The police car is like a superhero on four wheels, said Lt. David Halliday of Michigan State Police.

Officers demand a lot from their cars, such as idling them for several hours and then taking off on a high-speed chase, Halliday said. Weather conditions, bumpy roads and lots of stop-and-go driving require police vehicles to occupy a different category than civilian cars.

And it is at the annual Michigan State Police’s police car evaluation – where members of the agency’s Precision Driving Unit don helmets and navigate police vehicles at 135 mph around custom tracks – where the Clark Kents are separated from the Supermen.

Police agency representatives from across the nation, including Evanston, attend the event, held in Lansing, Mich., Halliday said.

Car manufacturers submit their law enforcement-model vehicles several years in advance to be considered for the testing, Halliday said.

“Many times we’ll be working with them as far as three or four years in advance to when the cars are going to debut,” said Halliday, who commands the Precision Driving Unit. “It really tests the cars as far as what has a manufacturer done to combine everything. A car may be fast on a straightaway, but can it also handle curves?”

Two versions of Ford’s Crown Victoria were among the six 2006 model cars tested and ranked by the unit in September. The Chevrolet Impala, Dodge Magnum, Dodge Charger and Chevrolet Tahoe sports utility vehicle also were tested. They were ranked according to acceleration, speed, braking, vehicle dynamics (high speed handling), ergonomics and fuel economy.

An Evanston official has gone to Lansing several times in the past few years, said Cathy Radek, the superintendent of administrative services for the City of Evanston.

“Michigan is close to us, and their environment would be similar in weather and road conditions,” said Radek, who is in charge of the purchase of Evanston Police Department vehicles. She reviews the Precision Driving Unit’s results when deciding on police vehicles for the city, she said.

EPD officers drive police vehicle Crown Victorias.

“The Crown Victoria has very good interior room for the driver and passengers,” Radek said. “It’s manufactured for that purpose. The speed is heavy-duty suspension that isn’t found in a typical Crown Victoria.”

The annual testing began in the 1950s, but it was in 1974 when it attracted attention outside of the Michigan State Police, Halliday said.

Representatives from a few other agencies asked if they could watch the testing.

“I think there was a handful of guys,” Halliday said.

Thirty years later, the annual police vehicle evaluation attracts between 200 and 300 guests, who are mostly from police departments in Canada and the United States. Engineers from car manufacturers are also on hand to answer questions. The Michigan State Police also receives about 30,000 requests each year about the evaluation results from countries as far away as Australia and Malaysia, Halliday said.

“I describe it as similar to the ‘Consumer Reports’ or ‘Car and Driver’ for police cars,” he said.

Although the evaluation results carry some weight for the Evanston force, EPD’s vehicle needs differ from other agencies because of the city’s urban environment, Radek said.

“We don’t have long stretches of highways,” she said. “We don’t accumulate the number of a miles that a state trooper might put on a car in a year. We’re only eight square miles here.”

Reach Beth Murtagh at [email protected].