Classic California Highway Patrol Cars - Jay Leno's Garage

so welcome to the episode of jay leno's garage today we're going to talk about cars of the california highway patrol having had a lot of intimate relations with cars of the highway patrol i figured rather than have them stop me on the highway why not just bring them down here this is uh not quite a prototype this is a vehicle that is not in official use but will be very soon this is the new ford explorer we have with us some classic highway patrol cars one of these is considered the greatest highway patrol car of all you might be surprised which one it is is it the 82 mustang is it the 66 polara maybe it's the crown vic the classic crown vic that's a 2 000 crown vic is it the 70 mercury with the big 429 or is it the 69 polar with the 440 we'll find out a little bit later but first to tell us about this new vehicle which will probably stop you if you ever come to california and you're speeding let's meet max guthrie he's captain of the highway patrol how you doing how you doing matt doing great how are you cool cool so now these are not officially in service but they will be very soon yeah in the next couple weeks you're going to see them come off the production line up in sacramento as long as i don't see them behind me that's fine what do we have here ford explorer it's a it's actually a ford explorer police interceptor package it's not a public car you can't go by the police interceptor package i kind of miss the old sedan days but everything is suv now isn't it absolutely yes it's kind of a necessity now for us right so what do we have what what constitutes the police pursuit package most notably is the engine you uh this is a 3.7 liter 300 horsepower v6 motor okay that is only offered to police so the the civilian one is a little smaller v6 or the turbo the ecoboost i believe they call it okay it's a v6 it goes with z06 corvettes that's good for you it's only a v6 okay 300 horse but pretty quick yeah it's it's you know 7.8 seconds zero to 60. so that's not a bad for 7.8 3.706 so we're okay we're doing pretty good okay but you have the radio we do have the radio nobody can outrun the radio that's the helicopters are good too i imagine it has what uh much larger radiator almost absolutely you have the three core bypass radiator in here okay uh brakes bigger than standard yeah dual piston okay stainless steel pistons and a single piston in the rear you know what's interesting we had all these cars driving them in here and the older ones just running for five minutes we almost got a fixated in this garage this one you would starve to death before you uh before you got affixiated in this garage because it puts out so little emissions it shows you how far they've come what else looks like heavy-duty tires it does it has it has 18-inch wheels heavy-duty tires it has a vinyl rear seats okay and cloth in the front so we're a little more comfortable than the prisoners this time so that's very nice okay so they use cloth because it's not as hot as leather or vinyl right and then the vinyl is easy to clean right now cars at all they all have air conditioning now which is all by all those kind of amenities what else is in here that would be uh police packs if you look at the way the the whole radio set up it's our consolidated patrol vehicle environment up in the top we have our camera system the mvar's cameras built into the overhead console right and the the package is really um set up nice the back doors are set up with no cup holders just for to clean the the backs out right and uh they just kind of flush these out with a hose don't you absolutely yeah yeah the the old crown vic had carpeting in the back these have rubber floor mats on every one of them so a lot of little stuff ford did to make this a little better for us now the old days police cars are pretty much worn out at 75 000 miles what what do they do these days how many miles they go well if you've if you've noticed lately uh the chp hasn't been purchasing vehicles the crown vix ended and we've been trying to find a replacement that holds the payload we have a full-size spare and all the radios and so um right now we're just running them until these come off production so some have hundreds of thousands of miles we have some crown vic's with 200 000 miles on it right now well that's i'm surprised it's not more than that actually yeah okay what else anything else different about it i think you know just the whole new face of the chp here you you well that's the uh that's the non-light bar package but most of the black and whites are going to have the lower profile light bar like the crown vics have now somebody told me they some of the cars have a thing that scans license plates like a thousand an hour or a minute or whatever it is right tell if something is there's a warrant is that true yeah we're putting um yeah we can look for you just by your license plate goes down the road and scans every license plate yeah we're with this new uh consolidated patrol vehicle environment we're having the radar is integrated we're gonna have some of the the license plate readers integrated we have the camera we have a computer it's it's a pretty nice setup and some of these also have the doughnut maker it actually makes the doughnut in the season if you get the if you get the good one absolutely you don't have to pull in just make the doughnut right in the vehicle so you save yourself some time those are all the captains cars get those i'm being stupid they're very cool we know what you drive well most of the time and what's top speed on a vehicle like this you know they they meet our specs so they're at least in the 122-128 mile an hour range i don't know what this one topped out at well matt thank you for showing me thank you let's uh we're going to take a look at some of the older ones now and those are the ones that are interesting that's my error that's when i was getting pulled over every week let's take a look at some of those well let's start with the 82 mustang but i want to bring in a gentleman who was uh well he has driven all these cars this was his era he is the former commissioner of the highway patrol retired now spike helmet spike come on in how are you good how are you this is your time right this is my time you drove all of these cars and this is when police cars were one of the fastest things on the road i was shocked back in 82 when they went with the mustang what was the reason for going with the mustang at the time well the reason was if you recall all the small gear that was being put on the big dodges absolutely they just did not run and did not do what we wanted so we had to find something very quickly that would let us catch the people out there so we went to ford ford did not make this car they actually put together a special service package for us that uh and used the bigger engine and things but in the smaller cheaper body and this is where this car came from what is this the five liter is that what it is just the five liter engine with a five-speed transmission yes well it has a five-speed manual it has a five-speed manual wow uh we tested the automatics as well as these and for the most part the officers like the automatic i mean the standard so that's the way we went let me show you the poster i remember this ad when it came out at the time this ford chases porsches for a living and the guys must have really enjoyed the high speed chases with this they enjoyed the high speed chases we enjoyed the poster uh porsche was not very happy with it yeah yeah and you really can't you only very tiny criminals go on the back seat realistically you could not get anyone in the back seat no that's an emergency so this was merely just for chasing down speeders huh it was made to be a chase car ford made them for 10 years they made about 15 000 of them they were used for that purpose and worked very well okay and when did you join the highway patrol 69 69. okay so these were probably around back in your day this is a 66 polara this was still there when we came on yes 383 383 wedge engine had no brakes we couldn't stop them no no disc brakes no disc brakes no power steering no power steering none of that wussy air conditioning no air conditioning this is when the men were men and the women were glad of it yes siree bob before the ships iron man i remember these things yeah these are well they were pretty bulletproof pretty reliable weren't they they ran very well yeah but you mentioned it earlier the 75 000 miles they were pretty well tired at 75 000. so drum brakes no power steering no nothing just no nothing heavy duty suspension i imagine they had heavy duty suspension and the radiator but uh other than that they were pretty much the same cars you could buy and what are we looking about 300 horsepower 316 they called it back then okay now this is sort of the classic highway patrol car this one has probably been in use more than any other without a doubt this is probably the most used car ever made in law enforcement across the nation and here in california the famous crown vic body on chassis body on chassis and again it was a good car it wasn't the fastest car by any means but easy to fix when you crashed them engine in front transmission so everything was pretty straightforward yeah yeah and uh we had a good after market all the taxi cab services would buy them and we'd get through with them so okay and then put them in the taxi service now this one here this is rarer i don't remember i remember seeing these on a couple of the chips tv shows and things but they didn't have these for too many years this is what the 70 mercury 70 mercury thank goodness we had it one year and one year only it wasn't it was bad had a smaller steering wheel no power steering you could not turn the car no matter how hard you tried no it has this has the 429 it has a 429 engine but it was so heavier it was not but when you bought america with the 429 1970 you could get power steering why did the nut why did the officers not ask for this on the police car well the officers did the powers-to-be at that time had just taken over as the head of the highway patrol and just felt that we really didn't need it so to save a few dollars he cut all that out when they bought the car wow i think that was kind of the downfall of the car it was just and when did air conditioning come into play that one doesn't have it doesn't have it it came in around 73 okay mainly because of all the desert cars were just being burned up out there in the desert so hot okay so this is this was no good no good okay we know that one's out okay that's out now the last car this is what 69 dodge flower this is an enormous automobile it's amazing how big this is it is big and this has what the 440 has the 440 how much horsepower uh i think it was 375 at the time okay air conditioning in this one no most of them did not have air some did yeah some did they had a mix yeah uh guys would fight for those cars these are the ones we fought for yeah yeah okay and how many horsepower on this 375 375 okay so of all of these what do you think he picks is the fastest and the greatest the mustang the polaris the crown vic well we know it's not the mercy not the mercury or the polar go ahead we'll wait see what you pick spike what do you got this is it oh this one here this is i think most people would have guessed the mustang with the stick and sporty and yeah i think they would have this one was fast very very fast uh the brakes weren't real good you couldn't stop them but yeah yeah just the hood would always rattle badly because of such a big large hood right but it was comfortable it was fast and this is the car everyone wanted to drive probably the most popular police car they've ever made was you could put a lot of criminals in the back of that but a lot of bad people put a lot of people in the back of that i gotta admit it's a very imposing looking car and it must with 375 horse it looks heavy but it probably wasn't as heavy as some modern cars there's no safety things or airbags probably i'll bet this is about a 3600 pound car something like that it was the one everyone fought to try to drive and we'd have cases where you really needed a high-speed car this is the one you always wanted stay away from the mercury and go to this one what was the fastest you ever been in one of these well it's been a well over a hundred uh yeah we had a deal where we used to have a porsche come into los angeles every sunday morning yeah and we assumed he must have worked out of town and he kept running us and out running us so we set up cars along the interstate front he catch us one guy he catch the one guy and we were able to catch him and we're using this type of wow so wow now what did he so how fast he's going when he caught him well he claimed he was doing 140 coming in why would you claim that why wouldn't you go 80. well we had him pretty fast so he he he was going to jails now when you get that guy for that do you get them for the other offenses or just that one offense that was good enough so that's you can't say we saw you no okay uh no we we did suggest that to the district attorney but we didn't have fruit no they didn't go how long did he lose his license for a long time long time a long time any chance we could take this out for a spin oh i think we could let's do it okay this is a huge car i had my stats wrong this thing weighs 4 400 pounds and look how enormous we couldn't even punch each other in the face look at that look how far away we are it's fun to pull up behind cars and watch people get nervous you know it's funny all these noises that turn indicator i remember that noise yes and that that famous chrysler starter motor just you know it just brings back the sounds and the smells especially for you too eh it really does yeah it really does you miss those days you like the modern stuff better well i i miss those days but i like the modern cars better so yeah yeah yeah there you go there you go yeah yeah we gotta just make noise you must be filling these with gas every couple of hours huh we would usually feel two to three times a shift in eight hours yeah so that will tell you how much they burn because gas is 25 cents a gallon so 25 cents a gallon that is correct what is pilot light what does that do well pilot light simply tells you you've got a red light on okay so if you turn it on and forget to turn it off that'll remind you okay and these are your outside flashing lights uh out though that's a speaker uh you know so you could turn it i don't know if it has a speaker but you could turn it outside and use uh i know it doesn't seem to be working but okay that's outside speaking you could talk to them uh-huh and this is your siren siren and the horn and your siren works through your horn correct and this of course is your amber red lights red light to the rear and you got your old original radio imagine those are hard to find those are motorolas huh real hard to find i mean when you look at what they have now what is this what now what what's it doing between these two uh this simply was used for all the ran all the red light system in the car oh that would turn the lights green and also could if it would have a different tone to your siren you could get a well it doesn't seem to be working but okay let me try it yeah yeah i don't think it's hooked up okay and then you have your scanner down here right yeah it had an outside speaker where you could talk to someone tell them to pull over if they weren't or continue up to the next stop and what shotgun is that that's a 12-gauge shotgun kind of infamous two things they had these on them because the guys used to put their cigars down the barrel yeah and so the department got mad at that so they required that they put this cap on which really made everybody mad and they did not want us using the shotgun so they put a seal and you broke that seal during your eight hours yeah you had to write a big memo so no one would want to ever take the shotgun out and rack around in and break that seal right because no one wanted to have to write the bible sure sure i'll pull over please i'll pull over please he likes the registration i got a call gotta run see you guys later it's amazing people just get out of your way you can see the hood moving around the cool thing about this car it's 100 authentic it's got every detail that they had in 1969. you know compared to modern stuff it's really not that fast it's not that this car is fast it's that it's powerful and those are two different things it's a big 440 engine with a lot of torque and when you put your foot in it you can feel you're moving more than two tons this really brings back memory because i worked this road oh yeah is that right we the office was in glendale at the time and we had all this this is not highway right yeah this is this it was the end oh this is highway huh let's take over the freeway see how people react okay let's do it love that siren it's really not fast at all oh it is not compared to what you not to what you have today wow it's fun seeing how the other half lives spike thank you sir thank you thanks for uh the history lesson and showing us these great cars so this is something a little bit different got to drive a police car this is a lot of fun actually it's amazing how polite people are on the highway nobody gave me the finger nobody cut me off just wonderful i gotta get one of these see you guys next week uh

Channel: Jay Leno's Garage

Views: 3,517,957

Rating: 4.8508716 out of 5

Keywords: Jay Leno, Automotive, Cars, Garage, horsepower, Jay, Leno, mods, custom car, Speed, Fast, modded cars, mechanic, fastest car, Jay Leno's Garage, cars, exotic cars, interview, custom, Leno car, funny, Leno funny, car show, Rare, Motorcycles, racing, jay leno interview, auto, drive, power, fast, amazing, cool, the cars, vehicle, Classic California Highway Patrol Cars, 2013 Ford Explorer, 1982 Ford Mustang, 1966 Polara, 2000 Ford Crown Victoria, 1970 Lincoln Mercury, 1969 Polara

Id: K0pjW8Ss0WI

Length: 18min 10sec (1090 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 30 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/thecanadiantommy]

You got my vote because crown vic the best.

[u/jackoman03]

If I ever move to murica my first car will definitely be an ex-cop Crown Vic. Lovely cars.

[u/notfastnough]

The Crown Vic will always be remembered as a legendary police car even if it wasn't all that powerful. Reliable body on frame construction and easy to maintain, that is how a full size car should be built!

[u/[deleted]]

Wow, tiny power plant in that hulking SUV for a cop car...

[u/wiltse0]

at 1:27 the sheriff says "they're hard to see"... at 3:12 the sheriff says "we're more comfortable than the prisoners"...

[u/mikeluscher159]

First/Second gen CVPI Panther platform Crown Vic's get my vote because memories. First 10 years of my life was spent in the backs of those.

[u/Freedom_Eagle_]

The new explorers are slugs

[u/oh84s]

He didn't answer the question, does it do a burnout

[u/NitroXityRealm]

The cop cars in my city are bright white and green Dodge Chargers.