Projects My 55 Ford Mainline Police Car...(revised)

Imagine getting pulled over by a c8 corvette today. Its pretty wild how by the bootstrap the world used to be not so long ago.

 

Keep sticking to your story and you may make someone believe. Go back and read all of the posts not just the ones you want. Even if it was a supervisors car it would have had the "Certified" speedometer. No evidence of the Motorola or antennas. Supervisors cars could have had the AM radio but also the Motorola.

I still don't buy it. I have had actual Supervisors unmarked cars in the past and they all had the requisite Motorola dash mounting and antenna holes.

 

The car has changed hands many times and gone through two half hearted restorations. there's ugly patch jobs over multiple holes in the body that I will be addressing, a bunch of radio

You are entitled to your experience and I appreciate your response regardless of whether its an agreement or a disparaging remark. I heave revised my initial post to change the direction of the thread.

 

In 1956 my dad had a new Chevy ordered. After waiting for a month longer than it was supposed to be delivered to the dealer. He went down there to check on it one more time and saw a guy at the Ford dealer across the street yelling at the transport driver that just delivered a load of cars. Dad walked over there to "window shop" just to see what all the hollering was about. It seems there were supposed to be 2 new squad cars on the truck. There was only one black and white 4 dr there. They compared paperwork and the 2nd car showed up on the way bill. So a check of serial numbers and they found it.... But it was a 2 dr sedan and two tone green to boot! But it had the police equipment... 292, o/d, hd cooling... Everything a good cop car should have. The dealer told the truck driver that he was stuck with a car no one would want. Dad spoke up and told the dealer that if he would sell it at cost he would buy it. He went across to the Chevy dealer and got his deposit back and bought the Ford.

Dad said there wasn't a Chevy around that could keep up with it. Sad end to the whole story, he drove to Indianapolis in a big hurry one day and pulled up in front of his mother in laws house. As he got out of the car a couple of people stopped real fast and came running towards his carrying fire extenguishers... He looked around and the back seat was on fire!! Car burned to the ground. It seems that not only had Ford built the car wrong but they left the little oval hole covers out of the rear foot wells, which was right above the mufflers. No telling how long the juite under the floor mats had been smouldering before he stopped.

 

Wow what a great story! I wonder what the last police screw up car was. Im sure that happened more than once.

 

All '55 Fords had the 120 MPH speedos, it has to say 'certified' on the face to be a genuine police version. The '54 Ford was the only year that had the 110 MPH version. If the Dana axle is missing along with a non-certified speedo, chances are very slim it's an actual pursuit option car. Again, the factory data plate would shed light on this as there's an actual code for police cars.

 

I didn't know about the speedo, but like I previously stated I had the vehicle looked into by the Spokane Police museum and they verified its authenticity. The Sheriffs Department was not the fanciest and they had a habit of buying dealer cars and building them themselves. This car was a supervisors vehicle and from what I understand not a Police package car from the factory but a police garage special as the museum curator called it with the hot stuff was added later. Might explain the speedo. From what I understand they had two "marked schemes" the traditional white and blacks and then these minimal white stripe cars which were not patrol vehicles but used by hairbag cops

 

I wish I could offer some insights ... but most of my Police Car experience and knowledge was gained in the back seats...with my hands restrained.

 

So in effect what you have is a clone. You'd need a pretty good paper trail to make the case for any level of authenticity; who originally bought the car and chain of owners after, any department work orders for the 'conversion', noting specific police-only parts that were installed, department service records, etc. Without that, it's just a old Ford that looks like a cop car....

It also wasn't unknown for a department to buy cheapy 'standard' cars for non-patrol duty then later 'upgrade' them with parts from wrecked patrol cars.

If the car is in good condition it has value; it's not worthless. But without documentation it will be worth no more than any other '55 Ford Mainline 4-dr sedan comparably-equipped.

 

Well that's a happy occurrence that the cops could authenticate a 65 year old police car, even if it was one of their own. I'm surprised any of them even remembered these cars!

It would be neat to see the authentication, of course the personal info should be blacked out.

 

The museum was pretty great, mostly former police and sheriffs deputies from the region. The three binders of paperwork from owners and auctioneers in the past played a big part.