This Charger, looking as much as possible like a rear police car and bristling with antennas, has been sitting in this driveway for a few years now. And a Crown Vic ex-police car has just joined it. It must be our neighborhood militia headquarters. And there’s a curious back story to it.
A youngish guy lives here now, but there’s a bit of interesting history here. About a 14 years ago, when we used to walk with our youngest son to middle school in the morning (not out of necessity, but just to get a morning walk in, and to embarrass him), we walked by this house every day. And ever so often, we’d see a man come out, dressed in the most perfectly pressed and pristine khaki police-type uniform, complete with a Smokey Bear hat. He had this very intense and serious countenance. And he’d walk a block or so to the bus stop. Curious.
Then one day we were walking down town, thought the transit system station, and there he was: a security guard. But the most incredibly-dressed security guard you ever laid eyes on. He took himself deadly serious, and he strutted around erect and eagle-eyed. Nowadays, the security guards wear comfortable casual clothes and baseball caps. I only wish I could show you a picture of him; he was straight out of Twin Peaks or some other David Lynch production. And in our neighborhood, of all places. Totally out of context.
There has to be a connection, what with the multiple flags and police cars. But I’ve seen no sign of the man for years. So I assume his son, who looks and dresses like the typical young guy, is somehow carrying on the family tradition.
I always considered the P71 Crown Vic to be a great used car buy, and somewhat regret never pulling the trigger on one while they were most common as police cars. However, I’ve heard that rather than showing you respect, other drivers merely drive slowly around you.
The police Chargers recently picked up the torch on the good used car buy. Also rear wheel drive, big V8, and a whole lot more power than the Crown Vic. A quick CL search finds a 2009 for $6k, and no doubt you could find them for less at the police auction. Tough to find a faster, mostly-modern car for less money.
They also tend to be beaten to death, have holes drilled into the body panels and interior, and can smell really bad. Sorry but I’d rather get an equally good deal on grandma’s clean civilian Crown Vic LX or Grand Marquis and swap over a police 3.55 rear end and dual exhaust.
There was a time when the used P71s were in high demand as Taxis and would sell for as much as a well kept lower mile civilian model. With the Taxi demand greatly reduced the P71 can usually be had at a much better price and if you shop around you can get a detective, unmarked, or chief unit that has little to no extra holes. Good luck finding a 3.55 police car, at least in my area I’ve never seen one come through the auction system, every one I’ve found is an open 3.23 rear.
The best of course if to find a HPP car. You get the 3.23 gears, dual exhaust, spring rates that split the difference between the base and P71 and the biggest sway bars fitted to Panthers.
While most P71’s used for patrol service were usually beat after a few years, there were quite a few exceptions. Was assigned a 1998 P71 back in the day and in my management capacity drove it quite gently for 5 years. Was retired at 70,000 miles, which was Federal policy (since changed) back then. There were hundreds of these throughout our national fleet. Whoever picked these up at auction got quite a bargain. Most served a much tougher second life as a taxicab.
Was the “undercover” version of the P71, with chrome grill, cloth bench seat and full wheel covers. No “Police Interceptor” badge, but all of the other P71 goodies, including the certified speedometer. Fast for the day with decent handling. Cannot recall a single, non-maintenance repair in the 5 years I drove it.
“other drivers merely drive slowly around you.”
That’s been my experience. I drive a 2006 Crown Vic, and while it’s not a P71, people still say it looks like a police cruiser. Folks often ask me if other drivers get out of my way — no. Particularly on highways, I find that many drivers mysteriously slow down and drive the speed limit in front of me. That does gets irritating after a while.
Pretty soon, the Crown Vic will just look like an older car, and not a police car, so that phenomenon will be a thing of the past. I’m looking forward to it.
You just have to come up on them fast and then most will move over instead of slow down. The other fun thing which should get real fun with the new law in my state is watching people drop their phones, or put on their seat belts. My daughter loved that about our Grand Marquis and was one of the reasons she would rather drive than any of the rest of our vehicles and why she definitely wanted a P71 when it came time for her own car.
After hearing about other folks experiences with “retired” police cars, I broke down and bought a 09 Crown Victoria about 18 months ago. Until I bought this car I had only owned 2 other cars with a V8 and 2 with 6 cylinder engines, out of about 30 cars, 1 truck, and a motorcycle.
My experience? Folks will approach you from the rear and then often slow down until they have had a chance to reassure themselves they aren’t doing anything wrong…or you aren’t a real cop. At night it can get annoying when folks see me coming and then slow down into a small bunch of 3 or 4 cars….a sort of rolling roadblock.
I should mention that my car cost me $3,400 “out the door”/tax/license transfer included. I found it at a Sheriff’s Ranch charity, sitting between 2 other Crown Victorias and a FWD Impala. Buying at the charity meant no sales tax, and as a veteran I got a $100 discount. The car had 97,000 miles on it. I keep checking the website of the Sheriff’s Ranch, but they haven’t had any police cars in a while, and they’ve never had a Charger.
Back around 2001 when I bought my 89 Cadillac from an elderly neighbor, he was telling some old stories as he searched for paperwork. My suburban neighborhood dates from the late 1950s and he told me that the neighborhood association ran its own security, and that he was in charge of it. The Association bought a police cruiser and he had a radio base station in his house. Volunteer neighbors would take turns cruising the neighborhood to discourage teenage vandals or other neer-do-wells.
What was curious was that this was a neighborhood populated by doctors, lawyers and business executives back at that time. That was some civic-mindedness for sure – I can’t imagine giving up one of my evenings to go “on watch”. The idea of someone trying this today would be laughable – I don’t even want to think of the legal liability the neighborhood association could get hit with. They eventually sold the car to a security company who did drive-throughs for several years after that.
Nowadays, it would just be a walled, gated community.
Not necessarily. My Mother In Law lives in a gated community and the HOA directly employes guards who spend most of their day in the gate shack opening the gates for visitors but shift overlap enough so that one of them takes the grand circle tour of the neighborhood in the HOA owned Ranger, complete with light bar and big XXX SECURITY graphics on the side. Now this place was conceived in the late 60’s and in the mean time they have installed automatic openers for the residents but the staffed guard shack remains as does the 2 or 3 times a day patrol.
Of course employing guards is definitely different that everyone take a turn driving the old police car around the neighborhood.
Now in the community that I own a house that was conceived as a resort community about the same time, the gates went down long ago since they had grew to 6. However until recently in the grand scheme the security was also directly HOA employed. Now there is the name on the outside company on the CR-V along with the community logo and sticker. Since it was intended for people’s weekend homes and for many they are they associations still offers door knob rattling service that you can order once or twice per week. Not sure how that all works since you call the office to arrange and pay for the service with the rest of the dues. The Guard shack at Gate 1, the entrance to get you to the lodge and golf course, still exists in its river rock and log architecture glory. Unfortunately you now drive around the building and where you used to drive across the river rock pavement, by big river rock columns and under massive logs holding things up has now be essentially turned into a carport for said CR-V.
Of course the norm now is to hire that security company and the guard on duty is covering a large number of customers often over a wide area.
That’s hilarious! Having seen your neighborhood, I’m wondering what exactly they could have been scared of at the time? The Red Invasion? Killer Cicadas? An unlicensed lemonade stand attended to by a 7-year-old?
Without a doubt: Killer Cicadas! 😀 Have you seen THE BEAST WITHIN (1982) before?
Last week I had a cicada drop in on me late at night. I could hear it making all sorts of noises just outside my door and I had to open it to empty a box full of dust . . . and in came the cicada. Happy as a clam, I’m sure.
In Re: Ciicadas: Back in the mid 80’s while driving through Jacksonville Florida, in my non a/c 78 Mustang II (don’t judge!) I of course had the widows open. On a residential street I heard an extremely loud Buzzing noise. Drowned out the radio. My first thought , was “Oh Sh**, Alternator, or PS pump!” Or something really bad. But car didn’t run rough. SO I pulled over, and shut the car off. Buzz was even louder. Cicadas where in season!! They where particularly bad that year.
Agreed. And, having seen Jim’s neighborhood, the car would be driving past any given house every ten minutes!
Having been an Army MP, I’d never want to buy one of our used patrol cars. Most MPs were pretty decent drivers. But every squad leader seemed to have one guy who could tell you more about vehicle limits than any auto or manufacturer test driver.
One of the things to do when selecting where to purchase your retired police car is to try and find an agency that subscribes to the philosopy of take home cars and/or 1 man – 1 car instead of an agency that hot seats them 2 or 3 shifts a day 7 days a week. When the car is assigned to one officer they seem to take better care of them and the interior usually reflects that greatly.
When a car is hot seated it is easy to say “I don’t know how that happened” or “It was like that when I checked it out” with no real accountability. If it is assigned to one officer then there is no question who is to blame for any damage, spills or smells. OK can’t do too much about the smell of the customer in the back and what they might add. It also means that the rest of the car is better taken care of as again it will be obvious who is responsible for the car eating up tires or having 4 bent wheels from curb jumping.
The 1 man – 1 car officer knows that will be his office again tomorrow while the hot seatter can just say, “Better make sure I don’t get unit X next shift”.
When I see CV ex squads, I basically see that 8.8 rear axle. One of the best 5 lug rear ends out there, and an easy upgrade for many Jeeps. In the case of the Charger squads, that’s a good way to get a 3rd gen Hemi on the cheap. If the rest of the car is thrashed, so be it but to earmark that 345 for a TJ Wrangler…yes, please!
Ive always wanted a Mopar M body with the cop package. Something about those Dippys with the slicktop and cop wheels is strangely appealing. A good platform to build a sleeper, for sure.
While there are still CVPI to be had at auctions, a lot of police departments are keeping them longer.
The county police (Howard County MD) where I live have a bunch of Vics, Chargers and Explorers. Howard County MD is in the top 5 wealthiest counties in the USA, the police department can afford to change over their CVPI to Chargers or other police cars but it seems that a majority of Howard County cops love them so they are kept (the car the cop up the street from my home is given has over 100,000 miles on it)
The other day, the little dealership where I have bought several cars and hang out some times, just got a Charger with the police package that a company that accessorizes police cars for police forces used as a rolling demo car (showing off all the options one could get). The car was painted in LAPD colors.
While most of the police goodies were removed before it was sold, there are plugs in the roof and trunk to block antenna holes and both the ticket light and center console that hold the laptop and radio were left.
What makes this interesting is that because the center console was removed for the police things, the shifter is a column shifter but a strange one. In park the shifter points at the driver. In drive the shifter points to the passenger door(like most column shifters). It also only has park, Reverse, Neutral and drive. There is a button on the shifter to select individual gears(like 1st)
Another view
Inside
I meant that the shifter points almost straight up in Park and is not attached to the steering column. It is attached at the dashboard
That’s interesting — I’ve never looked inside a Charger police cruiser before to notice that.
I like the two tone green/white paint scheme .
So far I’ve yet to meet any L.A.P.D. who likes the Chargers…
-Nate
Virginia state police has almost completely changed over to the Ford (Taurus) Interceptor sedans. I wonder what the plan is when those go out of production, as seems to be forecast for the near future? I always hear folks say that the (Explorer) Interceptor SUV is the squad replacement, but I certainly don’t see many of them currently.
The Exploder is all over California because the CHP started buying them as soon as the PI version came out. With all the mountain highways that get snow and some unpaved desert ones, an SUV kind of makes sense. Many local agencies buy whatever the State buys that year. Have yet to see a Taurus squad. I understand they are very narrow inside, making it difficult to close the door wearing all that equipment on the belt. No jokes about the donuts, please.
We have an old-time officer on our force here that is a huge NASCAR fan. Therefore he refuses to trade his old Charger in on an Explorer/Interceptor. He says he feels more like he’s in a NASCAR racer when he’s in the Charger.
He’s the only holdout on the force. But he’s been there 35 years, so he has some seniority.
What Oregon department has Green and White cars?