1982 CHP Mustang E870255

[Wolfe1013]

That's great news, Steve. That would be so awesome to reunite you with your car. And cudos for finding another '82 assignment card. Yours, Jim's and mine exist...anyone else?? Mike's is out there somewhere.

Best of luck in your search.

[ImEvil1]

Great news...thanks for your efforts and good luck tracking down your '82.

[Steve]

Originally Posted by Wolfe1013

That's great news, Steve. That would be so awesome to reunite you with your car. And cudos for finding another '82 assignment card. Yours, Jim's and mine exist...anyone else?? Mike's is out there somewhere.

Best of luck in your search.

I'll work on Mike's next. I also need to learn how to decode the information on those cards. There are various symbols and notations that it is not apparent what they mean.

[28HopUp]

Steve, I think that it is GREAT that you were able to successfully connect with Robert Read and find the Assignment Card for the SSP that you drove while in-service. Good luck in trying to track the vehicle down. Hopefully, you can use the VIN to run a CarFax and determine where the car is located.

And I would like to thank you for volunteering your time to go to Motor Transport to look for the cards for other SSP owners. It sounds like there are still some hiding there, although most cards from that era are probably lost forever. Still, thanks for doing that!

[Steve]

I am glad to help others in this forum when I can. If I find my car I'll probably be needing lots of advice and assistance for restoration. If we all work together we can get some good things done.

Is Carfax the best way to locate a vehicle nationally by VIN? I ran the VIN through the California DMV smog records with nothing back, so wither the car was put into storage and non-oped and never smogged in California, or perhaps went right to an out of State buyer.

What would you guys recommend for a National search by VIN?

[Steve]

So my assigned '82, the one I am looking for, has a VIN number of:

1FABP10FXCF213124

At sale time, it was painted blue and had a vinyl top added.

There it is! If anyone knows where this vehicle is, you'll have a friend for life here in California if you let me know.

Another interesting factoid about this vehicle: It went from Sacramento to Central Division HQ, where it was for 2 months before being assigned to Los Banos area in January 1983. That's when it was assigned to me and I drove it until August of 1984, which is when it was sent back to Motor Transport for sale (and I was assigned an '84 Mustang). So except for a brief stop at Central HQ, I drove that vehicle for its entire time in the field and was the only one who drove it regularly for road patrol.

[Steve]

I ran the VIN through the California smog check database and it came up. It was smogged in February, 2001 in Sonora, CA. It passed. So I know at least at that time it still existed and was in California.

[NoDrama43]

Got the scans of my assignment card 2 day. Good stuff. I will post it up tonight when I get home.

Thanks again steve.

[mac88chp]

Originally Posted by Steve

I ran the VIN through the California smog check database and it came up. It was smogged in February, 2001 in Sonora, CA. It passed. So I know at least at that time it still existed and was in California.

It may very well still be up in that area and currently registered too. As long as there has been no change of ownership, it won't show up in the smog database as biennial registration certificates are not required in Tuolumne County. I'd start my search in Twain Harte and work out from there. Good places to start contacting are local car clubs, auto parts stores and garages. Try to make contact with anyone who might remember seeing, hearing about, having serviced or knows someone who owns or had owned an ex-CHP/police/cop Mustang.

[28HopUp]

Hang in there Steve! It would be nice if you could find the original body. Many times, these cars were dismantled because it was cheaper to swap the parts over to another car than it would be to repair the damage. However, cars like this sometimes can be saved these days, especially if the car has "value" (which this one certainly does for you).

Originally Posted by Steve

There are various symbols and notations that it is not apparent what they mean.

Here is my understanding of the various symbols/codes on your Assignment Card:

• CHP Office Assignment - Here is a listing of CHP offices. Looking at the front of your card, your car was originally assigned to 401 Central Division Fresno (perhaps 450 Madera office). It was transferred to 461 Los Banos on on 1-27-83.
• R.F. Color - Orange would the color code used in the area where the car served. Here is a link for all of the color codes (keep in mind there may have been changes since the 1980's). ORG2 correllates with Madera and Los Banos.
• EQUIPMENT - The square with the dot in the middle allegedly means the car was a slicktop.
• SCHED. # - no idea what this means
• PR DATE - no idea what this means

Hope that helps a bit.