1988 Wyoming Highway Patrol HP 43

[Wolfe1013]

The text from the photo in Post # 8 above:

Thursday, June 9, 1988

WHP Evaluates New Pursuit Vehicles

The Wyoming Highway Patrol is evaluating a group of new high performance pursuit vehicles.

Patrolman Jeff Berrett is the Valley patrolman chosen to drive a new Ford Mustang. The Patrol will make a decision on whether to purchase more than the original six evaluation vehicles. “We need to see how they’ll perform in the winter,” Berrett stated, “before we go ahead with replacing the whole fleet.”

The vehicles are modified by Ford before delivery to the Patrol and sport a 5.0 liter fuel injected V-8 engine. “Everybody asks me how fast it will go,” Berrett says, “and I can honestly tell them that I don’t know. I haven’t needed to find out. We bought these cars as pursuit vehicles, that means we can get stopped, turned around, and up to speed quickly to stop a violator. The acceleration these vehicles have allows us to get a violator shut down a lot faster and provide a higher degree of safety to the motoring public.”

Patrolmen selected to drive the new vehicles were sent to Cheyenne for training on the new radio equipment and then drove the cars to Evanston for a two-day training session with the Utah Highway Patrol. Berrett explained that the UHP was selected for the training because of their excellent safety record in operating the Mustangs. “They did a great job teaching us, we really appreciate their coming.” Berrett concluded.