The Leesburg Police Department is getting ready to put four new vehicles on the road.
Leesburg commissioners earlier this week approved the purchase of four Ford F-150 pickup trucks for a price tag of $138,380. The pickups were budgeted in the 2021 fiscal year and will replace four 2012 Dodge Chargers, a memorandum to commissioners from Purchasing Manager Mike Thornton says.
The F-150 responder pickup trucks will be assigned to each of the four patrol supervisors.
“The trucks will benefit the operation by being able to carry additional equipment that may not be needed in each patrol vehicle but can be brought by the supervisor if needed,” Thornton’s memo says. “The trucks will also allow access to areas that cannot be passed by cars or even the Explorer SUV. Access to difficult areas is required on a regular basis as well as during storm events.”
The 2020 model trucks were purchased from OC Welch Ford Lincoln in Hardeeville, S.C. If the city had followed its standard process of “manufactured to order,” the cost of each truck would have been $2,000 more and they wouldn’t have been available until September 2021 based on Ford’s current production schedule as provided by the manufacturer’s fleet division, Thornton wrote, adding that the trucks were delivered to the police department at a cost of $400 per vehicle.
The city also received a quote from the NJPA cooperative on 2021 Ford F-150 pickups for $145,980, or $36,495 per vehicle. The quote from OC Welch Ford Lincoln was $34,595 per pickup, plus $1,200 for delivery of all four. That represents a savings of $1,500 per vehicle and provided for immediate delivery, Thornton wrote.
