I've always had a fascination with accessories on police interceptors. Now, I am not going to turn my Gen 3 into a look-alike, BUT... I am curious, has anyone ever seen a Prius with a police-style bull bar/push bar? There's a tiny bit of me that's debating throwing one on like in the image below. I haven't been able to find a photo of one "in the wild" but it looks like someone made some mockups in Grand Theft Auto. What are your thoughts: Pros? Cons? Ease of installation? Effect of MPGs? I am super curious as to what the community thinks.
Agreed. Departments usually don't use them for pursuits. But, I am still curious about how it would look. I won't lie, I am tempted to try if it can be done right...
I would be curious exactly what that is attached to underneath. To be truly effective it should be attached to a structural frame member of some type. My approach would have been to use the tow-hook openings for the upper part of that push bar, because behind those 2 openings you find nice threaded holes into the metal part of the front bumper. If you very carefully faired the structure with sheet aluminum, you might not disrupt the aerodynamics too badly and have the resultant inefficiency. Hmmm.
That's how you wind up with fasteners snapped off in the tow hook receivers. Somebody backs into the "nudge bar" and its long length (height) away from the mount point creates enough leverage to shear the bolts. It's almost better to just glue it on to the front bumper cover so if it gets hit, it is just uniformly pressed through the plastic fascia and the radiator & support structure. While they do look cool they tend to be gasoline-to-noise converters once you are on the highway.
