Old cop cars like today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Crown Vic never die, they just move on after retirement to become taxis or maybe hipster hoopties. This one may have been dropped and primer’d but will its price warrant a look?
It’s a rough time to be the Postal Service these days. Email and overnight services have eaten away at their core business, and Congress has incredulously forced them to pre-pay for the pensions of employees who aren’t even born yet. And yet a stamp still only costs forty-seven cents.
Yesterday’s 1984 Jeep CJ8 Mail Truck cost a lot more than that. And it piled on the Postal Service’s woes with a 63% Crack Pipe loss too. That effectively stamped it... return to sender.
Public service as a whole is a bit of a thankless job, but at least when you’re a cop you get to operate cool tools like today’s 2003 Ford Crown Vic P71. Not all of us can be on the right side of the law and hence it’s doubly cool that cars like this get to rock a second life in the private sector after doing time on the thin blue line.
Of course not all P71s were cop cars, but it’s fun to imagine. With the fast food bag on the floor, A-pillar spot lamps, and workman-like upholstery, it’s a good bet this one once served as a mainstay at the donut store at some point in its existence.
The miles too point to a life spent in the line of duty. There’s 290,000 on the frame, 169,000 on the trans, and 78K on the used motor now living under the hood. It also has a new alternator and the seller lays claim to the A/C and heat working well.
Visually, well, it doesn’t look like a cop car, seeing as it’s been coated in grey primer from bumper to bumper. It’s also been dropped a good two inches and rolls on a set of Mustang alloy wheels.
The seller has attempted to give you a 360° view of the car but somehow got caught up in a heated game of smell my finger half-way through so some of the pics are a little fuzzy. That also denies us the ability to read whatever is the pithy missive decal’d on the rear window.
On the inside, there is a great need for the Molly Maids to move in and effect an industrial grade cleaning. I mean it looks like a superfund site in there. That’s where the bull bar is presently doing time, and also doing the car and its carrying capacity no favors. A bottle of power steering fluid in the console isn’t confidence inspiring either.
Do yourself a favor and take a moment to consider this P71’s $2,400 price tag. That gets you those cool spotlights and a car to carry them around so you can shine them at things.
What’s your take on this Crown Vic, as it sits, and that $2,400 price? Does that make you want to cop a feel behind the wheel? Or, is that too much bread for this former bacon-mobile?
You decide!
Washington DC Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
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