicle Market Cornered, And This Is Why
Most of the second-generation 1980-on Diplomats came with a 318 cu-in. (5.2-liter) V8 that put out a miserable 120 hp with a two-barrel carb or 155 hp with a four-barrel. Neither could hold a candle to the 285 hp that a 440-cube Dodge Polara with the pursuit package was making a decade earlier, but both were preferable to the 100 hp 3.7-liter slant six that propped up the Diplomat range.
The Code 3 Garage website, a great resource for cop car info, says that the Michigan State Police tested various configurations of the Gran Fury in 1984 and found that a two-barrel 318 took a glacial 13.1 seconds to reach 60 mph and an incredible 61 seconds to hit 100 mph. I think most of us can probably think of at least one speeding fine we would have gotten away with if the U.S. police forces were still driving turds like that at the time.
The old fashioned rear-wheel drive Diplomat looked out of step with Chrysler’s efficient front-wheel drive K-car offerings in the 1980s, but the police kept Chrysler busy building them throughout the 1980s. The model was finally killed off in 1989. But it lived on in our TV shows, and their re-runs, for years.