On this episode of Roadkill
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MotorTranscript
00:00 On this episode of Roadkill, exhaustive scientific research to discover who makes the best cop car, Chevy or Ford.
00:25 We're going to kick it off here at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, California, also known as Paved Acres of Destruction.
00:32 We've got two goals this time around for Roadkill. Goal number one, invent a brand new motorsport.
00:42 And goal number two, figure out of the two cop cars we bought, which one is better, the Ford or the Chevy.
00:54 This is something I've wanted to do for a long time. There's nothing cooler than thrashing on a V8 rear-wheel drive, full-size American sedan.
01:03 And the ultimate example of those is, of course, cop cars.
01:06 The two really killer cop cars on the market that you can buy used are the '94 5 and 6 Caprice 9C1, which is the Chevy,
01:19 powered by a 350 cubic inch LT1 V8. It's rated at 260 horsepower. Honestly, I think it makes more than that.
01:26 The Ford you really want to buy is an '03 and up Crown Vic P71. Making 250 horsepower, at least that's where they were rated.
01:33 I don't think they make that much. These cars are sickeningly slow.
01:37 As usual, we surfed Craigslist trying to find our candidates for our testing.
01:41 We paid $1,700 for the Chevy and $2,500 for the Crown Vic. The Chevy is 10 years older than the Ford.
01:48 It has 173,000 miles on it. The Ford only has 101.
01:53 However, the Caprice is the only car that police agencies have ever bothered to restore from scratch when they hit the limit of their service life.
02:01 And so I was kind of a fan of the Caprice. Finnegan liked the Ford. So Finnegan went for amenities, basically, and I went for horsepower.
02:10 So on day number one, our first event was a good old-fashioned drag race.
02:13 And we didn't use any timing equipment because that's way too scientific. We just went head to head, side by side.
02:19 Which car is better?
02:21 In the drag race, I predict complete dominance by the Caprice. No doubt.
02:42 Crown Vic, huh? This car's got 101,000 miles of chasing perps.
02:49 Are we going to go on three? Well, on three, two, one. On one.
02:54 Okay, you count.
02:56 Three, two, one. Oh!
03:02 He completely jumped me.
03:11 Yes! Oh, he's done. I got you.
03:16 He chickened out. He thought he was going to run out of parking lot.
03:36 Winning! It's all about the guy who gets out in front and lets off and claims the race is over.
03:42 Oh, I was driving right past you!
03:45 You lose. Why? I won the race. I passed you. No, I was already done by then. We were done racing. Nope.
03:52 Yeah, we're professionals.
03:57 In the first drag race, I'm really annoyed because the Crown Vic laughed on me.
04:02 I'm in the Caprice and honestly, it has so much power and such a destroyed posse that it is just laying wheel with one tire and he gets out in front of me.
04:10 But I wasn't that worried about it because after the Caprice hooked up, it just freight trained the Crown Vic.
04:16 We learned right away that the Crown Vic had a better hole shot and when I wasn't cheating the start, the Caprice was quicker on the top end.
04:23 I think we need to go again because he jumped me and I still passed him.
04:30 I gotta figure out a new way to cheat real quick.
04:33 This is weird. I've never been in the front seat of a cop car. Like backwards.
04:37 Okay, you wanna do the count? Nah, you go ahead.
04:40 3, 2, 1!
04:43 Yeah, Caprice wins.
04:58 So in the second race, I had it figured out and the Caprice drove right past the Crown Vic. It's a way faster car.
05:04 David kicked my butt, you know, once we went more than 400 or 500 feet.
05:08 Check it out, my tire is throwing off chunks already. So we're gonna have to tighten this up and get some action done.
05:24 Armourall has this new stuff that we're testing for the magazine. It's called Custom Shield.
05:28 And what it's supposed to do is protect your paint job.
05:31 It's like a rubberized coating that looks like spray paint that you squirt on stuff and it peels off later.
05:37 And not that we care about this particular quarter panel, but to test it, I'm gonna spray it on here and at the end of our testing, we'll rip it off and find out if it works good.
05:46 Yeah, baby. Smooth.
05:50 Now we can do burnouts and throw rubber all over the car and it won't matter. It should come right off.
05:55 Not that I really care about the paint on that piece of crap.
05:58 What we're gonna do now is like a movie scene lead follow reverse 180.
06:02 Finnegan's gonna be pointing this way, I'm gonna be pointing this way.
06:05 We're both gonna take off in the same direction and I've gotta pull a Rockford and get through those garbage cans before he does.
06:11 Then we're gonna switch it up and race the other way.
06:19 Is it illegal not to have a windshield on your car?
06:22 I'm a little foggy on that rule.
06:25 Word to your mother, let's do this.
06:34 [Engine revving]
06:37 Oh, shit.
06:49 [Explosion]
06:54 [Laughter]
07:01 Yeah!
07:03 Oh, that was awesome. I guess we proved that, uh...
07:06 I lost my mirror.
07:07 You lost your... no, not mirror, that's your spotlight.
07:09 I can't, uh, I can't find the perps at night now.
07:12 Wow. That was awesome.
07:15 I'm ready. The beauty of it now is we know that all we're doing is smashing through it for kicks.
07:19 So I'm ready.
07:21 Should I wear the helmet?
07:23 I hate to even think how much I'm gonna own that thing right now.
07:26 [Engine revving]
07:30 [Laughter]
07:32 [Tires screeching]
07:34 [Engine revving]
07:36 [Explosion]
07:39 [Explosion]
07:42 [Engine revving]
07:44 [Explosion]
07:46 [Engine revving]
07:47 [Explosion]
07:49 I might have broken my windshield. [Laughter]
07:58 Oops!
08:00 Best day at work ever.
08:03 There was really no education in this part of the fun,
08:06 but we did prove that you don't break the Crown Vic windshield,
08:09 and you do shatter the Caprice windshield.
08:11 That is completely senseless and radical fun.
08:15 The rest of this deal, whenever we were road tripping these cars,
08:18 we were in danger of getting pulled over and arrested,
08:20 'cause it really did look like we were involved in a hit-and-run accident.
08:24 Right now, I've got a water truck cruising around the parking lot behind me,
08:28 wetting down the shortest and worst autocross course I've ever seen in my life.
08:33 All because I want to watch David spin out the Caprice a few more times.
08:37 [Engine revving]
08:40 [Tires screeching]
08:43 [Engine revving]
08:46 [Tires screeching]
08:48 [Engine revving]
08:51 [Tires screeching]
08:54 [Engine revving]
08:57 By the end of the day, it had just turned into mayhem,
08:59 and we were destroying these cars for no reason,
09:01 drifting them around, doing donuts.
09:03 And the left rear tire of the Caprice got so bad,
09:06 it was flinging cords everywhere.
09:08 I get in the Caprice, and the tires are shredded already.
09:12 There's very little left.
09:14 They look like balloons.
09:16 There's fuzzies hanging off the side.
09:18 And I only drifted this car in front of the camera twice before--
09:22 [Engine revving]
09:24 [Explosion]
09:25 [Tires screeching]
09:27 The left rear tire exploded right on command.
09:30 It sounded like a shotgun went off.
09:32 It was pretty spectacular.
09:34 [Engine revving]
09:37 Now it's the end of the day, and we've totally trashed this thing with filth
09:40 and even hit it with a tire.
09:42 And we're going to find out if the custom shield will peel off.
09:45 Good as new.
09:47 Nice.
09:49 That's kind of like vinyl wrap.
09:52 [Chuckles]
09:54 Not even the tire scuffed through it.
09:57 That's pretty amazing.
09:59 Ha! I like it.
10:02 Tomorrow, heading to Boron to build the off-road track we've wanted to do
10:05 for, like, two years.
10:07 That's the plan.
10:08 We're going to freeze our cojones off tonight.
10:11 Yeah, and I've only got a shovel about that big,
10:13 so it's going to take some time.
10:15 I'm just going to drive through it, because I'm going to go get mud tires
10:17 put on that thing now that the tire's gone.
10:20 You get mud tires?
10:21 Yep.
10:22 Why didn't I think of that?
10:24 [Explosion]
10:26 Crown Vic had 17-inch wheels on it,
10:28 and the only aggressive tires I could find for those 17-inch wheels
10:32 were a set of Blizzac ice tires, which were really soft.
10:37 And David, because his cop car had 15-inch wheels, you know, on the Caprice,
10:42 he bought mud-terrain BFGs with aggressive-looking treads.
10:48 [Music]
10:58 This thing looked like it belonged in a Mad Max movie
11:01 if it had, you know, a blower with a switch on it.
11:04 [Music]
11:07 Check it out. It's perfect.
11:09 I wish they were wider. They do have kind of that pizza-cutter look to them.
11:14 But they're aggressive.
11:15 I've literally got, like, skateboard wheels on my car right now.
11:19 But you're still driving the Capiche.
11:22 Not cool, no matter what you put on it for tires.
11:25 [Music]
11:31 You got the duct tape so I can shut my door?
11:36 Wow. It's hashed.
11:39 [Music]
11:45 Ah, there you go. Cool.
11:48 I'm a chump.
11:51 Now that we've got my tires on, we hit the road and drove about, I don't know,
11:55 three or four hours out into the California desert.
11:57 We both figured, heading out into the dirt, he's got the advantage.
12:02 Boy, were we wrong.
12:03 [Music]
12:10 It's getting cold because we're climbing out of L.A. County into the high desert here.
12:14 And we're going to someplace special.
12:17 A spot every grown man should go in their entire lives,
12:20 and that's the middle of nowhere.
12:21 [Engine revving]
12:26 I'm going to have to say that the Chevy's going to have the edge on the Crown Vic in the dirt.
12:30 It's got to.
12:32 Or I'm going to be humiliated.
12:34 [Music]
12:51 I could see nothing other than his taillights.
12:55 I'm driving in dust.
12:57 I'm just trusting him.
12:59 How's that 200 horsepower treating you?
13:03 [Laughter]
13:04 It doesn't sound like a Lamborghini, but it's still pretty cool.
13:10 That's the sound of power.
13:11 You've got the hot air intake under the hood.
13:13 Your sound's cooler.
13:14 I've got the direct dirt intake.
13:18 Ultimately, it was freezing cold outside.
13:20 We decided to call it a night.
13:22 Finnegan thought we were going to freeze to death, and he had this massive, like, Brady Budge tent.
13:27 I called him a complete chick for wanting to be in the tent.
13:29 I don't even think it was freezing.
13:31 I built a campfire, hit the dirt, good to go all night long.
13:34 How cold is it?
13:37 I don't know.
13:38 We didn't even check the phone because that's where the thermometer is in this decade.
13:42 I don't know if you realize this, but we bought two cop cars, bashed them, drove them to the middle of the desert,
13:48 and found--
13:49 Derbyed in the dust.
13:50 --land that my parents got suckered into buying four decades ago.
13:55 And tomorrow, we're going to wreck it.
13:59 Derby tomorrow.
14:00 Yep.
14:02 You're seriously going to sleep out on the ground?
14:04 It's way better than being in a tent.
14:05 Oh, wow.
14:06 [howling]
14:22 I think David slept by the fire.
14:23 Did he, like, roll into it and kill himself?
14:25 [howling]
14:30 [chuckles]
14:32 Damn.
14:33 [chuckles]
14:35 Stop snoring.
14:43 Oh.
14:45 No.
14:46 I feel like I licked the top of the bar after last call.
14:49 Ugh.
14:51 I feel like carpet.
14:52 When we woke up in the morning, the first challenge was to find where Finnegan's property actually was.
14:58 We had the GPS on our cell phones, which, surprisingly enough, still had the streets on it that had been carved in this place,
15:04 like, back in 1969 or '70 or something like that.
15:07 And somewhere in here was a 2 1/2-acre gem of property that belonged to his parents,
15:12 so basically we could do whatever we wanted on it.
15:16 I think the air is just right for building a racetrack.
15:19 [music]
15:22 It's, like, that way.
15:36 Right here, right?
15:38 So this 2.4 acres is--
15:40 All yours.
15:41 All mine!
15:43 You're going to inherit that someday.
15:45 We're building a dirt track, and we're inventing our own off-road racing series.
15:49 A dirt-ripping, thrashing course to put these two cop cars to the test.
15:54 There's a big "S."
15:55 Yeah, for sure.
15:56 That connects back out to here.
15:57 Yeah.
15:58 We're totally in agreement.
15:59 So how do you want to make that?
16:01 Do you want to just hop in a car and--
16:02 Let's just drive it.
16:03 This is going to be fun.
16:05 How long before one of us gets hopelessly high-centered on something?
16:09 Once we found the right property, the first thing we did is both hopped in the Crown Vic to go and plot a racetrack.
16:16 This trunk is garbage, right?
16:19 Jump on it.
16:21 Nope.
16:23 [engine starts]
16:24 [inaudible]
16:26 I got no seatbelt.
16:28 [engine revving]
16:30 Oh, dude.
16:32 Big right-hander.
16:34 Oh, yeah, this one's a riot.
16:37 [laughter]
16:43 Wow.
16:45 We're going to get stuck out here eventually.
16:47 No one majors B-shaped.
16:48 Oh, I haven't seen anything moving in here.
16:51 Except us.
16:53 [engine revving]
16:55 This is like the twisty.
16:57 Out there.
17:00 There's bushes that aren't too dense,
17:03 and we'd be able to drive these cars around three or four times and make our own track.
17:08 [engine revving]
17:10 Yeah.
17:13 That's going to be so fun.
17:15 And it was going to connect to a high-speed straight section
17:19 that at some point the power company had graded to put in power poles.
17:23 All right, let's get both cars and do this.
17:25 Okay.
17:26 I'm not having all the fun.
17:28 [engine revving]
17:44 For the Caprice, I had found these really cool BFG mud terrains
17:49 in a small size that would fit the passenger car.
17:52 And I got them because they were tough, and I thought we were going to be dealing with a rocky terrain.
17:56 It turned out to be pure filth.
17:59 [engine revving]
18:08 Stuck!
18:11 Knew that was going to happen.
18:15 And he goes out there with his big old honking mud terrain tires that are way too skinny.
18:20 These things are pizza cutters.
18:22 And he goes out there, and I've kind of rutted up the course already, and he gets stuck.
18:27 Right out in the middle of it, nowhere near flat, hard ground.
18:32 Not feeling so good about those new tires now, are you?
18:36 [laughing]
18:37 [music]
18:44 Yeah, this is the part where I get stuck.
18:46 [music]
18:50 It's going to need some snap. You might want to give it more distance than that.
18:55 I'm not even a Ford guy, but really, there's no denying that Crown Victoria is kicking the crap out of the Caprice.
19:02 He's so far out in the course that when I drive out, I have to leave the safety of flat, hard packed dirt
19:08 and go on to the silty stuff to try and yank him out.
19:11 [music]
19:14 I give it a decent yank. He starts coming up over this berm.
19:17 [music]
19:22 When he crests the berm, my car gets high centered.
19:25 [music]
19:28 And we're both stuck in the dirt now.
19:30 Finnegan came in right behind me to pull me out, and of course the Crown Vic then also went straight into China.
19:36 And so there we are with two cars completely stuck in the middle of nowhere.
19:40 And yeah, we can't deny it. Ultimately, we had to have the video guy's pickup truck pull us out.
19:45 [music]
19:49 God, we suck at off-roading.
19:51 [engine revving]
19:55 Now the good part, the race.
19:57 Cool, so what are we-- starting line?
19:59 Starting line. The plan is I'm thinking we come through here at speed, right?
20:02 Ooh, a flying start.
20:03 Yeah, because why wouldn't you? And then I'll time you as you fly by.
20:06 You run the whole track, come by again, and I'm going to stop the clock when you pass the garbage can again.
20:11 I'm not going to tell you your time.
20:13 You're going to give it to me. Just leave the phone over there.
20:16 And then I'm going to get in mine and do the same thing.
20:18 I have a lot of confidence right now because the Crown Vic, although on paper has less power,
20:24 both of these cars seem to just suck ass in the horsepower department when you actually drive them.
20:29 The Crown Vic handles a lot better, and the tires seem to be working better.
20:33 So I think I've got this covered.
20:35 I have to admit I'm a little intimidated. I think that the Crown Vic handles better off-road.
20:40 He's going to come through at speed. As soon as he crosses the trash can, I'm going to fire this up.
20:45 Oh, you can just see him digging in. There's more dirt in the sky than on the ground.
21:04 [Music]
21:07 [Laughter]
21:09 [Music]
21:22 [Laughter]
21:26 [Music]
21:37 Right now he's at a minute and a half, so it's a pretty long course.
21:41 [Music]
21:46 [Laughter]
21:55 [Laughter]
21:58 Okay, so I'm not going to tell him his time.
22:02 I'm going to put that in my pocket, and I'm going to go make my run, and we'll see what happens.
22:06 [Cough]
22:07 Did I win? [Laughter]
22:09 Now it was my turn, and I knew I was only going to get him in the straightaways.
22:13 He was sloppy out there. I'm going to show skill.
22:16 [Music]
22:20 Here he goes. Starting the timer.
22:23 [Music]
22:34 He looks good. He looks smooth from what I can see, but in the middle section of the track, I can't see him running.
22:40 But I hear the engine bogging down through the really soft stuff, and I'm pretty confident he's going to lose this deal.
22:48 [Engine revving]
23:01 The question is, does he have the nuts to come through here wide open at the end of the race
23:06 and stay in it knowing there's a Crown Vic right there, his car is fishtailing,
23:10 and he could die or have an airbag in the face.
23:13 [Music]
23:15 [Laughter] Oh my god, that thing's huge. Come on, you hunk of junk.
23:19 [Music]
23:24 [Laughter] Oh my god. Oh my god.
23:29 [Laughter]
23:35 Woo!
23:36 He's going through the finish line and then braking and pitching the car sideways out in the desert, and it's fast.
23:43 I have no idea how you did, because I don't know how I did, but I will give you this.
23:47 You stayed in it almost all the way to here and damn near took out the back end of my car, man.
23:52 That was awesome.
23:54 At this point, I thought there was a chance that I had beat him with raw horsepower and top end speed, but--
24:00 Okay, ready? I'll show you mine if you show me yours.
24:03 Oh!
24:04 I'm winning!
24:06 What was that, three seconds?
24:07 Not quite. What is it? 145.2 for you and 148.5 for me.
24:13 Over three seconds.
24:14 Yeah, 3.3 seconds.
24:15 The phones turn around and I look and I realize I've whooped his ass by three seconds.
24:19 And it's really not that I've whooped his ass, it's that Crown Vic has whooped the Caprice's ass badly.
24:25 Well, in fact, what we did was pretty unscientific, but we did spend a couple of days thrashing really hard on the Ford and Chevy cop cars,
24:33 and it did teach me a lot. The Chevys are really more collectible.
24:37 They're more valuable. They made them for only three years instead of for a full run like the Crown Vic.
24:42 For an enthusiast, they're a really good car. Bone stock, they're really fast.
24:47 You can also go with a Crown Vic, which is going to be way easier to find these days.
24:51 It has a far more modern suspension system.
24:53 The motor sucks a lot in comparison to the Chevy, though, so kind of pick your poison.
24:58 You want the better handling car, newer, more comfortable, looks a little bit cooler, you get the Ford.
25:03 I came into this whole deal truly with my heart behind the Caprice, not because I'm really a Chevy guy,
25:09 but because I knew it had way more horsepower and I knew it was way faster.
25:12 You were into it.
25:13 I was completely into it, and I'm walking away needing to have a Crown Vic.
25:17 At the end of the day, then, we're going to claim a win on the Crown Vic, right?
25:21 Yeah, Crown Vic's the winner. Sorry, Chevy guys.
25:23 Yep.
25:24 You lose.
25:25 [music]
25:33 [laughter]
25:46 [music]