As soon as I saw this Chevy Caprice “police car” posted by Roshake at the Cohort, my BS meter’s pointer started swinging into the brown zone. Even at first glance, it looks too perfectly curated, what with the various identification on the door still intact, right down to the “To Protect And To Serve”, as well as just the “POLICE” sign. Cop cars are de-badged before they’re sold, and I believe it’s illegal to actually have a “Police” sign on your car, at least in some places.
Then there’s the interior.
That’s not the interior that genuine police Caprices came with; it was a tough nubby fabric on simple seats; no central arm rest. And a glimpse of the rear seat in another shot shows the same nice velour as in front. Um no; perps did not ride on velour.
The wheels look a bit narrow to me too, but I could be wrong on that account.
I suppose this is something like the Hungarian version of all those Andy Griffith tribute Fords.
LOL
Velour interior! That’s hilarious.
Cool looking Caprice, but it is a police tribute car.
That’s not a BS meter going off – it’s intelligence.
Don’t forget about the door mounted mirrors too – all 9C1s had the older chrome mirrors. The body colored sport mirrors on this car were not an option. Still, it’s a very nice reproduction.
I concur with everyone else. The light bar looks homemade, and I don’t think the cops were rolling with a cassette deck (or even an AM/FM radio) back in the day.
Both my ‘86 Cron Vic (former MO State Highway Patrol) and my ‘86 Gran Fury (some county in Oklahoma) had an/fm stereo radios that were factory. This Caprice is also a ‘86 model. The Ford also had power windows and the Plymouth had tilt steering.
I had an 09 Crown Victoria ex-police car and that car had AM/FM with factory cassette, surely one of the last Ford sedans so equipped.
Even if police cruisers did come with AM/FM cassette stereos, this Caprice is a bit overboard from police spec – it’s equipped with the high-end Extended Range Sound (ERS) package with equalizer.
I’ve lightened up the interior shot a bit below; you can see the ERS badge and the equalizer here:
That and the woodgrain trim. My grandpa had an 86 base model Caprice. Vinyl seats. AM (no FM) radio with front speakers only, no rears. And the dash trim was brushed silver, no woodgrain. Same as the Celebrity at the time, you got brushed silver and you paid more for the woodgrain. Agree this one seems too luxurious for a police package.
Didn’t the police package also have A-pillar mounted spotlights?
I think after switching to fake aluminum for a few years in the mid 80s, they switched back to fake wood. The dash trim still didn’t look as good as in the late-’70s Caprices.
I was going to post an image of that dash, but my Google image search brought up numerous third-party 77-90 Chevy replacement instrument clusters with a truly full set of gauges and a digital display which is even cooler. I’ve seen these for popular “tuner” cars like the Honda Civic, but didn’t know they were available for big old Detroit iron other than muscle cars.
While the picture was taken in Hungary, this Caprice has German license plates – from Bavaria, according the the prefix and the Bavarian shield:
if I had a buck for every European owned late model sedan made to look like a cop car the I’ll have….. .
I’m not at all an expert on these, but during some years of this body style, this car was also offered as an Impala, which would have been the basis for a law enforcement vehicle, rather than the fancier Caprice trim.
I thought that the Impala name was dropped right around this time, so the lowest trim would’ve been the Caprice, making the Caprice Classic the higher trim. Wasn’t there even a Caprice Classic Brougham even further up the ladder around this time? That was the typical name debasement for which GM was so famous (as documented here at CC) at the time. Of course Ford over the years has been just as guilty of that.
’85 was the last year for the Impala; starting in ’86 the base model was the Caprice, and up from there was the Caprice Classic and Caprice Classic Brougham.
Don’t forget the Caprice Classic Brougham LS!
To me it looks like a picture car for filming.
A German prop house has converted any civilian vehicle to the police look.
(Regarding the signal lights on the roof: In Germany – and presumably also in Hungary – it is not allowed for non-official vehicles to have official signal lights, so these signal lights on the roof must be covered in road traffic and may only be removed on set).
For what it’s worth, I’ve never seen a Hungarian police car (fake or real) in the US. Not to mention that as a life-long Californian, CHP cars are common and don’t seem worthy of replicating. But as with their other sightings of domestic iron in Hungary, I always enjoy Roshake’s photos.
This one will probably be used in period films as a prop and maybe already has been. The film industry has always been important where this car apparently is located. Many good photographers here.
Nice .
I remember sourcing parts for the L.A.P.D.’s Caprice Classics, the cloth upholstery Paul derides was IMO pretty nice .
They all came with 350 V8’s to boot making them faster than expected .
-Nate
I can’t make out the speedometer, but civilian versions still used 85mph speedos whereas police versions went much higher.
And certified.
For me, the first giveaway that it was a fake is the smiley faces on front/back of the light bar. The more obvious is the upgraded seats that others pointed out.
Either way, nice car.
On the UK’s Midsomer Murders TV series, the detectives call the B&W patrol cars, Panda cars, despite the fact that they’re no longer B&W but bright blue and yellow, colors not found on natural bears of any species.
The license plate has NM and H. NM is Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz, about 30 miles southeast of Nuremberg. H is historical, classical, or antique suffix for the vehicles 30 years and older.
As I pointed out, it appears to be a converted prop house vehicle. 😉
Note the Flowmaster (exhaust) sticker on the rear bumper. Not CHP approved 😀
Fake.
What gave it away for me right away was the lack of a spotlight on the drivers A pillar. If a Caprice police package was delivered without one it still had a rubber plug where the hole was. Most of the ex police cars that I see put back into civilian service still have the spotlight or the plug.
No spotlight on the A pillar and police cars didn’t have body color rear view mirrors. And, yes, no velour seats…
I don’t think all police cars had the spotlight on the A-pillar. I had an ’89 Gran Fury that had been an unmarked police car. It was used by the city of Richmond, Va, as a “sheriff’s car” or something like that. It had the copcar wheels, upgraded suspension, 125 mph speedo, oil gauge, extra dome light in the forward part of the roof, etc. And the switches in the doors that would make the interior lights come on when you opened a door were disabled, so the cops could get out of the car in the dark, without drawing attention to themselves.
But, it also had a nice (for a police car) interior. Carpet, cloth seats, with an armrest up front, some woodgrain on the dash. Power windows/locks, and a nice sound system, with the little joystick to control the fade/balance. It was also only 10-11 years old at the time, so back then it was just a used car, and not something someone would make a “tribute car” of.
But then, that was the Mopar police package, and again, an unmarked car, so it never had all the lights and stuff on it. I’d expect a marked car to have all that.
As far as I know, the ’86 Caprice police car used the ’85 Impala interior. And don’t most police cars have the edge guard taken off of the front doors, so that they could put on a larger insignia than that?
I don’t think too many Caprice police cars would have a 50/50 split bench seat. I could see a solid bench, maybe even with a center armrest, and in cloth. But nothing that upscale looking.
Chevy bosses at first didn’t want to see Caprice name on fleet cars and considered just calling them “Chevrolet” as in ‘standard Chevy’. [Chicago Tribune auto writer] But, didn’t happen.
Was at first strange to see once top line trim as work cars, same when the Impala was downgraded in 1977, but that’s the car biz. See also LTD Crown Vic, Royal Monaco, Gran Fury.
This Caprice is like seeing a ’74 Monaco Brougham hardtop, with fancy interior, dressed up as a “Bluesmobile”
Concerning the display of law-enforcement equipment and identification on a vehicle:
Somewhere on the internet is a story from a reliable source about a guy who bought an ex-police cruiser at an impound lot sale. The sheriff’s office had let this one car slip thru without being “de-commissioned”, and it was sold with all the police equipment [including 2-way radio if my memory is correct].
As I recall, this happened somewhere in the mid-west. The buyer was pulled over and the car impounded. He was not trying to impersonate law enforcement. He went to court to get the car returned. The judge ruled that the sheriff’s department had erred in selling the car, and an auction contract was a legal sale. They did agree he would turn over the 2-way radio system as it was illegal to have one in a private vehicle. The car was returned to him, and he now keeps [in the car] a certified court copy of the judge’s decision where the actual VIN of the vehicle is stated. Last I read, he wasn’t driving it outside the immediate area because he keeps getting pulled over.
If anyone else has any better luck at finding the link, please post it. I saw it less than 3 years ago, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find.