1966sevenlitre
Newbie
Hello folks, thank you for the add. Long time 30-year car enthusiast here, especially unique iron. Let me provide some backstory, then I'll share my interest in Buick police cars.
After restoring my car (`66 7-Litre) I started looking into police cars offered back in that era. It was really fascinating because starting around the mid-1960s, all the manufacturers were coming out with their own versions of big-block, high-powered engines. As more fast cars hit the streets, police agencies needed to keep up.
That led to a new breed of cop cars like the 427 Chevy Biscayne, 428 solid-lifter Ford Custom, 440 Plymouth Fury, 428 HO Pontiac Catalina, 455 Olds and so on. There were even 421-6V Catalinas and 426 Hemi Dodge Polaras. The latter was a special spec for the California Highway Patrol (which surely Buick fans are familiar with).
The era between 1966-71 is unique because these big-blocks were coming into their own and factory police cars were getting disc brakes, radial tires, rear sway bars and even AC for the first time. Of course by 1972, leaded gas was here and compression fell, then the Arab oil embargo assured manufacturers would give up big cars forever.
While researching this market, I decided to focus on the full-size, big-block, high-speed pursuit cars only. That's mainly because the vast majority of state and highway patrol agencies preferred large cars with the high-speed capability. There were good intermediate cars which I'm sure you know, but perhaps I can explore those later.
So far I've identified most all the models and specs from 1966-71, thanks to reading several books (Sanow, McCord, etc), searching endlessly for period/authentic pictures, making contacts in the vintage police-car community and finding factory literature such as Police Brochures, Fleet Buyers Guides, Fact/Data Books and so on.
I've fleshed out all the manufacturers, models, engines, codes and even specs from Ford to AMC ... except Buick. It has been one tough nut to crack.
To this point I've been able to find authentic pictures of 1967-68 & 1970-71 full-size Buick police cars, a newspaper article of 1969 Wildcat Police cars for sale, the cover page of both the 1966 Fleet Facts book and 1970 Buick Police Car brochure and even a 1980 Police Car brochure describing the "Lawman Action Package"/BT1.
But really nothing concrete like full brochures, spec sheets, etc which provide full data on the 1966-71 Buick Police cars. At least not in comparison to what I've been able to find on Olds, Pontiac and even AMC which weren't very common as cop cars back then.
Does anyone have this kind of info here? If so, I'd be truly grateful. Goal is to pull together a complete list of full-size, big-block, high-speed pursuit cars complete with specs and available options. Thank you kindly.
After restoring my car (`66 7-Litre) I started looking into police cars offered back in that era. It was really fascinating because starting around the mid-1960s, all the manufacturers were coming out with their own versions of big-block, high-powered engines. As more fast cars hit the streets, police agencies needed to keep up.
That led to a new breed of cop cars like the 427 Chevy Biscayne, 428 solid-lifter Ford Custom, 440 Plymouth Fury, 428 HO Pontiac Catalina, 455 Olds and so on. There were even 421-6V Catalinas and 426 Hemi Dodge Polaras. The latter was a special spec for the California Highway Patrol (which surely Buick fans are familiar with).
The era between 1966-71 is unique because these big-blocks were coming into their own and factory police cars were getting disc brakes, radial tires, rear sway bars and even AC for the first time. Of course by 1972, leaded gas was here and compression fell, then the Arab oil embargo assured manufacturers would give up big cars forever.
While researching this market, I decided to focus on the full-size, big-block, high-speed pursuit cars only. That's mainly because the vast majority of state and highway patrol agencies preferred large cars with the high-speed capability. There were good intermediate cars which I'm sure you know, but perhaps I can explore those later.
So far I've identified most all the models and specs from 1966-71, thanks to reading several books (Sanow, McCord, etc), searching endlessly for period/authentic pictures, making contacts in the vintage police-car community and finding factory literature such as Police Brochures, Fleet Buyers Guides, Fact/Data Books and so on.
I've fleshed out all the manufacturers, models, engines, codes and even specs from Ford to AMC ... except Buick. It has been one tough nut to crack.
To this point I've been able to find authentic pictures of 1967-68 & 1970-71 full-size Buick police cars, a newspaper article of 1969 Wildcat Police cars for sale, the cover page of both the 1966 Fleet Facts book and 1970 Buick Police Car brochure and even a 1980 Police Car brochure describing the "Lawman Action Package"/BT1.
But really nothing concrete like full brochures, spec sheets, etc which provide full data on the 1966-71 Buick Police cars. At least not in comparison to what I've been able to find on Olds, Pontiac and even AMC which weren't very common as cop cars back then.
Does anyone have this kind of info here? If so, I'd be truly grateful. Goal is to pull together a complete list of full-size, big-block, high-speed pursuit cars complete with specs and available options. Thank you kindly.
