Auditioning for Real Chase Scenes TEST DRIVE A New York police officer tries out the new Ford Police Interceptor at Citi Field in Queens. AS if the dispatcher had just barked out a "10-13" - the New York police radio code for an officer needing assistance - Capt. Anthony J. Raganella put the cruiser in gear and floored the accelerator. Seconds later, he was cornering hard. The tires were squealing. STREET LEGAL Capt. Anthony J. Raganella gets a feel for a new Ford police cruiser. But he did not turn on the siren, as he would have if he had been rushing to a real crime scene. Captain Raganella, the commanding officer of the department's Disorder Control Unit, was test-driving a new Ford Police Interceptor in a parking lot. Of course, the parking lot, at Citi Field in Flushing, Queens, had been marked off with a closed-loop course that was supposed to simulate the maneuvers an officer would make to cover 20 to 30 blocks with life-or-death urgency. After a couple of laps, Captain Raganella was enthusiastic about the Police Interceptor, which Ford designed to take the place of a 20-year stalwart, the discontinued Crown Victoria. "This is wonderful," said Captain Raganella, who stressed that he was not speaking in an official capacity. I felt at home in the Crown Vic. I felt more at home in this. Going around turns, this gives you more confidence. A lot more. It feels locked down to the ground. Ford says it is replacing the police version of the Crown Victoria with five models - two sedans based on the Taurus and three sport utility vehicles based on the Explorer. Officers accustomed to the Crown Victoria might be concerned about two things the new models do not have: rear drive and V-8 engines. The new models have standard all-wheel drive, an option on civilian Tauruses, and a choice of three V-6s, all more powerful - and more fuel-efficient - than the previous V-8s. Ford's goal was a 20 percent improvement in fuel economy. Citing the example of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, whose 6,200 vehicles rolled up 27 million miles last year, Ford said the new cars would save at least $20 million a year on gasoline, based on the current pump price. In the Crown Victoria's heyday, Ford sold roughly 40,000 a year as police cars. "That would be a reasonable target" for the new vehicles, said Lisa Teed, Ford's marketing manager for Police Interceptors. Ford says the Chicago Police Department has agreed to buy 500 Police Interceptors, the largest contract. Those cars will not have to go far once they roll off the assembly line: Ford is building the Police Interceptors at a southeast Chicago factory that dates to the Model T. In New York, where the police department is already testing new Dodge Chargers, the plan for the Fords is "to acquire a certain number to test in the fleet as a possible replacement for the Crown Vic - successor, I should say," explained Paul J. Browne, the department's main spokesman. Some would argue nothing can replace the Crown Vic. Mr. Browne said the city liked to have "two, and preferably three," manufacturers in the fleet, which has 1,829 marked police cars. Ford has largely standardized the interiors of the new sedan and sport utility. Like Airbus airplanes, whose cockpits are nearly identical from model to model, the Police Interceptors have identical dashboards. The idea is to keep officers from being disoriented if their regular-duty sedan has to go in for maintenance and they are issued an S.U.V. Ford also made the two models "upfit friendly" - police jargon for options that go beyond law-enforcement-only standard equipment, like a column-mounted shifter, 18-inch tires, special brakes and under-body plates to protect the transmission and oil pan. "Because they go airborne," explained Carl Widmann, the vehicle engineering manager. Ford put the gear shifter on the column to clear space for a laptop between the front bucket seats. The seats are extra-wide around the hips - not to accommodate patrol officers who take too many doughnut breaks, but to hold all the stuff they wear around their waists: guns, ammunition, walkie-talkies and so on. The engineers redesigned the doors, eliminating storage pockets, after visiting a police garage in New York. "All of the door panels were off" the cruisers in the garage, Ms. Teed said. "They said, "We're riveting on these plastic panels because they're easier to clean." I was like, "We don't want you to have to take off the door panels. We'll make them so you don't have to." "