Ha ha ha that's awsome. A friend of mine on the OPP told me a story of when he was a rookie and posted to a detatchment way up in the middle of nowhere northern Ontario they were chasing a guy in a Acura with an Impala 9C1 flat out for nearly an hour the last 15 minutes with the heater on full blast cause it was starting to over heat, until buddy finally lost it and stuffed it in the ditch. Well when they jump out of they're cruiser to collect Mr. Acura my buddy notices the paint blustering on the hood but is pre occupied with idiot stick that has now locked himself in his car. While they're in the process of beating the windows out of his car they hear a loud woosh to turn around to see they're cruiser up in flames.
Here is a picture from the early days these were used on the Autobahn with the 256 Y-block Intercepter In the early 70's Mr.Norms Grand Spauding Dodge built some special pursuit cars for the Chicago area Highway Patrol patterned after the car that ran at Bonneville these were dual turbo 426 Hemi's.
This picture is missing something..... Where's the Chicago typewriter???.. Or is it a trench broom???.
just a quick lesson.. Ford used the term "Police Interceptor" for its fastest cruisers. Dodge/plymouth used the term "Pursuit" for its fastest vehicles Chevy/Olds/buick etc used the term "Apprehender" for its police fastest vehicle. Chevy also used the term "Chase" vehicle.. but that was quicly dropped as it was confused with a certain comedic actor.
I heard 37-38 Century, Big engine small body. The Danish police bought quite a few of them back then to have relatively powerful cars. A few of those ended up here in Norway, pretty cool cars, but not Fords..
The fastest cop car, other than the juiced up 5.0's and Z-28's the CHP used, were the early 90's Chevy Caprice with the LT1. Most of them had cold air K&N setups and a few other things here and there. I never got a chance to go over one thoughouly, but I recall we had one that lasted until late 2005. Even with 90k miles on it that fucker would scream! I swear you could pop wheelies in that car if it could hook up right. If that was the unit you checked out for the day it was a constant smoking of the tires (of course this only applied to graveyards and when only you and a partner or two were around) I remember running one into the city plant once to drop it off for service and grab another ride and the city mechanic was barking at me and my partner asking why at every 5k mile servicing they had replace the rear tires hahaha. Unfortunately my shop got rid of them and we have the 4.6 crown vics now because everybody was crashing the Chevy's constantly, but those were some of the funnest cars I have ever driven....ever. I miss those beasts.
What the hell are you all talking about... Everybody knows this was the coolest and fastest cop car/interceptor!!!! Weird. Day late, dollar short, and all that with this picture, and I even snagged the same one from the google image list! Sorry about that, but you get the point!
Growing up in the 50's Richmond, Indiana, I heard a lot of stories about a Town Marshall in West Alexandria, Ohio. It is about 20 miles from Richmond and on the most direct road to Dayton. The problem was the Marshall drove a late thirties Terreplane and was not tolerant of speeders. Lots of guys told of getting tickets from this guy. And at speed. A guy that I worked with told of hauling ass to Dayton in a 55 Ford, doing about 110. King of the Road. An old car, fenders flapping in the wind, pulled up alongside him and tooted its horn. He looked over, only to have the Tin whipped on him. For the time, THAT was a fast cop car. Bill
I read someplace that old Pontiac Police cars refered to their engines/cars as the " HIGHWAY ENFORCERS'' --you gotta love those old Poncho's. Oh yeah, that's right I have a couple of em'
There is at least one survivor from the CHP fleet. It was featured in at least one auto publication and I saw it in Riverside, CA a few years ago ... very nice restoration.
Back in 1972, I was in Blue Earth, MN on a sales trip and spotted a '70 Chevelle SS454 with a roof light bar, door decals, etc. parked on the main drag. A local told me that it belonged to the county sheriff.
It's ironic to think that your basic Honda or pick a brand of today's mini van will blow most 60's and 70's high performance street car into the weeds, and probably outhandle and out stop them also. Not to mention the increase in fuel economy with less potent fuel. But not nearly as cool...... <TABLE style="WIDTH: 650px; BORDER-COLLAPSE: collapse; COLOR: #333333" id=GridView1 border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=4><TBODY><TR style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #f7f6f3; COLOR: #333333"><TD></TD><TD align=middle></TD><TD align=middle></TD><TD align=middle></TD><TD align=middle></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Not the first, or the fastest, but this Indiana State Police car was my first of many MOPARS. I drove this one to high school in 1967.
Not HAMB worthy, but my fastest car in 42 years of police work was a '95 Impala that I had melted the engine on and rebuilt to 383 with a mild cam and some good heads. I don't know for sure what the top speed was because it got kind of scary at about 145, but it for sure was pretty quick. I still drive an Impala (hence the user name) and my wife and I have a matching pair that we race at the local strip. Fairly often someone comes up to me and tells me some screwy story about this Sheriff that has an Impala that does this or that or that runs some ungodly speed. Even when I tell them "no, that sheriff is me and no, it wasn't really that fast some of them still want to insist that, yes, they've seen it. Funny sometimes...just annoying sometimes. Bill.
I was gassing my cruiser (302 Granada)at the pumps at northern sub-station in San Diego (1974-6). This "long hair" drives up with 426 Hemi charger and starts filling it up, I ask who the heck he was and he I.D. himself as an undercover. That was the fastest car I had seen at the City. The County had the 440 Dodge (very fast)
Have to agree with those that mentioned the 94 Impala LT1. Had one issued to me brand new and it was quite a package . It went like hell , handled great and had spectacular brakes. Got in quite a few chases with it and found it to be much faster than the Crown Vics of the day. Those of us with the Impalas would get on the radio to have the Fords get out of the way so we could get up front. They did tend to overheat on hot summer nights and Chevy even made an accessory mechanical fan kit for the police package cars. A couple of our Impalas had them and they ran much cooler. The new Crown Vics and the Dodge Hemi cars are now the kings of the hill. I think it was the Wisconsin State Police or the Michigan State Police that has tested police package cars for decades. The results are fun to read, especially the ones from the 70's. Those were sad years for performance . Pete
i worked at a service station in my young days, i got pretty good on q-jets, did a tuneup in a guys 75 trans am, 455 4-speed, the next day he got involved with something and had the cops chase him over 200 miles, he got away, the following day a federal narcotics cop comes to the shop and has me check the oil in his car, SBC, big cam, headers, intake, and who knows what else, i find out later he was the guy doing the chaseing, word got around and i had lots of work doing tuneups.
Back in the 1920s some cops (federal only maybe?) used Lincolns because they were the fastest thing on the road. Whether they were factory stock or modifed I don't know. I suspect some of the bad guys used them as well.
I had a 78 LTD in 79 that would run 140 when it was issued to me and still do it when I turned it in with 98k miles on it. Use to meet speeders and let them pass a good ways before I flipped around on them so I could run her up. Then came the 81 pos to take the 78s place. What a joke they were. when the engine finally let go at 56k I spent my own money on getting some power out of it, but thats another story.
The Jalopy Journal
