The national automobile crisis hit Bayonne this week, forcing the City Council to postpone buying 10 new Chevrolet police cars to supplement its aging fleet.
The city has or can get the money for the $28,000-per-car price, but due to the bankruptcy of General Motors – which manufactures Chevrolet – the cars simply do not exist.
Terrence Malloy, chief financial officer for the city, said a bidder on the contract promised the cars, but found that after an extensive search, the cars did not exist.
“If we could find one or two we would grab them up,” Malloy said.
One option would be for20the city to switch to a Ford model police car. But this would mean that the city’s Central Garage would have to stock up on Ford parts as well Chevrolet parts, a costly sum, Malloy predicted.
Meanwhile, nearly all of the city police cars are putting on mileage, and many already exceed 100,000.
Malloy said the city is trying to wait out the GM crisis to see if the company will resume making the police cars in the near future. If not, then the city will have no choice but to go to Ford. In addition, the state contracts under which the city is purchasing the police cars may expire before cars are available, meaning that the city may have only enough to pay for nine instead of 10 cars as planned.
Bayonne can’t buy Chevrolet cars
