Page 385 - NIXBOOK

On my big list of things I regret, I have not taking a few more
pictures those old cars. Especially from when I first started
my career, because all of those old patrol cars were from the
1980’s. It’s not just me that didn’t take enough pictures
though – none of my coworkers ever walked around taking
snapshots. In fact, I was the one officer who took the most
pictures –more than everybody else combined. I almost never
saw my coworkers back then taking pictures of anything,
because cell phones hadn’t been invented yet, we had to use
mechanical film cameras and nobody back then apparently
thought ahead enough to realize how interesting it would
probably be to take pictures of just ordinary old things like
regular old police cars; and not just the outside, but the
insides, too.

Searching through my personal archives, I did find three more amusing examples to share now. Yep, this red thing is a for reals
police car. Note the nifty clear outer housing of the lightbar; the blue and red lenses were inside.

For years, the Kitsap County Sheriff’s office had a shiny gold foil scheme on their green patrol cars. And the Port Orchard PD

was starting to get a little fancy with their graphics; circa 2000:

Now if you’ve been playing close attention, you’ve no doubt noticed the emergency lighting units on the roofs of these old cars.
Up through the late 1970’s and even into the early 1980’s, emergency lighting on police cars was limited to a simple bar mounted
across the roof, hosting a couple of dome lights on each side and a siren in the middle. The original “lightbar.” Clearly, that’s
the origination of the word. Here are two perfect examples:

Each dome light featured one light bulb in the middle, and a mirror that rotated around it to create a flashing effect.