Chrysler-badged Fusie Cop Cars?

I just took a quick look at the engine codes. They need some context and correction to be useful. For example E65 for a 383-4 was 71 only. E62 in 69 is wrong. 340 police????
 
My thoughts on the WVSP car are that a fleet was ordered under contract through WV DGS Purchasing Division .. My sister lives in WV and WVSP still use the same paint scheme that appears to be used since the mid 50's blue with a gold top ..it looks like WV has a long history of using Chryslers for State Police cruisers. I believe the 73 Chrysler is a police pkg car ordered as a fleet by WVSP but I'm only guessing based on the pics below and the comments above.

good sleuthing shooter65. :)

I am highly confident the '73 WVSP Newport is an "A38, police package" car. Can't know for sure, but the evidence points that way. It might have been offered for that year only .. I'll keep diggin'.

Thanks for helping out!
 
I just took a quick look at the engine codes. They need some context and correction to be useful. For example E65 for a 383-4 was 71 only. E62 in 69 is wrong. 340 police????

thanks for that. thats why i called them guidance and gave the source as "not me" :)

I have never seen a 340 police car (maybe the A, and E body folks know) ... but I feel very sure one NEVER appeared in C body in a fleet, or a civi car, that was sold to the public.

I would disregard stuff that anyone KNOWS to be wrong. OR, someone point to/post up the inarguable source (Govier, Hamtramck, something else?) thats 100% accurate.

thanks again!
 
we are all just contributing what we know .. or in some cases can prove. No "fights" yet either :)

my 72 polara had A38 on buildsheet but not on fender tag. but i can no longer "prove" that with documents.

the buildsheet for my '72 NJSP Fury III no longer exists unfortunately .. the car may never have left the factory with it. Its got cool hidden headlights tho :)

thx!
I found a pair of mismatched build sheets under and in back of my rear seat. I found a fragment of a buildsheet under the front seat which seems to have read "new Jersey police"
 
There certainly were Buick/Ponitac and Mercury squads in that era.

I wanna bet any Chrysler units had an additional "hang on" speedo, since a separate police dash would have been too much work, and ribbon-style speedos probably weren't considered accurate enough for tickets.

I've never heard of a "hang on" speedo. While the `look' of the speedos differed between Chrysler and P/D cars, the guts of the speedos were likely all the same, so it would be relatively simple to build "certified" versions of Chrysler speedos by swapping out the guts.
 
My 2 cents worth...

I've yet to see the A38 code on a Fusey cop cars Fender tag.....instead I have seen the Y39 Special order code and the K designation in the VIN, or the Y39 and M designation.

I personally think that the A38 was a 74+designation for the most part. Prior to that it was mostly Special order stuff if you didn't want the standard Police Package.

I've got the tags off a 73 Fury I Toronto Metro police cruiser. It is optioned very oddly.

Which of anyone has a full list of Molar fleet option codes, please PM me.

Nick

I believe you won't ever see "A38" on a fender tag, because A38 is a PACKAGE. The fender tags show individual options and primarily those that would be attached to the body (as opposed to the chassis). The broadcast sheet has provision to show packages so that's where you'd see "A38" listed.
 
I've never heard of a "hang on" speedo. While the `look' of the speedos differed between Chrysler and P/D cars, the guts of the speedos were likely all the same, so it would be relatively simple to build "certified" versions of Chrysler speedos by swapping out the guts.
I have never heard of the term either but I think the reference is to the add-on speedometers that were placed in front of the factory one or on top the dash.


Alan
 
The tags I have are just Y39 and have 999 paint codes and a second tag with "SPECIAL ORDER" "SPECIAL PAINT"

Y39 is a shipping code which also includes any aftermarket vendors that a car would be drop-shipped to for further processing before being sent to the selling dealer. "999" is Chrysler's universal code for any non-production paint code. It can be any colour, any finish. It does not refer to a specific colour. I think it's perfectly normal to see a two tag car when the first tag has a 999 paint code. The second tag simply confirms that information in case the guys on the line didn't specifically see/look for the paint code on the first tag. "Special Order" is probably the same idea for cars coded "Y39".
 
I have never heard of the term either but I think the reference is to the add-on speedometers that were placed in front of the factory one or on top the dash.


Alan

There were cars with added on speedometers??? Alan, did CHP have these?
 
thanks for that. thats why i called them guidance and gave the source as "not me" :)

I have never seen a 340 police car (maybe the A, and E body folks know) ... but I feel very sure one NEVER appeared in C body in a fleet, or a civi car, that was sold to the public.

I would disregard stuff that anyone KNOWS to be wrong. OR, someone point to/post up the inarguable source (Govier, Hamtramck, something else?) thats 100% accurate.

thanks again!

Chrysler would not put an engine into a police car that wasn't available in the civilian version. Yes, there were police specific versions of regular production engines, but there would not be an engine that was not released for production installed. To do that would require separate crash tests, emission tests, fuel economy test etc., and for the volumes of cars that "might" be built, they simply wouldn't even consider it. The OPP did have some Dart sedan black & whites in 1976 or so, but I think it was more of an experiment to see if the oversize guys who were on patrol would tolerate getting shoehorned into them with all of the extra gear they had to wear. I'll go out on a limb and say the "experiment" was a resounding failure.
 
I believe you won't ever see "A38" on a fender tag, because A38 is a PACKAGE. The fender tags show individual options and primarily those that would be attached to the body (as opposed to the chassis). The broadcast sheet has provision to show packages so that's where you'd see "A38" listed.

thanks for participating a bit kmccabe56. if you are still on, what do you make of post #48? '71 NJSP police Fury.

Also, have you ever seen a Chrysler-badged fusie police car? That's how this thread got started with a WV State police '73 Newport

20161227_204323-jpg.109423
 
There were cars with added on speedometers??? Alan, did CHP have these?
Maybe on earlier cars, here is one installed on a recent restoration of a 61...
1961.gif

I do not know if this was used at this time but knowing the group that restored this car I know they did their research.

Alan
 
I've never heard of a "hang on" speedo. While the `look' of the speedos differed between Chrysler and P/D cars, the guts of the speedos were likely all the same, so it would be relatively simple to build "certified" versions of Chrysler speedos by swapping out the guts.

The problem would be the "parallex" viewing angle defect... You aren't viewing a bar-speedo dead-on for much of its travel, and somebody fighting a ticket would eventually make hay about it.

300px-Parallax_Example.svg.png
 
thanks for participating a bit kmccabe56. if you are still on, what do you make of post #48? '71 NJSP police Fury.

Also, have you ever seen a Chrysler-badged fusie police car? That's how this thread got started with a WV State police '73 Newport

20161227_204323-jpg.109423

Looks like I need to read more and write less. Stuck my foot in it again, aka "Never say `never'". When the Fusies were new, my world of travel was limited so, no, I don't recall seeing one when they were current. Was A38 on the fender tag a one year occurrence?
 
Maybe on earlier cars, here is one installed on a recent restoration of a 61...
View attachment 109833
I do not know if this was used at this time but knowing the group that restored this car I know they did their research.

Alan

Yet again, I'm learning something I didn't know. Have to wonder if installation of these was limited to highway pursuit vehicles. I've seen photos of these FWDlook CHP cars before and judging from this photo, the speedo sticks up considerably over the OEM speedo housing. Wouldn't it have shown up in contemporary photos of these cars if they were installed?
 
Chrysler would not put an engine into a police car that wasn't available in the civilian version. Yes, there were police specific versions of regular production engines, but there would not be an engine that was not released for production installed. To do that would require separate crash tests, emission tests, fuel economy test etc., and for the volumes of cars that "might" be built, they simply wouldn't even consider it. The OPP did have some Dart sedan black & whites in 1976 or so, but I think it was more of an experiment to see if the oversize guys who were on patrol would tolerate getting shoehorned into them with all of the extra gear they had to wear. I'll go out on a limb and say the "experiment" was a resounding failure.
A friend who's retired OPP drive one of those A38 E58 360-4 barrel dart sedans, dual exhaust and all, he recalls about 10 of them, OPP always bought a variety of cruisers, at one point they had Chev Celebritys and my local station has a Nissan Altima unmarked.
 
Bill or Kevin could IF they wanted to take the time. Problem is, as soon as they offer up numbers for one a long line forms of guys wanting numbers looking for that one of one.

It's epidemic. Right now I'm working with some guys on another project and my access to the library has been cut off due to the Invasion Of The Relatives.
 
Looks like I need to read more and write less. Stuck my foot in it again, aka "Never say `never'". When the Fusies were new, my world of travel was limited so, no, I don't recall seeing one when they were current. Was A38 on the fender tag a one year occurrence?

its cool .. just appreciate you taking some time to participate :)

none of us has posted evidence of "A38" on any fusie fender tag BEFORE or AFTER 1971. again, not saying "never happened in production" just NOT posted here with evidence.

"A38" has appeared on buildsheets for 71-73 police Polaras and Furys, and then the one example for the '71 NJ Statie Fury III we just got last week.

We are waiting for evidence from a member who OWNED a 1973 E86 Missouri State Chrysler Newport who thinks he may have kept his buildsheet/fender tag to answer the main question: were there any Police Package Chrysler-badged Fusies.

thanks again for your help.
 
A friend who's retired OPP drive one of those A38 E58 360-4 barrel dart sedans, dual exhaust and all, he recalls about 10 of them, OPP always bought a variety of cruisers, at one point they had Chev Celebritys and my local station has a Nissan Altima unmarked.

Were these cars Windsor built? In one of my many conversations with the distribution manager of the day, Windsor was quite willing to build anything if a customer wanted to order enough cars to make it worthwhile for plant to do them up. And given that these E58 LL41s were basically a different combination of parts bin pieces, they were relatively easy to build.

Unfortunately up in your part of the world Matt, a domestic car is now more the exception than the rule, so in order to blend in, it becomes necessary to use vehicles that don't warrant a second glance. Personally, it make me throw up to think that my tax dollars are going directly to support an Asian car manufacturer. But given the ***** in residence in Toronto, anything's possible.
 
Was A38 on the fender tag a one year occurrence?

No. I've seen it on 71's (posted above) but do not see code A38 on a tag until '77. It's interesting that I have tags from a 77 PK41 that does not code A38 but a 77 PM41 that does. Both are from the Belevedere (D code) plant.

Remember, what was coded varied by plants. Plants that built fleet cars, like Lynch Road (B body Coronet or Satellite) or Jefferson (Chrysler), did not code a lot of A codes on the tags so it would probably not appear on those tags due to the way the plants coded tags.

This is a reason why it's always a good idea to snap pictures of fender tags of cars in junkyards. More info on what was done, how it was done and when it was done is always good.
 
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