Many of us enjoy a good police pursuit when it’s confined to a movie, TV, or phone screen, and the peril to Ponch and John or TJ Hooker or Detective Lieutenant Mike Stone and Inspector Steve Keller (Streets of San Francisco, stay with me) is entirely imaginary. But in the real world, no one wants to be part of a police chase – whether cops or bad guys, or regular folks just trying to get from A to B amongst the action.
After numerous high-speed wrecks and the litigation surrounding them, many places have banned police chases for anything other than rare scenarios where pursuit is truly essential. The feeling today is you can’t outrun radio, and the equivalent of SCMODS (State County Municipal Data System) from The Blues Brothers exists everywhere in the country now. If you’ve done wrong, you can’t really get very far, so why risk life and limb and lawsuit?
That’s today. But up until the end of the last century, pursuit was an expected part of police work, and by the late seventies, it was obvious to most that the typical full-sized American police car was no match for even run-of-the-mill sports machines. The solution was to create some of the most interesting police cruisers ever made by putting muscle and pony cars into police duty, including the Ford Mustang. How did the five-oh version of one of our favorite Fords come into being, and how did it compare to the civilian model? Let’s get into it.
Not A Very Bitchin’ Camaro
Surprisingly, many of the police cars from days of yore could achieve rather high top speeds. Some of the big 440-powered Mopar sedans could reach 140 miles an hour, and the ubiquitous Ford Panther-body Crown Victoria was often limited to 129 miles an hour. However, acceleration to get to such lofty speed was not even remotely close to matching Porsches or Corvettes of the day. Also, having owned a 1983 and then a 1988 Panther body for a sum total of about 150,000 miles, I would very much not recommend driving one at those speeds (and after one hard stop from around 70 miles an hour, the brake pedal becomes a footrest).
No, by the late seventies, most law enforcement professionals knew that a different tool was needed to keep up with scofflaws. The first ones to experiment with the fight-fire-with-fire approach were none other than Ponch and John’s California Highway Patrol (cue the disco theme song). However, their test vehicles were not from Dearborn: the CHP purchased 12 modified 1979 Chevy Camaro Z28s complete with heavy-duty components from Police 9C1 Novas.
Decked out as cop cars, these police Camaros looked painfully cool and were assigned to Redding, Bakersfield, El Centro, and West Los Angeles districts for the test. Despite getting an exemption from the California Air Resources Board, the 350 V8s in the Z28s made just 170 horsepower. The test didn’t go particularly well; reportedly, nine of the twelve cars blew their engines with no more than 26,000 miles on them.
This particular example is a replica, as are apparently all of the ones you’ll see today. Even the CHP had this particular “tribute” shown here in their possession to display, as no originals appear to still exist.
Supposedly, issues with the main bearing caps and camshafts on the CHP Z28s were resolved, but the damage appeared to have been done. You can guess who was there to take advantage of the situation.
The 5.0 For The Five-Oh
The Highway Patrol took bids from GM and Ford in 1981 for this new type of cruiser, and the Camaro’s archenemy won the prize. Surprisingly, it wasn’t even close. The accounts I’ve found don’t say if the Camaro police car proposal was a second-generation car or the soon-to-be-introduced 1982 third generation, but the per-car price GM entered was reportedly $11,445. Ford presented a 302-powered notchback version of the Fairmont-based Mustang that they’d debuted two years before, for a mere $6,868 per car. Road tests were favorable, and Dearborn received an order for 400 police Mustangs, dubbed “SSP” for Special Service Package.
While almost all SSPs were notchbacks, the CHP received four to six hatchback models as well; reportedly, the CHiPs didn’t like the hatch cargo area versus a trunk and even claimed chassis flex could pop that tailgate!
Note that these were not, in effect, full-on “police cars.”In fact, an entry from an SSP manual states that these Mustangs were for “limited highway traffic law enforcement service,” meaning the typical standards for law enforcement cars (especially the passenger and cargo space) were intentionally not met.
The 1982 Mustang SSP featured a 157-horsepower engine that was mated to either a manual or automatic transmission, though the stick shift obviously proved to be a bit of a hassle for officers who needed to use the radio or other police gear with a free hand. Among the changes to the police Fox Mustang included:
- Engine oil cooler
- Silicone radiator hoses and aircraft-style clamps
- Auto transmission fluid cooler
- 130 and 135 amp internally and externally regulated heavy duty alternators
- Two-piece VASCAR speedometer cable
- Certified calibrated speedometer 0-140 mph (1982-early 1989) and 0-160 mph (late 1989–1993)
- Non-operational courtesy lights (safety feature)
- Relocated rear deck release
- Single key locking doors/trunk
- Reinforced floor pans
- Full size spare tire
Equipment in terms of comfort and convenience items was as limited as you’d expect in a police vehicle, which kept weight down. Despite some rumors and misinformation, the engines in SSPs never produced more power than the stock Mustang GTs.
Note: If you’re wondering why the example in the images above has a “GL” on the trunk lid, that’s because this was reportedly the prototype 1982 car, later used as a training vehicle in the Emergency Vehicle Operation Course (EVOC). With nearly 100,000 hard miles, I bet it has some stories.
The outside was stark black-and-white, with black steelies topped in dog dish chrome caps. Those police Z28s looked slick, but they also seemed a lot like something confiscated from a drug dealer; you might have a hard time taking one seriously as a cop car. On the other hand, the boxy Fox Mustang’s upright appearance had a rather menacing I’m-here-to-work appearance that seemed perfect for the job.
Fleet Fuelie Fox
California’s SSP fleet worked so well that soon, jurisdictions across the country were ordering Mustangs for their motor pool. Each state chose different equipment levels in their orders, like New York, which asked for power windows, and some that even installed roll cages. A few locales requested unmarked ‘Stangs, but regardless of how stealth some municipalities might have wanted these things to be, Ford taking the opportunity to advertise how the original Pony Car was the choice of the Law across the United States likely had those wary of police double-checking any Mustangs they encountered.
All of the upgrades that the Fox Mustang GT (and later LX 5.0) received found their way onto the SSP. Most notable was the addition of fuel injection and the five-speed manual ‘box for the rare stick examples, and later models sported the upgraded 5.0 under the hood with 225 horsepower.
The later cars traded the steel rims for the GT aluminum wheels, but there was an odd twist. On the 1986 to 1990 SSP models, these ten-hole wheels were powder-coated black, except for the caps. What that meant is if you wanted your Mustang to look like an “unmarked” car, you needed to select the option of “blackout treatment delete.” After 1990, SSPs reverted to all aluminum-finish wheels, and the SSP continued rather unchanged up until 1993 with rather minimal changes, becoming a rather regular sight on roads and remaining in demand with police forces.
Um, Can I Return This?
Not every municipality that ordered SSPs ultimately wanted them. You know how you’ll order something on Amazon and change your mind about an hour later? Well, the Oregon State Police apparently did the same thing with their request for 34 SSPs from Ford. However, it was too late to cancel it. The ordering dealer wasn’t sure what to do with these soon-to-arrive Mustangs, and found that noted tuner Steve Saleen was willing to work some magic on 14 of them.
Saleen did his usual upgrades with ground effects, rear spoiler, and suspension modifications, and the cars were resold through the original dealership. At first blush, I would think that the typical Saleen visual treatment on a notchback ‘Stang might be ill-advised, but the end result looks as good, if not better than the hatch; I don’t doubt that it’s more structurally sound.
The Vic Claims The Ultimate Victory
In total, around 15,000 SSP Mustangs had been delivered across the country; many were decommissioned or disposed of, though some treasured examples remain as prized members of the fleet as display or DARE cars. Once a choice of racers because of the beefed-up chassis, the collectability of Fox bodies in general means that you’ll see more restorations than competition cars today.
What killed the SSP program after a decade? Ford had no interest in making a police version of the all-new SN95 Mustang in 1994, and with the introduction of Corvette-powered Caprice police cars that same year, it sort of made such compact cruisers obsolete. That still didn’t stop Chevy from making a new police package for the Camaro, starting with a third-generation model in 1991 and continuing on to the fourth generation. The B4C package was a mix of parts from the Z28 and the 1LE included the LT1 V8 through 1997 and the LS1 V8 from 1998 to 2002. Unlike the Mustang SSP, the B4C Camaro never found more than around 200 buyers in each year it was built, except for the 700 ordered in 2002, the fourth-generation Camaro’s last year.
The story wasn’t over, though. Chevy had already dropped the Caprice in the mid-nineties, so what V8-powered car continued on as the choice of American police officers? You guessed it: the Ford Crown Victoria on the same damn 1979 Panther chassis, a large cruiser that the SSP Mustang was supposed to supplant as a pursuit car back in 1982 – yet the Crown Vic lived on for another thirty years and two decades more than the SSP. Funny how some things come full circle, isn’t it?
Top graphic image: Bring a Trailer
I drove with my friends from Ottawa to see a Syracuse basketball game in 2000, the weekend Vince Carter won the Slam Dunk contest.. As we drove down the highway in New York State, we saw one of the LS1 Camaro police cars sitting on an overpass, waiting for someone to test it.
Thankfully, we were doing the speed limit to avoid tempt fate with our Ontario plates, but that thing looked menacing up there. There wasn’t much in the “regular” car market that could run with it or away from it. Especially not my buddy’s Grand Am.
There’s a Mustang museum in Odenville, AL that has Mustang patrol cars from various states. My favorite is the Michigan car with the Plexiglas “STOP” sign on the hood.
When I was in high school in the early 90’s, my town’s PD had a late model unmarked gray Mustang with dark tinted windows. We called it “The Gray Ghost”. It was pretty cool, actually. Fortunately we all knew not to try to race it.
One of these Stang’s ruined a friend’s reputation.
He was the bestest kid in church. 4.0 GPA, never said a bad thing, never got involved in farting contests or even used the word Schwapa (a meaningless cuss word the church kids had invented). He got a scholarship for some university in Texas (Baylor?) to take religious studies. He lived way off campus and his dad gave him an IROC-Z to drive.
His roommate had a Mustang 5.0. One night around 2 AM, he was studying late on campus and driving back and half asleep when suddenly a car appeared in his rearview mirror flashing lights and honking. As he got his heart-rate under control, he saw his room-mate’s Mustang go by. He knew it was that Mustang because one of the taillight bulbs was out.
A couple weeks later, he was driving along and saw a car with a burned out taillight. He turned off his headlights and snuck up and saw it was his room-mate’s Mustang with that one dead bulb going 55 for some reason. So, he stopped his Camaro and waited a bit. Then he unleashed it and got it up to an indicated 140 mph. When he was about to rear-end that tail-light challenged Mustang, he turned on the lights, held down on the horn and few around him.
In the brief second between turning on his highs and flying by, he saw the words “TEXAS HIGHWAY PATROL” on the back.
90 days later, he was known as the “bad kid” at the church. He lost his scholarship and his car in the process. Last I knew he was going to community college.