Remember that super cool police cruiser Carbon Motors promised by the end of 2012? It looks like the company has placed its aggressive-looking cop car on the back burner in favor of an even more aggressive-looking cop van.
Carbon has shifted its focus from the classic two-partner cop setup they built into the E7 in favor of SWAT team essentials, placing most of its eggs instead into this v8 diesel-powered, 4×4, 10-passenger basket. But that might be bad news for the 638 law enforcement agencies that already placed orders for the E7 Pursuit and Surveillance Vehicle (PSV).
Not to worry. Carbon will offer “special TX7 pricing” for those departments. Cars for vans. They might consider just buying a bunch of surplus Panthers, super cheap.
Like the E7, the TX7 van also ambitiously aims to be the ultimate thing a police department can buy, albeit this time in paddy wagon form rather than patrol cruiser. Its super high tech styling seems focused on convincing people the TX7 will make you pay for your crimes. But somehow, the thing comes off looking a bit like the Griswold Family Truckster version of a GMC Safari van.
But the TX7’s proposed guts have the potential to be innovativeish. Carbon said it plans eventually to offer a CNG powertrain, solar panel arrays, weapons of mass destruction sensors, and other possibly undeveloped options. They also helpfully pointed out for potential customers (or jilted/incensed E7 orderers) that most special mission trucks are big and clunky and cost up to $2 million. Their van starts at $150,000 (no word on how much for the optional nuclear bomb sniffers and bad guy detecting death ray).
This robo-van is certainly both edgy and not what E7 customers asked for. But to E7 aficionados, we say don’t fret. You can fit way more perps in a TX7. Hell, you could even turn prisons into TX7 van festivals, rehabilitating convicts through modern-edged ’70s communal van culture and — in states where drugs end up being legalized — paralyzing volumes of pot smoke. We’re looking to the future of law enforcement, right?
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