Mark Huston Posted September 21, 2019 Share Posted September 21, 2019 Last week, I was in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada and saw this Volkswagen Beetle police car. I wondered if it was ever possible to realistically use a Beetle for police work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Harwood Posted September 21, 2019 Share Posted September 21, 2019 Probably for promotional events. Our town has a police Corvette and a pair of jet skis on a trailer even though we're nowhere near a body of water. They drag them out for every parade and civic event. Fruits of drug seizure laws, I presume. The Beetle maybe not, but surely just a promotional thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John_S_in_Penna Posted September 21, 2019 Share Posted September 21, 2019 Maybe the meter maid would use it. It would be handy for close quarters within the town. Alternatively, it's a Volkswagen just converted to a police car for someone's own car-show interest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TerryB Posted September 21, 2019 Share Posted September 21, 2019 Perhaps for parking patrols. No high speed car needed for that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.H.Boland Posted September 22, 2019 Share Posted September 22, 2019 Beetles have been used as police vehicles around the world. They are agile in snow and quick darting in and out of traffic. High speed pursuits,not so much but imagine robbery suspects trying to get away through dense traffic in their '60's Detroit behemoth with a police VW dodging through it all. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DLynskey Posted September 22, 2019 Share Posted September 22, 2019 (edited) The cops ride in style in North Carolina. In the 1970's I lived in a small Alabama town. The mayor owned the Buick and AMC dealershipps. All the patrol cars were loaded Buick Electra 225 Limited 4-door hardtops. The meter patrol and utilities used Gremlins. Don Edited September 22, 2019 by DLynskey (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STEVE POLLARD Posted September 22, 2019 Share Posted September 22, 2019 1 hour ago, John_S_in_Penna said: Maybe the meter maid would use it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nickelroadster Posted September 22, 2019 Share Posted September 22, 2019 Volkswagens were used by police in Germany. My sister had pictures of them when she took a trip in about 1966. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C Carl Posted September 22, 2019 Share Posted September 22, 2019 (edited) Why sure it is, Mark ! Let me try to figure out how to make a socially acceptable version of the time I bribed 4 EXTREMELY merciful Mexican cops in a VW down in Mazatlan. Would have been 30-35 years or so ago. Ended up costing me a total of the peso equivalent of US two dollars ! I would have seen a cold iron bunk and bars back home. Serious, SERIOUS plural driving infractions. Such manipulation requires the suborner to be at least fluent in Spanish, while pretending to have a halting working vocabulary of less than a dozen words. I have used that technique numerous times. EVEN IN CHILE ! Back about the turn of the Millennium, I was traveling with a retired contract operative for "The Outfit" who had done some very disgusting things there almost 30 years earlier. There were places he was afraid to go in Chile at the time. He had warned me not to speed under any circumstances. Do you think I paid much heed ? Oh yeah ? Well you just didn't know ol' Cadillac' back then. Sure as your born, I got radarized. Jim told me my passport would be yanked, and I would have a much longer vacation way down yonder than I had budgeted time for. Now, as in Costa Rica, you can't bribe the police in Chile. If you try : bye, bye baby, bye, bye. Used the good old stupido gringo technique, and TOTALLY blew Jimmy's mind when we lit out SCOTT FREE !!!! DO NOT EVEN THINK OF DUPLICATING THAT MAJOR FEAT UNLESS YOU ARE WELL PRACTICED IN THE TECHNIQUE, AND ARE QUITE FLUENT IN SPANISH, AND TOTALLY ACCULTURATED. Now with due modesty, I got the spit scarred outta me, and never more did speed. But Mexico back in the great cruising days ? A driver's paradise. You didn't even have to contemplate out running the V' dubs. A bribe was cheaper than the gasoline at two bits a gallon you would waste at speed. - CADILLAC ' P.S. Chief Steve, if they'd'a had meter maids like that back when I collected parking tickets like some guys collected baseball cards, I think I wouldda made one of them pretty little critters my loving wife ! - CC Edited September 22, 2019 by C Carl Add P.S. (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MCHinson Posted September 22, 2019 Share Posted September 22, 2019 The Police Department here in Wilmington NC used a Beetle for the downtown beat sometime in the 1970's. During my career we had a few very unusual vehicles obtained through drug seizure laws that were used for law enforcement. They were typically used for mostly PR purposes. These included a Porsche, a customized GM pickup truck, as well as various other non-traditional law enforcement vehicles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PFitz Posted September 22, 2019 Share Posted September 22, 2019 When I was at Fort Ord, California back in the 70's some of the guys would split the rental of a car and go down to Tijuana Mexico on a weekend pass. They said the police used beetles as patrol cars down there. Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8E45E Posted September 23, 2019 Share Posted September 23, 2019 https://www.etsy.com/au/listing/662794054/1964-volkswagen-beetle-dont-laugh Craig Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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