1982 CHP car oddities.... ??
 

My 82 CHP car unit 0594 has a couple of strange modifications that have been done to it. One is a bracket welded to the right rear sub-frame and the other is a big steel plate welded to the drivers side rear floor area. There is no rust or damage so this it not some sort of repair. Some sort of reinforcement but for what? The car shows evidence of being a fully marked car with two spots on it. Here are a couple of pictures.

any ideas?

one more and no Mike this is not a tail hook for carrier landings..... :)

last one. maybe this was used to attach a test wheel of some sort?

Maybe it was a 1 of 1 carrier-based, Federal test vehicle for high-seas enforcement?? ;)

I think someone discussed this before....that the bracket was for a wheel mounted there to measure braking distance (for actual testing).

Hopefully the CHP Trooper who's a member here will have some insight on these. :southpark:

That last one looks like a home made tow hook. This type of hook could be used without crawling under the car to hook or unhook a strap or chain. Just what it looks like to this farmboy.

I'm inclined to agree with the tow hook idea, the testing wheels are really suction mounted along the quarter panel or a door with maybe a trailer hitch attachment or strapped on. But let's see if there is a resident expert trooper member available to assist on this one.

I am pretty sure that my car has that extra steel in the floor pan. I will have to get over to the storage unit and take a look.

based upon this picture I don't think the "tow hook" would be very strong to pull alot of weight. Not much welded surface there, but possibly enough to pull a car out of a ditch etc.

Maybe a place to secure a rope for mountain rescue?? :)

Hard to say. Maybe Steve can shed some light on this one.

Hasn't it already been shown that the CHP added fifth wheel attachment brackets to some vehicles?

Hopefully this copy/paste works. My car does not have the reinforced floor pan nor the "tailhook." But I see a plate behind your bumper in that last photo that I'm not familiar with. Is that the bumper shock mount? I really haven't crawled around under the back end of my '82 yet.

http://specialservicemustang.net/for...2&d=1291910842

EDIT: Sorry, I just looked at that again and my photo doesn't show that area. It's still under the carpet. Guess I'll have to pull the carpet up tomorrow and look at the correct spot. I just don't remember seeing those spot welds and extra metal, though.

I checked my car yesterday and it neither has the reinforced floorpan under the carpet nor the "tailhook."

by any chance would you want to sell that Fed Sig PA 15-A siren? :)

Maybe the "tail hook" was to keep the body of the car from scraping the groung going up streep inclines. The metal from the floor pan could have been put there to strengthen the body(something like subframe connectors hillbilly style? lol).

Vintageracer resurrected an old thread on the CHP forum today. Jim, is the OP in the thread below the previous owner of your 82? This guy's 82 has the same hook as yours...

http://www.chpforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3245

I believe that the OP there, who is a CHP officer, is also a member here, and that the pic is actually of Jim's car.

The rest reads like a FS ad.

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:A...LreM6iX6-NLrUX
NO comment.

yeh I think that is my car....the CHP forum poster could be Tony but I am not sure. I will check into it though since my 82 has that same exact hook.

I imagine it was some sort of attachment bracket for a testing device of some sort.

no comment on the hype and hoopla. Everyone knows what that is all about.

Yes he is and yes that is.

Thanks for the positive ID, Mike. That's what I figured.

I'm sorry, Jim, I missed this if you were referring to me. I removed the siren from the car a while back. Actually, I already had one. Send me an email to discuss offline. I've got that pulley ready to package and send to you for clean up. I could use a bigger box and send both.

:)

As a follow up, I rec'd a PM from the original poster on the CHP forum, and he confirmed that the picture is of the car he sold to Jim.

Iam going with fastrabbit on this.
I would bet its a tow hook, and would be easy to atytach a tow strap to it.
Crude but looks like it would work!!

here is the marti report for my 82.

That is good stuff, glad they had the info available. :thumbsup:

yes it makes it very easy to confirm one of these cars as actually being an ssp car, six digit dso, and so on.

ordering for the 1983 FHP next.

Jim, I find it interesting that your report shows the "Special Service Package". I thought they were called the "Severe Service Package" in 1982.

What is the source of the "severe service" designation?

It's on our site...came from JD originally.

It was "Severe Service Package" until 1983 from memory and then was renamed to "Special Service Package".

Has anyone gotten an Eminger Invoice for their 82 SSP yet? Being an original Ford document, that would certainly remove any question about how the option designation was worded.

I haven't yet seen an Eminger Invoice for an '82 SSP. I have only seen one for the "police demo" (P10F---148027) owned my Mike Strinich.

that is the car ford had built (not an ssp) to use as a marketing vehicle, correct?

Marti did not have my eminger invoice for my 1982 CHP car.

I like the "demo"; that's exactly how I would describe it.

It does say "police demo" right on the invoice. ;) Haven't seen a Marti Report for it yet. Maybe it has something on it similar to the "CHP evaluation" GL hatchback report.

My bad. I confused the "prototype" car with the "test mule" car. Can you post up the Eminger invoice for 148027? The demo comment was meant for the donkey.

I think "donkey" is a little dimeening(can't spell that) for that special a car:)

Yeah, just a little humor. :)

I saw the Eminger invoice for 148027 when it was originally posted, but I haven't seen any other documentation posted showing what the car is or isn't. The same goes for the "mule" which, thanks to the Marti information, looks like it was produced after CHP had already ordered their cars.

On the Marti report the "test mule" is identified as a "Marketing Vehicle". You would have to imagine that Ford was getting the SSP program geared up at that point, so add'l police demos would be needed for evaluation purposes by Ford and other departments. Didn't Arizona have a 1982 SSP/demo for evaluation purposes? I'm not trying to take anything away from the "Emil Loeffler 1982 Engineering Mule", as the owner calls it. It was a police demo that pre-dated the SSP's which came out later that same year. So it is an interesting car, no doubt.

I'm hoping that an Eminger Invoice for a 1982 SSP will be found and we can see the correct wording of the SSP option (Severe Service Package or Special Service Package) as listed on the original Ford document. Not taking anything away from Mr. Marti, but having an Eminger Invoice for a 82 SSP would remove all doubt.

What we might be able to do with the Eminger Invoices is ask Marti Auto if any are available within the batch of the 400 consecutive P10F VINs and if there are, pay for a photocopy (or PDF, etc.) of one of them. That way, they can keep with their policy of only giving the actual paper copy of the invoice to the owner of the vehicle and we could see what one of the invoices says. They might have better luck finding a sample if they're looking for any of a possible 400, instead of just one.