lets see in my area they have the obvious, the crown vic. Then we have the others, Chevy Colorado, Tahoe, dodge charger, and even a Hummer H2, not one of those lets go show the kids kind of ride I mean they really use it.

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http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s...titled-1-3.jpg
1981 300d

We're seeing Chargers, a few Magnum wagons and the City of STL runs fancy crewcab pickups along I-44 into town, all different colors, nice wheels, deep tint glass, no markings except lights in the grille. One local municipality, City of St Charles, recently started changing over from white cars with multi-color decal kits to old-fashioned black bodies, white doors and retro-style, very simple emblems on the front doors. I don't know what changed, or who decided to change over, but it's in process.

One thing you have to watch in metro STL is that there are something like 88 municipalities in St Louis County, and while some contract with the county or a nearby city for police services, MANY have their own little 2 and 3 man PD's, and they may have a 3/4 mile stretch of a state highway which they patrol vigorously and write a lot of tickets. There are a lot of speed traps with these weird little cities, and they tend to have older, grubby cars, cops they are paying $8 an hour, not the most professional set up in the world.

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2002 Ford ZX2
2 x 2013 Honda Civics

Our locals have the Chargers, but with the 3.5V6, not the Hemi. When I saw my first one in a parking lot at the train station I had to ask the cop "does that thing have a Hemi"? His response was a rather sullen "no".

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Jonathan

2011 Mazda2
2000 E320 4Matic Wagon
1994 C280 (retired)

South of Lafayette is the tiny town of Linden....must have population of 2 or 300 at most. They have a lovely pearl grey charger town marshall patrol car.

I went down there to advise them on the immenent collapse of a sadly neglected old building.

The front of the second story of an old double storefront was sagging forward in the middle about 8". I looked it all over and told them in writing that I didn't honestly know what was holding it up there, it looked like it should have fallen already.

The president of the town board ordered the building evacuated. A couple of weeks later he called and asked me to come look at it after the front had been removed and the remaining structure braced to see if I thought it was safe to occupy again.

I said it was.

They said that they discovered that the thin aluminum roof flashing had been holding the brick from falling forward. They cut it with a sawzall with a large excavator holding the front in place and after the aluminum was cut he backed up and it all fell into the street.

If you would have told me that flashing could hold a brick front up I would have bet large sums that it would not.....and it would not have for much longer!

Tom W

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

I'm willing to bet that in that municipality, their Police Dept. and/or its purchases are overseen buy some council members, and I'm thinking one, or three, might have been pulled over (or had "friends/family" pulled over) by un-marked/stealth vehicles...what better way to "know where the cat's at" than by hanging a little bell on its neck...or in this case, paint/mark 'em up like Police Vehicles used to be...

Remember...your town is run by folks like you...if you have some government "entity" that's causing a problem, you either paint it "day-glow lime green" or regulate it out of existance..."sunset" laws and related minutia keep stuff like that in check. Or...familiarity breeds contempt...people just recognized the car from such a far-off distance that nobody was getting caught up in the "quota-of-the-month club" derby...

The other possibility? The fancy decals probably cost too much to maintain...not worth the expense to replace/fix every time some schmuck scratched it with his boot or vehicle...

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M. G. Burg
'10 - Dakota SXT - Daily Ride / ≈ 172.5K
.'76 - 450SLC - 107.024.12 / < .89.20 K
..'77 - 280E - 123.033.12 / > 128.20 K
...'67 - El Camino - 283ci / > 207.00 K
....'75 - Yamaha - 650XS / < 21.00 K
.....'87 - G20 Sportvan / > 206.00 K
......'85 - 4WINNS 160 I.O. / 140hp
.......'74 - Honda CT70 / Real 125
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“I didn’t really say everything I said.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ~ Yogi Berra ~

We have several departments that have gone to the old black and white color scheme in recent years...I just assumed that somebody on council, or the police board, or whoever writes the checks, liked the look. I never thought about visibility.

As an aside, I'm in my 40's, clean cut and professional...I have become invisible to the boys in blue. I recently drove a used car that I had bought, WITH NO PLATES AT ALL for a week, even had a state trooper follow me one morning, never even got a weird look from any cops I saw. There is at least one advantage to getting old

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2002 Ford ZX2
2 x 2013 Honda Civics

Wanna be invisible to the cops? Try being old AND driving a minivan.

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TXBill



Former owner of a few diesel MB cars
1998 Lexus ES 300 In Chicago We Trust