Which Crime-Fighting Sedan Would You Pick? 1996 Dodge Intrepid vs 2006 Chevy Impala

Good morning! It’s a new week, and a new month, and for this week I’m getting back to basics and reinstating the $2,500 price cap. Let’s dig around in the dirt a bit and see what we can find. Today, I’ve come up with a pair of sedans: a Dodge covered in the Caped Crusader’s logos, and a Chevy that did time as a campus patrol vehicle.

Friday’s runoff included the short week’s three winners, plus a Geo Storm you hadn’t seen yet. A lot of you wanted to pick the Storm, despite its astronomical mileage, but were put off by the cigarette burns on the seat. The Nissan truck took the win, which wasn’t surprising, but the Alfa Romeo Milano came in second, which kind of was.

For me, out of that particular quartet, it’s the Storm, hands down, no question, smoke smell be damned. I’ll replace the seats if I have to. I’d try to talk them down a grand or so on the price, but the Storm is one of only a handful of cars that I still really would like to own.

Now then: Ex-cop cars aren’t really all that cool, unless they’re extremely old, or you’re putting the band back together. Are superhero-themed cars cool? Not really, unless you ask an eight-year-old their opinion, then maybe. But what if they’re both reasonably comfortable, reasonably reliable sedans being sold for cheap? Still not cool, but maybe worth considering as cheap beaters. Let’s take a look and see.

1996 Dodge Intrepid – $2,350

Engine/drivetrain: 3.3-liter OHV V6, four-speed automatic, FWD

Location: Coral Springs, FL

Odometer reading: 103,000 miles

Operational status: Runs and drives well

Eagle-eyed readers will have already noticed that this car is not, strictly speaking, a Batmobile. The clues are subtle, but they are there: first, it’s white, unlike all the real Batmobiles which are black, and second, it is in fact just a base model Dodge Intrepid with some stickers on it. As cosplays go, this is about as low-effort as those plastic Halloween costumes they used to sell at K-Mart.

That’s not to say it’s a bad car; the first-generation Intrepid was good-looking, comfortable, and a hell of a step up from the boxy Dynasty it replaced. It’s just not a very good Batmobile. It features a 160 horsepower 3.3-liter V6 and a four-speed automatic, enough to get around just fine, but not really up to high-speed pursuits through the mean streets of Gotham. It’s highly unlikely that it will lose a wheel, but the Joker is most definitely getting away. The good news is that it runs and drives great, and has just had the whole front end rebuilt.

I have to give them credit for committing to the bit, though: it has Batman-themed seat covers, floor mats, and a steering wheel cover. But wait, what’s this last line in the ad? “Batman stuff not included?” Lame. Oh well. At least it has a new air conditioning compressor that “blows snow cones,” according to the seller.

The decals are apparently coming off before the sale, too, so if you want to keep up the Batman theme, you’ll need to make friends with someone who owns a vinyl cutter. Or, I suppose if Batman isn’t your thing, you could add stickers for any number of other superheroes. But what would be more fitting for a white Dodge Intrepid? I await your suggestions in the comments.

2006 Chevrolet Impala 9C1 – $2,450

Engine/drivetrain: 3.9-liter OHV V6, four-speed automatic, FWD

Location: Milwaukee, WI

Odometer reading: 55,000 miles

Operational status: Runs and drives well

For most of the late ’90s and ’00s, there was only one police car that really mattered: the Ford Crown Vic Police Interceptor. The last of the burly, body-on-frame, V8-powered sedans was a favorite of police departments everywhere. Chevy tried to compete with a series of front-wheel-drive sedans, but they were never as popular, and were often relegated to less strenuous law-enforcement duties, like campus patrol.

This 9C1-package Impala has just 55,000 miles on it, which might sound low at first, but if it’s anything like the Dodge Spirits used by campus security at my college, it spent a lot of time sitting around idling, or driving slowly around parking lots. It runs and drives well, and has been well-maintained, but it could probably use some highway exercise. The engine is a 3.9-liter V6, an evolution of the old 60-degree V6 that dates back to the Chevy Citation, but this one has variable cam timing and puts out a whopping 242 horsepower.

Even though it was only used for parking enforcement and busting underage drinking, it is (or was) a fully-equipped cop car. The rear seat is plastic, and it has a divider between the front and rear. All the radio equipment and whatnot has been removed from the console in the front, leaving a bunch of gaping holes. You can de-cop it using junkyard parts; there are plenty of Impalas around, but it’s going to take some work.

It’s a little harder to do anything about the outside. That black-and-white paint job is never going to look like anything other than a cop car. And it looks like they just painted over some of the vinyl graphics instead of removing them. To make matters worse, rust is starting to creep in around the corners. A bunch of Batman stickers are looking pretty good right about now, aren’t they?

Cosmetics aside, these are both pretty solid cars. Twenty-five hundred bucks isn’t much to spend on a car these days, but honestly, I think you could do worse than either of these. Which one would you trust?