First patrol unit

[Wiley Desperado]

A 1969 Plymouth Fury III with a 383 V8, one bad machine.

[Brazos Bucky Smith]

My first was a '64 Dodge, Corenet, 383, Black and white.  These guys scooted with the best of them!  Paint scheme and lighting was just like the Old Adam 12 units of LAPD to give you an example.

The next year, somebody goofed and we got '65 Polaras's!  Most god awful Police Vehicle ever devised!   To top it off they had 318 V8's.  Once you got them going (slowly), they were so heavy you could not stop them.  And, for alley cruisers they were too big!

Brazoso Bucky

[Texas Lawdog]

A 1966 Ford Galaxie 4 Door.  The car was used when I bought it. We furnished our cars(Sheriff's Dept) and got paid mileage. I couldn't afford to make payments on new car.

[Utah Bob]

1970 Ford F100 Pickup 
No AC
Beat walkin anyways

[FloraBama Kid]

Also a Plymouth Fury with 383... Great machines that took a real beating. We changed shifts and the cars were never turned off until scheduled maintenance time.

Great post, brough back some good memories.

[Irish Red O'Toole]

87 Chevy Caprice.  Lots of power under the hood, but not a lot of room for anyone over 6' 4" (I''m 6' 6").

[Capt. Jack McQuesten]

I started out as a cadet back in 1973 for a small town police department. I became a reserve officer in 1977 and a fulltime officer in 1978. As I recall the cars we had back then were either Doge Polara's and Plymouth Fury's. We had the old LAPD style (Adam 12) light set up with a single rotating light in the center and a solid red "Can" light on each side. Both these model cars had at least the 383 V-8's in them and I remember one version along the line as having a 454 V-8. They were definately "screamers", but the power was kind of lost on us as the town was so small, that by the time you had one of these babies up to 55mph you were in another jurisdiction! My favorite patrol car was the 1978-80 Chevy Nova. These were the cars they were using when I tranferred to the Sheriff's Office in 1980. They had the 350 V-8's in them and were very fast and manuverable. The bigger Deputies did not like them as they were a bit on the smallside, but for my size (6'), they were perfect! We were the first in the County to use the new "Light Bar" technology (The Twinsonic), which I thought was way cool. The line troopers had the solid red light bar while the supervisors had the half red and half blue set ups. These were great for "Lighting up the bad guys", but probably cost us bit in gas and speed as it was like installing a large flat board on the roof of your car, which would act like a wind brake!

[Cutwires Al]

1986 Chevy Caprice Police Package...DANG I miss those old Square Chevys!!!!!!!  Of course we also had twho-tone paintjobs then too...About 3 years after I was hired the State went to Allw hite for Police cars...Now, it's slowly going back the other way...Maybe my Dept will go Black(or Blue) and white again soon..wishing...wishing...wishing

[Sergeant Smokepole]

1976 Dodge Monaco with a 440, No air conditioning, rubber mat floor coverings. Hot as all get out in the summer. Ran like a raped ape in a straight line. Don't expect to turn or stop though....

[Long Jim Handcock]

440 cu, Dodge black and white.

[Irish Red O'Toole]

1988 Chevy Caprice.  Big, hulking brute with the 454 c.i.d. V-8 and heavy duty suspension.  Not much for agility, but powerful and comfortable.  Also flound out it wasn't made for 6'6" boys in blue!!