Minnesota State patrol maroon, Car produced at the Twin Cities Ford plant in St. Paul (closed last year after over 100 years)
Clarence
Clarence
dmathieu said:
The Ultimate Vintage Police Car Thread
- Thread starter SomeBloke
- Start date
Here I go again; putting non-police vehicles in the thread. Go ahead- slap my hand and call me Betty.
JazzDad said:
That was the car Officer J.D Tippit was driving when he was killed in the line of duty by Lee Harvey Oswald.
When I was in high school I heard about a program where they were going to restore a car from the ground up and turn it into a police car. it sounded interesting, and it turned out to be a lot of fun. myself and about 12 other kids with countless adults did a frame off restotration, the project was sponsored by a local police dept, as well as many local hobbyists and their businesses. we finished the car in 9 months. I personally went to Reno for hot august nights where the car won the best car of the night from the Atlantis hotel and casino. I was 16 and got kicked out of the casino 3 times before the award was given out, just before the called my name the bouncer had spotted me and he looked pissed, he nicely congratulated me before kicking me out for the 4th time.
ill try and get some more pics, this was back in 1995-1996 before the age of digital so I need to scan more pics. the car was recently sold and the money was divided up between the original kids.
we wanted to keep the car, but it was needing repairs and sponsoring and insurance was getting to be quite costly, after the police dept gave the car back, (they used it for PR and parades for about 8 years) it went to the beat the heat anti street racing club.
the car had a simple warning package, 4 corner strobes , the streethawk, and 2 firebeams on the rear deck, ( no flash shields) the speaker on the roof was wired via a PA300 to rebroadcast the bad boys theme song over the tape deck. remember 1995 guys..lol
some of the mods included a built 396 chevy engine, narrowed ford 9in rear axle, jaguar front suspension. we had a great time building the car, we did all the work while wet sanding I sanded through the black paint , this was 2 days before the debut of the car at a show, the remedy was to hand paint a bullet hole over that spot... that caused a shit storm let me tell you...
all of the sponsors got their name on the top of the trunk lid, and the kids names went to the back part of the trunk.
ill try and get some more pics, this was back in 1995-1996 before the age of digital so I need to scan more pics. the car was recently sold and the money was divided up between the original kids.
we wanted to keep the car, but it was needing repairs and sponsoring and insurance was getting to be quite costly, after the police dept gave the car back, (they used it for PR and parades for about 8 years) it went to the beat the heat anti street racing club.
the car had a simple warning package, 4 corner strobes , the streethawk, and 2 firebeams on the rear deck, ( no flash shields) the speaker on the roof was wired via a PA300 to rebroadcast the bad boys theme song over the tape deck. remember 1995 guys..lol
some of the mods included a built 396 chevy engine, narrowed ford 9in rear axle, jaguar front suspension. we had a great time building the car, we did all the work while wet sanding I sanded through the black paint , this was 2 days before the debut of the car at a show, the remedy was to hand paint a bullet hole over that spot... that caused a shit storm let me tell you...
all of the sponsors got their name on the top of the trunk lid, and the kids names went to the back part of the trunk.
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the picture is that of a supervisors car in 52 Division it is from the 80's and the car is a Ford Fairmont.....we were stuck with these due to an error in ordering by the city.....they were a 4 cylinder powerhouse that would stall out when you tried making a u turn....they tried to remove some of them from front line uniform service by swapping them with unmarked 8 cylinder Plymouth Volare's took the yellow Fairmont's and painted them various colors then painted the Volare's yellow.
SomeBloke said:
I had to look twice at this old Dodge. A guy in Canada has a '52 Dodge (or maybe a Plymouth) that's a Sedanbulance. Looks a lot like this car. His has a junior beacon on top and red lights on the bumper.
tocopper said:
When I lived in Lubbock, TX, the police dept. went from full size cars to the mid-sized Plymouth Gran Furies. As far as I know they were decent units for such a small car, and I never heard any complaints about them except one: at that time each officer had an assigned car and they went home with him. The cars were the first, and only, to have the downsized Yankee lightbars. One night someone got to one of the little cars parked at an officer's residence and stole not only the lightbar, but the siren and the charger for the hand-held radio. I always expected to see some of that stuff show up at one of the flea markets around there, but never did.
After coming back here in 1991 I ended up working for the taxi co. in Odessa, where I was assigned a 1986 Plymouth Gran Fury. It had been a state vehicle with mega-miles on it when I got it; but it ran well and gave me little to no mechanical problems. When it was retired I bought the car at a decent price and drove it a few more years.
HILO said:
If you look close at that car, you'll notice the old black Federal C4B siren that was used on a lot of the DPD cars back then. But when you see DPD cars on TV shows and in movies, most of them have a little EG siren on the roof.
JazzDad said:
This one reminds me of the '50s Fords that Midland PD used. Until '56 when they went with big blue Pontiacs and Model 17 beacons on the roof, the old Fords had Adam-12-type lights on the front corners of the roofs and WL sirens on the left front fenders. Prior to 1956 the only red beacon in Midland was a Model 17 mounted on Ellis Funeral Home's '54 Ford "Ranch Wagon" ambulance. It also had two red spots and twin red bumper lights, and a B&M S8B Siro-Drift siren mounted on the left fender. I actually got to go on an emergency medical run one summer when I had just turned 11. On the way to the call we happened to pass my cousin's mom, and I waved at her from the front seat of the ambulance. I later learned that she called my grandmother's house quite agitated about having seen me in the ambulance. The reply she got was, "So what? He's always around that car. It's a wonder he hasn't talked them into that sooner."
JazzDad said:
When I was a kid our fire chief rarely ever ran "hot" to fire calls. For several years his car was a '56 Ford tudor, and the sole piece of emergency equipment was a Federal WL siren mounted on the left fender. In '59 he got a new Ford sedan. It had no red lights...just an underhood doubletone siren. The assistant chiefs inherited the '56 Ford. They always responded Code 3 on fire runs; and on one of their first runs using only that small WL siren they almost got run over. A week later that car had a Q in place of the WL and a red jr. beacon on the roof. The one and only time I ever saw the chief running "hot" was to a plane crash in 1964. By then he had gotten a new '63 Ford sedan and the sole piece of emergency equipment was a Federal Interceptor with an underhood speaker. The crash site was at the airport, which then was considered to be out in the "boonies". I often wondered how he got through heavy Saturday traffic that way!
Skip Goulet said:
If that happened back in 1964 he would have been using a PA20. The PA20 has the 'alert' tone. The siren is supposed to be rated at 75 watts, but someone told me it's only 45 watts.
dmathieu said:
Is that an old Trippe light on the roof, Dan? Hard to tell from the pic. That is an old Crosley, right?
I hope the guy with the Crosley was a meter maid, I can't even imagine pursuing a 348ci Impala in that thing! :haha:
Liberty703 said:
Yeah...and if he had a siren of decent size, the torque would roll the car over if he used it. :haha:
