Field Assessment
The Buffalo is the Vice City sedan that appears in the background of every street sequence and in the foreground of every pursuit. The Charger formula translates directly: rear-wheel drive, available V8, and the proportions that communicate American performance sedan without entering the exotic category.
The Buffalo is the car the protagonist uses when the better options are not available. It is also the car that the better options are measured against in the real-world Charger sense: not the fastest, not the most sophisticated, but immediately accessible and more capable than most of what it encounters.
The police version exists for different reasons, covered separately. The civilian Buffalo is the car that Vice City civilians drive when they want something with personality without the maintenance costs of the exotic tier.