Hot Rods What Becomes Of Olde Cop Cars?

Car 54 Where are you?

 

Along RT. 32 near Catskill, NY there is a lot with 50 to 75? Crown Vic old cop cars that haven't moved in years. Awhile ago the had rows of NY State Trooper Chevy SUV's. They seems to be more popular as they are all gone. The Crown Vic's usually ended up in NYC as car service cabs you wouldn't want to ride in ever.

 

My 48 Plymouth business coupe was originally a Police car from the city of Hinkly IL. in 1948, Hinkly bought a fleet of 5 or 6 Plymouths to serve as police cars. I saw an old newspaper picture of them all lined up, with my coupe at the front of the line.
The story goes that my car served 5 or 6 years and was then sold to a s**** yard. Someone bought it out of the s**** yard to build a hot rod with, but that never happened. After about 10 years, someone bought it from that guy and took it to his place where is sat out behind his garage because he never did anything with it either. That story line continued through 3 more owners on the same story line. Purchased from the previous owner, nothing got done, it sat outside waiting, until I came along in 2010.
I was looking for a body to put on my OT ch***is to create an old dirt track race car I could drive on the street. At that time, s**** metal prices were way up, I paid $200 for the basically complete rusted out hulk.
In this picture you can still see the inside handle of the spotlight on the driver side windshield post. There was also a large stop light inside of the car that was attached to 3 holes drilled through the drivers side rear fender. Both the spot light and the stop light are long gone.
This was what the remains of coupe body became. Pretty much all that remained was the outer shell, from just below the bottom of the number, upward. In 2018 I had to patch up the body in a few more places, and the car was repainted.
This it what the coupe looks like now.

Currently buying a retired Police car (or any government service vehicle) in IL depends on which which agency you buy the vehicle from. In our city, the police cars and other county service vehicles are given a repair budget that is equal to the original cost of putting the vehicle into service. When that budget gets used up, the vehicles are removed from service, and the vehicle is auctioned off, often through specified auction locations (any one may purchase the vehicle thorough those auction places). Body damage repair, or wore out parts replacement costs, in addition to regular maintenance, and the cost of removing the specific officially required parts or components, are all counted against that vehicle's repair budget. Most Government and Police vehicles are very well maintained. If the vehicle has required a lot of repairs, it is generally the newest government vehicle to arrive at the auction in the condition it was retired in (usually needing some sort of repair). As stated, detective cars, or higher ranking Police official's cars, and city maintenance vehicles are often a**** the last of a model year to be sold off, and are generally in the better condition. IL State Government vehicles and Police cars, are retired through the same process as our city vehicles are.

 

My dad had an ex-cop Crown Vic. Haha! Tom from Rocket Restorations collects Mopar ex-cop cars.

 

I neglected to mention this yesterday, but there are three and maybe more used vehicle sellers around Chicago that only deal in police and municipal cars and trucks. Considering the amount of inventory they have they must bring them in from a wide area so the market must be good.

 

The Wisconsin government cars, trucks are auctioned off on a regular schedule when vehicles replaced as needed. Back as a kid mid 60's, young guys bought the 63/64 Plymouth sheriff cars, 4 doors, a performance car, then repaint, etc., a cheap deal, seem to remember $800 auction prices I was told. I never went to those auctions but some men that I knew bought cars, pickups, HD trucks and other types of equipment. I have read all the late model Ford crown Vic cars ( out of production now ) go to New York to be Taxi's as that 4.6 and ch***is runs forever 200-400 K miles. The wife and I went to the Bahamas once and that's where all the old Caddy limo's go to be Taxi's I observed.

 

Hope It Got Saved...

 

My former roommate, a Minneapolis officer, told me that by the time the squads were retired they had been in about 10 collisions. Plus all that stop and go and idling. Nice cars!

 

Hopefully A Second Life..

 

My neighbor and best friend got a 1963 Plymouth two-door post with a 383 and 2.87 rear end that had been a Kansas Highway Patrol car. It didn't take long before he blew up the engine, but once rebuilt, bored and balanced, it was bulletproof. Never changed out that rear end, though, so a bogged down dog at the Christmas tree.

 

I worked for a Lincoln/Mercury dealer in the 70's. We got a contract to maintain the County police Fords. When they needed brakes they always needed everything as the brakes were severly worn. I had one in one time for a severe rattle in the front end. I couldn't duplicate it. A call was made to the county and an officer came by and took me for a ride. I couldn't duplicate the rattle because I hadn't taken the car across a rough railroad crossing at 80 mph!

 

Back when I worked at a Chrysler/Plymouth dealership (around 87), one of the county Diplomats came in with a high speed brake issue. That issue didn't happen until they hit the brakes hard at 80+ mph, so the test drive required hard braking at 80+ mph. I was not the guy that got that job, I don't remember for sure what he found, but I thought it had something to do with the bolt on plate the upper control area was attached to. At any rate, that plate replacement solved the problem. Needed multiple stops to be sure the issue was repaired. On the last run, the other mechanic reported the officer ran the car up past 100 mph then locked up the brakes, the problem was deemed to be repaired.

My son has had 2 different retired 2004-2009 Hemi Charger squad cars, he personally put over 100K miles on both of them, then turned them into parts cars (he just sent the last one to the s**** yard). He says that if the cop cars are over 4-5 years old they are pretty wore out, you definitely don't want a 4 year old car showing body damage (because the body repair exceeded the repair budget remaining). The sweet spot is a car 2-3 years old. It has probably had a few body skirmishes (which were repaired very well) and the body repairs burnt up the repair budget before the car got wore out.

 

Auctions.

My maternal grandfather, a retired Oakland CA bike cop, bought me my first motorcycle at an LAPD auction in 1972, a 1970 750 Moto Guzzi.

 

My best friend from high school had a cherry red '33 Ford coupe. He started dating a gal from OKC and decided he needed something a little larger, so he sold the coupe, (never even offered it to me), went to an OKC county auction and bought a used '62 Plymouth cop car. Looked a little ragged compared to this one.

 

Next door neighbor years ago had a 69 Ford Custom 300 I guess , 2 door sedan . It was retired KSP , 428 PI C6 . It would run like a jack rabbit . He told me supposedly KSP would keep it running 24 /7 swapping out officers on I 75 and the body had 300,000 miles , engine trans maintenance was monitored by hour meter . It had a fresh set when he purchased it .

 

I grew up in 60s Israel and Israeli police used their cars shall we say as long as possible, The Studebaker Larks they had served between 1965-1975 (before that they had shoebox Fords I believe). So by the time they got pensioned they had huge mileages, not cars you'd like to own other than as spares, hence none survived. Preservation only started much later (Israeli police now has a small collection of older patrol cars but they had to create a Lark replica from a civilian one).

Completely different situation in the US, and believe it or not some of your ex-cop cars make it here to Europe and people do create tribute cars even. "Our" own cars do get auctioned but that means lots of VWs, Skodas and the like. Not very exciting...

 

If you watch coldwarmotors on YouTube, it seems that Scott's friends Darry and Dan buy them all.

 

A place in York, Maine used to sell retired law enforcement vehicles. They mostly had Crown Vics, but for awhile they had some 5.0 Mustangs that the state police used.

Around 1980, our local police department got some new Dodge Diplomats that came with the slant six. Don't know why, but it was game over once the local hotrodders found out!

 

The place I knew of was up in Ballston Spa, close to the Thruway. The cars, all troopers.. marked/unmarked lined up by the dozens.

 

My uncle standing next to his Minnesota Highway Patrol car. He was stationed in the northern part of the state, it must have been fun driving around in that thing in the middle of winter.

 

I'm amazed at the clean cars they're able to find in Canada.

 

Yes he used to sell used Trooper/City police cars to smaller municipalities.

 

There used to be a place in the Minneapolis area called xgovernmentcars that specialized in selling ex police Crown Vics, but when the supply of those cars dried up they changed their name and moved to selling used cars of all makes. I just looked and they do have a few Ford SUV police interceptors in their current inventory, but it's mostly civilian vehicles.

 

1946 Ford Deluxe Sheriff’s Car that I transported
a few years ago, it stayed in the same family
as the officer who originally drove it.
Now in California.

My YouTube video is here …

@


Jim

 

Hello,

One day my wife came home from visiting friends. She said some police car was following her on PCH, very closely. So, I had to ask, were your going fast or turning corners quickly? She was intimidated by the black and white car that followed her for the last 5 miles in the same lane and turning the same corners showing the b/w paint.

By the time she got close to our house, on this narrow steep street, the b/w car turned the opposite way. She distinctly saw the color pattern and even the door had something on it.

Jnaki

Come to find out, the local newspaper ran an article on this particular B/W car in the community. There were complaints to the local police about the erratic driving by the specific car. Early Dodge 4 door sedan with the side emblems fairly rubbed off, as well as the markings on the hood and trunk.

Technically, the car was purchased used from an auction and was a stripped CHP car. But, no lights or siren or radical front bumper was on the vehicle. But, we did see this sedan often on PCH heading south towards Dana Point Harhor.

A local teen had bought the old sedan from an auction house in Pomona, as the local newspaper article said and it was his first teenage car. The emblems had been taken off with care, but one could still see the side door emblems almost fading out. But, everyone knew it was an old CHP car. It was DMV legal, so there is that...

The first time I saw the old CHP car, it did not have the bendable antenna, just the stub. He must have purchased the flexible antenna and used it for his CB which was seen mounted on the floor. He had numerous complaints from drivers of all ages, but everything was legal.

One year, he put on a red, upside down plastic bucket on the roof as a joke and that made the old sedan really look like a police car from the past. (as we all get somewhat nervous when a B/W shows up on our rear view mirror) …YRMV

 

same here

 

Thanks, cool story

 

Speaking of Cop Cars…..

 

Local bracket racer's Dodge use to be a sherrif car, he says there's a bullet hole still in the support behind the back seat.

 

My 51 Pontiac belonged to a city police department from new until 1955. It sat in a barn from 70/80 until I got it in 2015. It has all imitation leather interior that was police trim package only. Civilian sedans all got cloth interior.