Check out this VERY special Dodge van....

[keiser31]

I may need this....http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/spy-van-fbi-sold-ebay?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=atlas-page

 

Edited July 26, 2017 by keiser31 (see edit history)

[Guest]

That's pretty cool! 

Certainly unique.

[Harold]

This thread really jogged some memories.  I saw a few surveillance vans in person at federal government auctions in the 1990's.  One was a Dodge van that looked like a NY Telephone Company van except that it had  it had the stripes and lettering painted on; the phone company used stick-on stripes and lettering at the time.  The interior was paneled and carpeted and there was a periscope  disguised as a roof vent.  There were lots of wires where the electronic equipment was removed.  I also saw a beat-up looking step-van at another auction.  The inside had a desk and wiring remnants.  The faded-looking lettering included a name with 'oo' in it (like Cook or something similar).   The double-o was really a pair of peep holes that could be opened from the interior.

 

Another time, I was at a van conversion shop in New Jersey and the owner was putting stripes on an otherwise plain green Dodge van.   The owner told me the FBI owned the van and was concerned because it had been in the background on various TV news reports too many times  and the government was worried that someone might figure out what it was.

 

Last but not least, I once bought a 1985 Ford Torino undercover car from yet another Fed auction.    In the glove compartment, there were 4 different New York registrations, all for the same car and plate number.  One registration said DEA, fee-exempt.  The other three had bogus names and addresses, each with a different ethnic connotation, presumably to match whoever was driving the car at the time.

[capngrog]

I don't know what proof the video narrator has that the van was ex-FBI; however, it could have been any of the "alphabetic" Federal agencies, or even a local jurisdiction.  In my years with a large local jurisdiction, I was familiar with our marked phone company vans, utility trucks etc.  While it was our policy to dispose of such vehicles in a "stripped" state, I encountered a few that had slipped through with much of it's "spy" equipment intact.  With that said, it's difficult to believe that a surveillance van was sold to the public containing case file information.  If the video is true, someone really dropped the ball on that one.

 

With that said, that van is a really cool vehicle and would certainly be handy for the ol' neighborhood watch or for watching the neighbors or ... .

 

They're watching,

Grog