Unmarked Police Cars on TV and their Dashlights

[Skip Goulet]

Isn't something that when a TV show or movie takes a car that's not doing well in sales and uses it as their star car, their popularity and demand skyrocket almost instantly? Just like the Torino, the 1977 Trans Am was not getting many buyers and Pontiac was starting to sweat over the lack of interest. Cue "Smokey and the Bandit" and then everyone and their mother wanted a Trans Am (especially the black ones) and a CB radio!

TV shows and movies make good marketing ploys for cars and trucks :thumbsup: .

Actually C.B. sales and usage had started to boom by the early '70s long before the movie. But that just made things worse! I'm not sure about other parts of the country, but around here, C.B. thefts skyrocketed. Back in 1971 when I was still at Texas Tech in Lubbock, my little '63 Valiant got broken into. My C.B. was firmly bolted in with locknuts behind the bracket bolts, and hex bolts held the radio in the bracket. But I had just put a Lafayette PB150 high band receiver in the car; and not giving it a second thought, it was only secured by the two knobs that held it place. The C.B. was safe, but I lost the Lafayette radio. And that was upsetting. These were pre-scanner radios, but had very strong receivers, so that was a considerable loss.


Back then I lived in an off-campus housing facility which was much like a high-rise apt. building. I had just gotten my ambulance service started and was keeping "the" ambulance, and eventually my entire fleet (2 or 3 ambulances) in our parking building. The co. that owned the building had rent-a-cops working the place...some of them off-duty city cops. One evening our 1967 high top Olds ambulance was broken into, and they wiped the vehicle out completely...cot, trauma kits, O2 bottle, etc., not to mention the C.B. and a small Regency scanner up front. Bad thing was....a rent-a-cop saw the burglary take place and did nothing. When he was called on the carpet, he said, "Well, I just thought it was one of Skip's friends." Because of that, the complex had to make good on the theft. Guess what came next......burglar alarms! And that reminds me of something else! In 1974 we had put a nice '67 Chevy station wagon ambulance into service. It had a nice Motorola C.B. that I had found at a freight salvage store well worth the money! Now this wagon was set up with a converted dimmer switch on the floor to operate the Q siren. Since those buttons are very sensitive, it also had a dash switch as a safety so that anyone taller than me who got in the car wouldn't accidentally step on the siren. So I got in the habit of "arming" the siren before leaving it sitting. That ended up working too well! My second-in-command, Mike, had keys to both ambulances, and one day his car had broken down on campus, requiring it to be towed to his mechanic. He knew that I wouldn't mind his borrowing the Chevy wagon (I happened to be out in the other ambulance, our '65 Olds VistaCruiser; so he just hopped in the Chevy. Now, I'm quite short at 5'6", but Mike was a bit over 6 ft. Wouldn't you know it, in his haste to see about his car, he hopped in the wagon, not even thinking about the siren being armed, and stepped right on that foot button. Needless to say, he knew what to do in killing the safety switch and the foot button and then applying the siren brake. But it was too late. By that time here came the rent-a-cops and two city cop cars! Fortunately they knew Mike, and one of them had the S.O. call me on the radio just to make sure. Awwwwkard....pooor Mike!

 

[Phillyrube]

Not a dashlight, and not the cops, but:


"Twister", and the red Responder Cadets on the Dorothy thingee in the bed of the truck.

 

[StEaLtH2]

Not a dashlight, and not the cops, but:

"Twister", and the red Responder Cadets on the Dorothy thingee in the bed of the truck.

 

[Phillyrube]

Striking Distance... Few off the interweb...

View attachment 66695View attachment 66696View attachment 66697

Great scene when they're barreling down the street (filmed in Duquesne, PA) and the Streethawk flies off one of the cars...twice!

 

[Skip Goulet]

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One of my all-time favorite movies. I try to watch it every time I see that it's on TV. Quite a bit of the footage was filmed here in Texas.

 

[ejwa]

Even at a very young age it bothered me that toymakers produced marked patrol cars with throw lights.

That and making them with the wrong color domes. I had a toy tow truck with a red light bar. I didn't know if it was a rescue tow truck or a fire department's recovery trruck. :weird:

 

[stansdds]

That and making them with the wrong color domes. I had a toy tow truck with a red light bar. I didn't know if it was a rescue tow truck or a fire department's recovery trruck. :weird:

That bothered me too. East of the Mississippi River it is unusual to see red on a tow truck, but I understand that in several states west of the Mississippi, red can be used, at least to a degree.

 

[Skip Goulet]

That bothered me too. East of the Mississippi River it is unusual to see red on a tow truck, but I understand that in several states west of the Mississippi, red can be used, at least to a degree.

I think I mentioned this on another thread, but in TX, tow trucks have always been considered emergency vehicles. And unless a local ordinance forbids it, wreckers are allowed to use red lights. Sirens have always been allowed but have ordinarily been somewhat rare. When I was about 6 or 7 my dad drove a wrecker for a friend who had been a city cop. He had a big Sterling siren/light combination on the left fender of the wrecker....which I just couldn't talk Dad into using most of the time!


For many years before fire departments got JAWS and other rescue tools, wreckers were the only means for getting people out of wrecks. The downside there was that sometimes getting jerked around by the wrecker caused more damage than the original injuries! I have a DVD at home that a friend of mine in OK had made. He was able to have a series of newsfilm that had been shot between 1962 and 1972 in Corpus Christi by a TV newsman transferred to VHS and DVD. The hour-plus footage shows numerous wrecks in and around Corpus: and a lot of the footage shows wreckers being used to get victims out of their cars. The footage in some of these wrecks is quite graphic. The footage also shows a lot of neat ambulances that were used back then: station wagons, Pontiac Consorts, and a few low top Suburbans. There were no high top ambulances in any of the footage. One of the more interesting station wagons was a '63 Chevy wagon that sported four beacons and twin Qs. I would've liked to have seen what the car had under the hood to power all of that!


Around here the wreckers still use red lights, but their need to actually run code 3 to a scene nowadays is quite rare.

 

[Tristar]

I have a very vivid memory from when I was very young, of a tow truck in our driveway, and it had a four sealed beam light with a red lens. It was in the early 1960s in New York state (about an hour north of NYC). I remember being fascinated by the light...it was probably what got me hooked.

 

[Rhinojoe]

Arron Tippin My Blue Angel. You have to wait until the end, but you get the mother of throw lights!

FYI, Those dual Mag Mount PAR 36 Beacon are still being made by McDermott (who also does the NYPD folding bar light unit)

 

[CrownVic97]

That actually looks like a Grote 7622 converted to mag mount. I'm sure that roof has a lot of paint chips and dents where that light gets tossed!

 

[Skip Goulet]

FYI, Those dual Mag Mount PAR 36 Beacon are still being made by McDermott (who also does the NYPD folding bar light unit)

SVP/Star also has them.

 

[CHIEFOPS]

FYI, Those dual Mag Mount PAR 36 Beacon are still being made by McDermott (who also does the NYPD folding bar light unit)

The NYPD stopped using Mcdermott Riser bars right about the time I retired in 2005 in favor of crappier Will-Burt/FedSig "Street Heat" bars. I never knew why they changed brands, and never had a chance to find out.


The Mcdermott son who runs the LED side of the business told me last year they got/were getting the NYPD contract back but as of yet I've not seen evidence of that.


I have to run out there in the spring to get parts to refurbish a bar, I'll ask then.

 

[ejwa]

I have a DVD at home that a friend of mine in OK had made. He was able to have a series of newsfilm that had been shot between 1962 and 1972 in Corpus Christi by a TV newsman transferred to VHS and DVD. The hour-plus footage shows numerous wrecks in and around Corpus: and a lot of the footage shows wreckers being used to get victims out of their cars. The footage in some of these wrecks is quite graphic. The footage also shows a lot of neat ambulances that were used back then: station wagons, Pontiac Consorts, and a few low top Suburbans. There were no high top ambulances in any of the footage. One of the more interesting station wagons was a '63 Chevy wagon that sported four beacons and twin Qs. I would've liked to have seen what the car had under the hood to power all of that!

Back then, many ambulaces were also hearses. Both funeral homes also operated the only ambulances in my home town. But back then, the only job of the ambulance was to transport you to the hospiptal, not treat you while you were in rout. :hopeless:

 

[Skip Goulet]

Back then, many ambulaces were also hearses. Both funeral homes also operated the only ambulances in my home town. But back then, the only job of the ambulance was to transport you to the hospiptal, not treat you while you were in rout. :hopeless:

Been there, done that. I worked for Rix Funeral Home in Odessa for three years: 1963-66 until we got out of the ambulance business. It was totally load and go. From 1968 to 1974 a funeral home here maintained the ambulance contract using only two ambulance to cover a town of about 70,000. Midland FD's EMS opened in '74 and that was the end of that.


Two of the ambulances that were in the news footage I mention above were Pontiac Consorts...the short-wheel-based models. They were straight ambulances, not combos, but belonged to one of the funeral homes still running in Corpus at the time. As I noted, the footage covered from 1962 to 1972, so most of the ambulances in all of the footage were from funeral homes, except for the last two or three years which included a couple of private ambulance companies. But still no EMS at the time.

 

[Tristar]

One of the more interesting station wagons was a '63 Chevy wagon that sported four beacons and twin Qs. I would've liked to have seen what the car had under the hood to power all of that!

Skip - was that ambulance purchased from the Mt. Horeb, WI FD?

 

[Skip Goulet]

Skip - was that ambulance purchased from the Mt. Horeb, WI FD?

Cute, Matthew! I would assume that it was a local build, or possibly converted by one of the two ambulance builders around Dallas. Aside from the two Consorts I mentioned, most of the ambulances in the video were home-brew. Since I've never been to Corpus Christi, I don't know when they made the transition from the funeral homes or private services to a contract service or EMS system. One neat thing that I saw in that video that you almost never see: a police officer doing CPR at an accident scene. I guess they didn't have liability issues back then......thankfully.

 

[Tristar]

Cute, Matthew! I would assume that it was a local build, or possibly converted by one of the two ambulance builders around Dallas. Aside from the two Consorts I mentioned, most of the ambulances in the video were home-brew. Since I've never been to Corpus Christi, I don't know when they made the transition from the funeral homes or private services to a contract service or EMS system. One neat thing that I saw in that video that you almost never see: a police officer doing CPR at an accident scene. I guess they didn't have liability issues back then......thankfully.

I had a deputy ride with us to help with CPR, but it was back in the early 1980s. A few weeks ago I heard something equally as unusual (at least for this area): A police officer drove the FD ambulance to the hospital, so both medics could work on the pediatric code.

 

[Skip Goulet]

I had a deputy ride with us to help with CPR, but it was back in the early 1980s. A few weeks ago I heard something equally as unusual (at least for this area): A police officer drove the FD ambulance to the hospital, so both medics could work on the pediatric code.

Just having someone to drive the ambulance isn't that unusual, but seeing an officer actually doing something is; and as I said above, nowadays it's a liability issue. To that end I've seen police officers just stand around and do nothing with someone in arrest. But here's something a bit unusual: in Andrews, TX, a small town about 35 mi. northwest of me, the P.D. runs the EMS. It's been that way since the local funeral home exited the ambulance service nearly 40 years ago. The big joke around Andrews used to be: "If you need a cop in a hurry, call for an ambulance." Over the past 10 years or so that's changed, as a lot of the vol. firemen have also become EMTs or Paramedics, so you're seeing more of the firemen on the ambulance than cops. But the cops are still doing their share of the responses.


Back in the early '80s when I still had my small service in Lubbock we were working dual events one Saturday night. I took an ambulance out south to the car races while my other crew went east to the drag strip. The car races ended a bit earlier than usual, so I headed for the drag strip, as they were running a pair of jet cars that night. Just as I got to the strip the jet cars were making their final run. That was the final event for the evening, so I went upstairs in the scoring tower. So did the two deputies who were working security for the track that night. Suddenly one of the pit guys came upstairs and told the two deputies that two intoxicated guys were trying to get out on the track while they were trying to disassemble the "Christmas tree". Shortly after the deputies headed outside one of the guys up in the tower looked out and hollered that the two guys were fighting with the deputies; so downstairs I went and headed for the ambulance, along with my partner Mike. Just as I got to the truck I heard a gunshot ring out. We had the sheriff's old lowband frequency in the ambulance, so I got on the radio and let their dispatch know that the deputies needed assistance, and that there were shots fired. We got to where the deputies were and a guy was lying on his back with blood coming from his head. He came around just as Mike and I were loading him into the ambulance, and the guy suddenly kicked me in my rt. shoulder, dislocating it. Bad thing there was that I had dislocated the other shoulder at work a few weeks earlier and it was still sore. So I talked a deputy into riding in with us just to be safe. Because the patient had kicked me, I figured the deputy would ride in back with Mike. But he chose to ride up front with me. I asked him why and I got the old "liability issue" answer. On he way in I heard the patient say to Mike, "Did you see me kick that "effin'" cop back there?" Mike told him, "That was no cop, that was my partner, whose now driving us in. He was trying to help you." The guy then hollered a profuse apology. The deputy just shook his head and asked if I would file charges on the guy. It was more of a statement than a question. But I said no, because the guy was drunk and didn't know what he was doing. Turned out that the S.O. filed on him for the "assault" on me anyway, which I didn't like. I wasn't excusing what the guy did to me; but you have to consider the circumstances. At the hospital I found one of my favorite ER docs and told him that my shoulder was dislocated. He looked at it and concurred with my "diagnosis" and then quickly popped it back in place, saying "Now it's not", with a big chuckle. Everyone, except me, got a big laugh out of that. Well, sometimes you're gonna see the cops help, sometimes you won't. Even though that footage was very old, it was nice to see that motor cop doing CPR.

 

[Phillyrube]

Back to the thread: The Pelican Brief. The president and his chief of staff are riding in the limo, with a black Suburban behind them, with a blue teardrop of some sort on the roof. Very slow rotator

 

[stansdds]

Back to the thread: The Pelican Brief. The president and his chief of staff are riding in the limo, with a black Suburban behind them, with a blue teardrop of some sort on the roof. Very slow rotator

Very slow rotating teardrop light sounds like a Federal FB-11, especially the Series A1 which did not have a pinch roller to keep the motor drive shaft and the rubber ring on the disc to which the reflector was mounted in firm contact.

 

[StEaLtH2]

Love that Chevelle..... Watch the clip, it's worth the two mins..

 

[flahotrod]

^ That clip is pretty funny.

 

[stansdds]

I think that was a SVP 1166 and you should always keep a spare in your vehicle, just in case some perp shoots one off the roof of your car.

 

[Skip Goulet]

I think that was a SVP 1166 and you should always keep a spare in your vehicle, just in case some perp shoots one off the roof of your car.

Just what I was gonna say. Never hurts to keep a spare. But I'd bet that was a first!

 

[Impala9C1]

You never know when something like this will happen so keep a few.

 

[stansdds]

You never know when something like this will happen so keep a few.

View attachment 220359

LOL!!!

 

[CHIEFOPS]

You never know when something like this will happen so keep a few.

View attachment 220359

Pathetic, not real windshield glass, and yes I know Hollywood uses candy or some other material for breakaway glass

 

[Impala9C1]

Yeah but it is still funny. Sledge Hammer was a cheesy cop sitcom in the 80s and didn't try to be anything more than that. Made the network issue a lot of apologies though. A wonderful blend of Dirty Harry and Inspector Clouseau.

 

[coop359]

The FBH11 with that big magnet will stay on a metal roof at high speeds. When I used as a throw light as a POC FF. Blue light. I put Duct tape over the magnet so I could pry it off the roof after a call. Saved on paint scratch’s - still held on with tape

 

[coop359]

How about Lady Blue with Jamie Rose. Drove a Bronco 2 with a S&W pancake light in red - she put it on the roof. She was a red head with a large .357 revolver. Took place in Chicago. What -no blue light. 85-91

 

[Impala9C1]

I did that with my mini bar in PA. Never had an issue barring ice build up.

The FBH11 with that big magnet will stay on a metal roof at high speeds. When I used as a throw light as a POC FF. Blue light. I put Duct tape over the magnet so I could pry it off the roof after a call. Saved on paint scratch’s - still held on with tape

 

[Wailer]

"Colors" with Robert Duvall & Sean Penn's Caprice and Fury also used the flipped down also.

The sirens sound like Unitrol 80Ks.

 

[delcofirecop]

Very common some not all but some unmarked cars had head light flashers and or red and blue grill lights but the grill lights were rare from what I remember as a kid.

In an episode of Cops, There was a Philadelphia unmarked cruised that used a red Federal Model 15 Junior Beacon Ray as a dash light.

 

[bpollard]

I had an SVP teardrop light years ago. somewhat like a Fireball. One night while responding to a call i had it on the roof and was hauling butt when it flew off.

the window was shut on the coiled cord so the light flew way out then recoiled back and stuck to the side of the back door. It never stopped working and i didn't slow down.

-Bob