I sure don’t remember ever seeing a Rambler police car until the seventies, when they suddenly became not uncommon. In 1974, the Iowa City Police got a new fleet of Matadors, in a number of different pastel colors. We called them “The Rainbow Patrol”. Those were the ones with the horrible protruding nose.
But in 1963 or so? Nada. Anyone see a Rambler police car back then?
Here’s the details:
I’m thinking a Classic 6 might not exactly have been the zippiest cop car, but then some big city departments used six cylinder patrol cars since speed was not really an issue when you’re stuck in deep traffic.
Actually, these Ramblers would have made a pretty practical patrol car, as they were fairly compact but still quite comfortable inside. Rambler seats seemed to be built better than average, and if things got slow, they could always be tilted back for a quick snooze. Naw; cops never did that…
Rambler police cars were from before my time, but I got my first traffic citation from an unmarked AMC Concord. That’s the only police Concord/Hornet/Eagle I’ve ever seen. They did have some Matadors.
Baltimore cops had them, I’m not sure if anyone else other than Kenosha did. Interestingly they (and presumably any other fleet cars not equipped with the padded vinyl top that was standard on retail Concord/Eagle sedans) had the old Hornet four-window profile.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/1w0BXimGoZQfbRciJmXIEsbt6Ptmuc0X7f2CR1GFwgDfn0Ta0utrhyGHRN45X2FOi1swZi5tjrfhW0ghBSsYNTduPdBJ7t9JDfTi9se9CgU7hEFA71rMsDXgR-CXu4pDueNYuTI_GHlw
This was in Maryland but not near Baltimore; closer to Wheaton.
Concord sedans from the first two years didn’t have the C pillar window even with a vinyl roof; the window was added when the Eagle first became available in 1980, and I recall even after that the original style metal roof without the window remained on base models.
Wheaton would make it Monkey County Police, and if my memory is right, they only used Ford full size cars back then. Only Rockville and Gaithersburg had their own police force, but not Wheaton. The county and the 2 towns piggy-backed their fleet orders with the state of Maryland’s yearly order for police and gov vehicles, that way they all got a better deal, ’cause the more ya bought, the cheaper each vehicle became!
I had a friend at Sport Chevrolet in Silver Spring, he had several sales awards from Chevrolet for being the #1 selling Chevrolet salesman in the world. He specialized in fleet sales, even in other states. But he was never able to beat the prices Ford offered the state of Maryland. I remain in awe of how he operated, he employed his own secretary, and he had dozens of roll-a-dex phone and address holders, this was pre-computer days. This guy was so successful with fleet sales, he didn’t want to deal with walk-in customers, and during the summer he rarely wore a suit or tie. He had his choice of almost any car on the lot as a demo, he usually had a loaded caprice wagon or a ‘Vette.
I grew up in Bmore during the 80s and remember them. What is even funnier is my mom had a mustard yellow DL Concord and believe it or not it was good in the snow so I can imagine how well an Eagle sedan would have done.
We didn’t live in the area long, but were moving from Catonsville (we were there maybe 1.5 years) and vacated our home, preparing to move up to Burlington, Vt (1st time…we actually moved to northern Virginia after 5 years in Burlington, then back to Vermont). We were staying in a motel, my Dad was in an accident which totalled his 1963 Rambler wagon (his 2nd in a row). This would have been about June 1965. My grandmother was staying with us (my sister and I were young, she didn’t live in that town, but I guess she was there to help us with the move) and she had to pick pieces of glass out of my Dad’s skin (thought they would have had safety glass, even back then).
He had a 1961 Rambler before that, he bought in Compton, Ca (where we were living back then). Not sure why he traded it for the ’63, but when he got a job near Pittsburgh about 1961 we rode in it on the trip back from California (can you imagine moving from southern California to Pennsylvania in early 60’s?..my father did..he wasn’t one to follow trends).
Anyhow, he probably flew up to Vermont; ended up coming back to pick us up in a new ’65 F85 wagon he bought at Val Preda’s in South Burlington…no more AMC cars after that for us.
Hi, I grew up in Wisconsin. The highway patrol had many 57 rambler rebels with 327 V8 that did 0 to 60 in 7.2 second, way faster than Ford or Chevy.
Had fuel injection.
In my teenage years a friend of mine had an Ambassador with the AMC 327 four barrel, it went quite well, this would be quite the car with the complete HD package.
There was some models used in the Andy Griffith Show like this 1960 model. https://www.flickr.com/photos/jarviseye/6122336936/
Seems these Rambler police cars was more common in Australia.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/aussiefordadverts/5325086579
https://www.facebook.com/NSWHPV/posts/nsw-police-department-ramblers-/2643292572355847/
I’ve seen every episode of “The Andy Griffith Show” several times over. The patrol cars were always Ford’s. Someone appears to be a bit deceptive about this Rambler patrol car claiming that it’s from the “Andy Griffiths Show”. I’ve never seen that show.
I agree on the comfort of the seats. I have said before that when my company wreck, a 1963 Ford Falcon, went in for regular repairs, I was given a 1963 Rambler 330 to use. it was much better for comfort and visibility. Did anyone say that the Rambler Police Package included a donut holder? Yours in mirth (and my girth), Tom
Matadors were pressed into Police duty in the early 1970’s…..On the TV show ‘Adam 12’, the main characters were seen driving AMC Matador patrol cars after using Chrysler Corp patrol cars for a number of years.
I read Jack Webb had a deal where he got an extra fleet car from the manufacturer of whatever LAPD was buying that year, although I believe they skipped the unfortunate year they bought Mercury Montegos. That’s when LA switched.
I have a few books on vintage police cars, and the only Ramblers there are the odd early one used for parking enforcement, or in ads like this. Although I was watching the last (1965) episode of Perry Mason, and the LAPD showed up in a ’65 Ambassador patrol car.
OOPS! Was it such a good idea for the Fleet Sales Division to be located on Plymouth Road?
A couple of interesting details in the heavy duty equipment: Locking hand throttle and police speedometer with Tel-Tale Hand.
I suppose the throttle was to raise the idle for long stakeouts with AC on. Wonder what the Tel-Tale Hand was?
The tell-tale was a speedometer with 2 needles. The tell-tale needle rode with the main needle and acted as a pace speed indicator. When an officer is following someone to determine their speed and pulls them over, the tell tale needle stays put at speed that they were running as proof of speeding. When the traffic stop was done the officer would hit a re-set button and and the tell-tail would drop back to zero for the next run.
AC? In 1963? Not likely at all, except maybe in Phoenix or so.
It was probably used to keep the generator spinning fast enough to keep charging the old vacuum tube radio that ha been bought several cars ago, and were transferred from car to car.
Even a transistor radio would have used some power. Can’t have the battery go dead!
Paul,
Back in the 1960s Police radios consumed a lot of power because they had to have clear voice transmission in rural & remote locations. The typical antenna for most State Police vehicles was about 8′ long. Many were kept bent over and clipped to the car unless they were in rural areas. The popular location for the amp and tuner portions of the radio were mounted in a vibration-free case located directly behind the rear seat back, over the rear axle, with the control head mounted to the bottom of the dashboard frame.
What I was surprised to read in the specs section of the brochure, was the Leece-Neville 60 amp alternator was not available if you ordered A/C or power steering.
Many government radio systems, from the Army to local towns, used the older vacuum tube radios for communication. With the cold war ramped up and the threat of EMP radiation [Electro-Magnetic Pulse] always present, Motorola used to proclaim that their special government communication radio systems were not affected by EMP. The primary reason was EMP can destroy transistorized circuitry*, but tube systems will come back to life as soon as the EMP is over. This is why the US military still uses vacuum tube radios when possible, however the tubes are a lot smaller and give off less heat than what was available 50 years ago.
*And later chips used in, well, EVERYTHING with an electrical circuit!
60 amp alternator was dual belt drive. That had to be what precluded A/C and PS options.
Seems hard to believe, probably zero take rate outside of Kenosha. Buick offered a police package for the 62 and 63 Specials, speaking of zero take rates…
I think the concept of Rambler police cars started in 1960, when the Chicago Police Department decided to order several models of compact cars for its fleet – not just Ramblers, but also Valiants, Ford Falcons, Comets and Studebaker Larks (they had considered, but ultimately rejected, Corvairs as well). These cars came equipped with some heavy-duty equipment, police speedometers, and spotlights, but were otherwise stock.
The attached newspaper article describes some of the thinking behind this, but I think it spurred a lot of police departments to consider compacts for their fleets as well. (The City of Kenosha had used Rambler police cars since at least 1959.)
Rambler figured it was a niche worth pursuing. In 1962 or 1963, I think Milwaukee placed a large order for Rambler police cars, but by the late 1960s I suppose the idea of compact police cruisers faded away for a while.
What was it about police radios that made them not work in Corvairs?
Almost certainly the large tube radio unit didn’t fit into the Corvair’s front trunk. In 1960, the Corvair still had its spare in the front.
I’m as shocked as you.
I never saw a Rambler patrol car growing up in Chicago suburbs. Every suburb had its own patrol cars – never saw a Rambler. There are over 320 Chicago suburbs and just around my neighborhood – probably 25 different patrol fleets. Never saw a Rambler.
And remember – Kenosha, where they were made, is only 75 miles north of where we were. So, there were lots of Ramblers on my block – but NO Rambler patrol cars?
The first ones I saw were AMC Matadors. I never knew such a vehicle existed until now.
CPD had at least one ’60 Rambler patrol car. There is a shot of one over at copcar.com
This is a new one on me too. I have seen Nash police cars in old movies (and in the Superman TV show) but don’t recall seeing these.
But it doesn’t surprise me as almost every manufacturer angled for law enforcement business at one time or another. I would bet that Kenosha would have been a prime target. I wonder if the Wisconsin Staties ever got any? I know that the Indiana State Police bought at least a small batch of Lark Marshalls. I did a dive into ISP vehicles once and could not find any evidence of Ramblers.
I just looked at the lead picture again. The better question is “Was there ever a Rambler police car put into service with whitewall tires?” 🙂
Perhaps in a rich neighbourhood? 😉
Have never seen a Rambler police car, but when you watch movies from the late 40s-early 50s you do often see Nash police cars. Nashes were quite prominent in the early episodes of Superman and there are even 1 or 2 episodes that were shot ” on location ” that feature only vehicles from independent manufacturers. But the 60s? Never saw any anywhere.
Fleet Sales Department of every carmaker courted the police, utility company, taxi and public service segment with heavy-duty equipped models engineering specifically for those functions. While it would fill out plant capacity in slow periods, because these were bought by lowest-bid contracts, the unit profit per car was very low. The selling dealer typically promoted the sale to municipalities with the objective of continuing service and maintenance as the source of profits from these fleet sales. As well-used cars, they return little or no profit but satisfied the skinflint market looking for cheap transportation.
Wisconsin State Patrol and Milwaukee Police frequently bought Ramblers. Usually the Ambassador model. However even in Wisconsin, I can’t recall every seeing a ’63 Rambler of any model ever used as police car. Both departments bought Plymouths in 1963.
When working at a Ford garage in the 60’s, I wondered why we rarely saw Ford State Patrol cars. I was told that Wisconsin gave preference to Ramblers even if they were slightly more costly, however the operative word is slightly. Plymouth seemed to occasionally underbid AMC by enough to win that year’s state contract buy.
While Im sure it didnt make a difference, a V-8 option was added to the cheaper trim Classic models later in the 1963 model year. Easier to make a low cost bid. Dad bought a 660 Cross Country wagon with a V-8.
These were still smaller (112″ wb) even than the downsized Dodge and Plymouth (116″ wb).
Does anyone know what changes were made to provide “HD gear shift controls”? Though I would think that even though AC was still rare, by then adoption of automatic transmissions would have been universal. Until the ‘84 Mustang.
When did police fleets in the US began ordering power steering and brakes and automatic transmissions for the patrol cars? Uruguay is not any kind of example, as they are still all manual gearboxes. Power everything and AC only appeared with the proliferation of Chinese cars, cheap enough to provide officers with creature comfort…
Well, I finally found *one* being auctioned of in 1964, in Kenosha’s neighboring Racine, Wisconsin:
Cops wearing bow ties, or are my eyes playing tricks on me ?
In the early ’70s Alabama State Patrol cars were 401 Interceptor motored AMC Javelins. The patrolmen we’re allowed to modify the cars and competed for top speed. I remember seeing pictures of the winning State Patrolman and his green Javelin patrol car.