Florida State Troopers had a bunch of 5 liter Mustangs for a while; they could duck through the turn-arounds on the turnpike, accelerate and catch someone in a remarkably short distance. Lately they have had a bunch of hot rod Camaros. Back many years ago, when our city was just starting its police department, the County deputies were all driving Dodges with "6 pack" engines -- 3 - 2 bbl carburetors. So, our first "public safety officer" (the department had not yet been officially started) ordered up a Pontiac 400 HO for himself, and he and the deputies went back on the back roads and did some drag racing every night (there wasn't much crime, back then).
In fact, there was so little crime, our city council applied for, and received, a grant to hire an "investigator" to stop our primary crime -- theft of well pumps and AC condensors from new homes untder construction. His job was to stake out clumps of new homes and try to catch the thieves in the act. The city council, in their wisdom, decided he didn't need much speed to handle a stake out, so they bought him a Honda Civic (this was back in the days when it was a 1200 cc econobox). He refused to drive it, and threatened to quit, so the council backed down and let him order a Dodge with 2 4 bbl. carbs, and he promptly joined the nightly drag races. It was a very small town at the time, and I was a young man looking to earn a few extra bucks, so I was out all night, every night, delivering the local newspaper from my car, and I got to join in some of the impromptu races -- that's how I know about all this.
But, the best cop car story I know is about our county deputies back around 1973. Seems that Volvo had quite a good business selling police cars in Europe, and decided they would try to break into the business here in the USA. They offered a test car to any department willing to give it a 6 months test. The car they offered was a model 144, which was a 4 cyinder, 4 door sedan, with an automatic transmission, in the relatively heavy Volvo. The car was a real dog. Our county has parts of it that are really rural cattle ranches and citrus groves, so the deputies put that car on ranch and grove patrol. They proceeded to drive it down every dirt road and across every field they could find, steering for stumps if they saw them. After they tore the oil pan off the car for the third time in a month, Volvo ended the trial and that's the last time one of our guys had to drive a 4 cylinder car until the PT Cruisers.
Today, we also have several PT Cruisers, but they are driven by our School Resource Officers -- police officers and deputies who are assigned to duty in the schools. As said above, the kids love the little cars. The main stream cars for both the police department (now up to about 150 officers) and the Sheriff's department (the same size or bigger) are Crown Vics. K9 officers drive Cherokees, and they have a variety of drug-related confiscated cars they use for all sorts of things. The Sheriffs Dept also has a VW New Beetle all dressed up in full paint scheme and lights -- they use it for parades and kids events, drive by McGruff the Crime Dog. The lease on it is donated by the local VW dealer.
But, none of them have a slogan like that, even though 3/4 of the officers would love it...
