One piece of documentation came with the 1983 FHP SSP that turned up early this year. A registration that showed ownership by the Manatee Sheriff Dept in the mid 80’s. After a couple failed attempts to get any additional information from the department, I reached out again early this month. I got a dispatcher who seemed genuinely interested and sent me to their fleet manager who called his predecessor who turned him on to an elderly executive assistant who “knows everything about everything”. The next day I received a call from the fleet mgr. The executive assistant gave him the name and number of the fleet manager that pre-dated his predecessor. He called him and got part of the story of the car and permission for me to call him.
I called the very elderly former fleet manager and spoke with him for about 15 minutes. His cousin worked out of the Orlando FHP Troop and apparently gave him a heads up about newly retired ’83 Mustangs. He worked to secure not just the one, but 6, 1983 FHP Mustangs, hauled them back and took them for cheap solid color paint jobs. When I told him what color this one was, he immediately told me who the driver was…Bill Evers. Retired Sheriff turned Bradenton Mayor.
An hour later, I got a call from the current Manatee Co Sheriff Chief himself. He was a driver of one of the 6 cars as well and very excited that the car surfaced but disappointed it wasn’t the black one that he drove. This all took place in less than 24 hours!
It wasn’t until last Friday that I got a call from Mr. Evers. All 6 cars were different colors and used for undercover drug interdiction around Manatee Co generally around town. He told me they all got used hubcaps from a place in town to replace the dog dish caps the cars came with. They had a radio mounted low on the passenger side trans tunnel and would keep it covered with a shirt or coat.
I knew how huge of a deal these early cars were for departments (FHP Officers have said they were like rockstars when they were assigned one of the 40, 1983 Mustangs) so I knew someone would know the story on this car. Same story here; the cars were a big deal and very special to these guys.
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