It was hit so hard it knocked off the light bar !!!!

A little tid bit on this bus. It's in Springfield at the State Police Academy. It's used mainly to shuttle recruits to and from the gun range or Illinois State Fairgrounds for driving exercises.
By coinencidence, the bus was donated to the ISP by the Springfield Mass Transit District a week before 9-11.

By the way, Kudos to Greg and everyone else involved with a top notch website.

This is a very nice car!!!

Whap! Hopefully no one was injured in the wreck. Never have owned a Mercury, but I have heard that they were pooches.
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What makes this car a "pooch", the fact that it was hit from behind? What does that have to do with the make of car?

Greg
copcar dot com

looks like a GM car, not ford; Olds??

The grill is a 1961... (of course they were interchangable from 61-66.

Nice truck. Wish it was mine!

Dennis

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Thanks Dennis.

Greg

Greg is correct. I have seen the same car on Kennedy Expy up until around 2002, which was actually the last year I saw any active ISP 1990 Caprices still in use. This particular car was re-striped, as it was originally a District C K-9 unit, which suffered some body damage in an accident. After the accident, the dog cage and the etra air conditioning was taken out, and the car was used up until 2002 as a back-up pool car for District C troopers whose car was getting repaired, etc.

Are you sure this was 2001? The reason I ask is because if it were still in sevice in 01 it would surely be a utility car. The plate number C-257 would not be a utility car plate # in District Chicago. There utility car plate #'s are usually in the 500's because I know the assigned plates go up about C-310. This car has obviouly been restriped at some point because only the top of the star bordered the gold stripe on the 90 Caprices and the decal of this car covers the stripe.
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JW-

The picture was taken by me in 2000 or 2001. It was not a car from the motor pool. I used to see it on a regular basis on the Kennedy Exway. It was in decent condition, so it was kept a while longer.



Greg

The Olds engine was a 403. Not sure if the Poncho 400 was still in use.

More likely than not it's probably a 350
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I don't know....Wasn't 1978 the last year of the 6.6 litre TransAm motor? Hard to believe if
that wasn't available in the police version of the Catalina too. Weren't they Oldsmobile engines
that year anyway?

Greg
copcar dot com

what kind of motor is in this catalina ???? 400 ?

I also photograph police car around the Chicagoland area and I just wanted to know if this picture and the others of police car lined up on the street in this picture is a police event or show. If so can I get info of when and where. Thank You
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This photo and the many others in this similar setting were taken at a police officer's funeral in 2003.

Greg
CPD and
copcar dot com

is that a cook county sheriff jeep out in front of the jail on 26th ????
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Yes. The picture was taken on the east side of California, in front of CC Jail around 1990

Greg
copcar dot com

These Markings are pretty sharp! Would have been nice if they had put a blue dome on the passennger side of the twinsonic, in my opinion.
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The state vehicle code didn't permit the use of blue for any department other than Chicago PD back then.

Greg
copcar dot com

Well then they even got more of their money's worth out of it. You didn't see to many Twinsonic bars on patrol cars in the mid 90's.

I'd say they got there money out of that twinsonic lightbar.
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Not quite. They reused it on their next police car, a 1994 Ford CV.

Greg
copcar dot cm

District 15, as you know, is the tollway district. The budget for District 15 comes from the Illinois Tollway Authority. I learned all of this working for the ISP as a TC. I remember the radio personel for D15 were not ISP employees, they were tollway employees. Also, as you might know, the D15 cars never donned stripes, only the door decal. This all changed when the decals were in the script style. All of the equipment was paid for by the tollway.

Ralph

Its a Eureka (ambulance/hearse builder until 1964, was based in Rock Falls Illinois) Straight Ambulance, suicide doors did not always necessarily mean that it was a hearse. the siren and the lights on the roof are the give-away-Combinations would have had a normal slick top..and when it was needed for ambulance duty they could just set a gumball light ontop-there was a zipper sleeve in the inside.. so the wires could dropped in. Also most combos would have had whitewalls..even if it was an ambulance part-time. Not saying that everything i say may be totalyl right.. but im just sayin what i know.

The DuPgage Sheriff (DSO) cars (like the one pictured above) have two take down lights centered in front and one flashing light on either side of the frontside of the light bar underneath the roatating lights. Generally one of the flashing lights is blue and it may be on either the driver's side or passenger side of the light bar. Some of our cars have two red fashing lights and no blue ones at all. Above the takedown lights in the clear section of the lightbar features an opticon for intersections. On the rear side of the DSO lightbars are blue directional lights underneath the rotating lights. The only amber light on this car is in the rear window on the drivers side. It is a flashing light, like some California cars have. Some of our cars also have a red flashing light in the rear window on the passenger side. This is the standard lightbar for DSO cars. We do have one marked unit with the new LED lightbar (the ones that are like an inch tall) As far as I know, that car's lights are all red. We also have another car with a retarded looking dog bone shaped VISTA lightbar (I think that is the brand) like Naperville PD sports around with. But all of the other 100 some odd marked cars we have have the lightbar you see above.

This car was most likely from the tollway (District 15) due to the green I in front of it.
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Mr Anonymous, you're as sharp as a tack. Did you maybe get that tollway idea from the fact that it says so in the photo caption?

Greg
copcar dot com