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Here are some more pics from those years:
You like that lightbar thing on the top? That was a brand new “Vector” style. It was actually pretty fancy and cool back then. But
it wasn’t perfect, because the Expedition was so tall. It took a lot of convincing and whining but I got the sergeants and chief to
eventually agree that the lightbar on top was not visible enough and it needed more lights. I mean, the lightbar was fine, except
for when I got close to people. Like if I wanted to pull over a car directly in front of me, I’d have to put some distance between
us so they’d be able to see my roof line in their rearview mirror, which was not always practical. The solution was to add a
couple blue strobes under the front bumper and also blue strobe lights on the front of the side mirrors, which was a brand new
feature then. That helped a lot.
I put a lot of miles on that rig. Hauled a lot of people to jail. Pushed a lot of cars off the road. At some point I salvaged some old
round blue lights from an older retired police car and added them into the front grill, because I had plenty of room and I liked
police lights. The incandescent bulbs in them were so bright that they made the blue lenses look a little more green than blue,
but it was only really noticeable when the other blue strobes were on.
I had that Expedition for 7 whole years. Only got one dent in it when a delivery truck suddenly backed into my front quarter
panel above the tire one day and I wasn’t fast enough to get out of his way. That was 100% the other guys’ fault. It was actually
a huge dent, but it got fixed.
The PPD was the only agency in the county to try an Expedition. In all my travels and years on duty, I only saw a couple police
Expeditions. Because every other police department knew that if you want a really nice and fully functional police vehicle, you
got to go with a make and model that leaves the factory as a purpose-built specifically upgraded and outfitted patrol car.

