For years, former Police Interceptors – in most cases, known as the Ford Crown Victoria – have been popular buys on the auction circuit as cheap cars with some heavy duty factory upgrades (and of course, the added benefit of getting every vehicle on the road out of your way.) Of course, as former police cars, many of them are heavily used and cosmetically tired, but not this one: this 2009 Police Interceptor has just 2,970 original miles, indicating it somehow got lost in the motor pool and sat unused by a local police department. Find it here on the Big City Motors website with an asking price of $14,995 and located in South Dakota.
The paintwork is sharp, and surprisingly, it still looks every bit of a police car, sans department lettering on the doors. Of course, Police Interceptors weren’t just used by cops and detectives; everyone from the fire marshal to the dog catcher could have a black and white Crown Victoria at their disposal, depending on the municipality. Still, to find one that got the full police package treatment (and not just a solid color model that could otherwise be mistaken for a rental car) with lease-return miles is pretty incredible. All the other tell-tale signs are there, too, from spotlights to the trunk mount for additional antennas.
The interior is one of the first places it would become apparent you had just bought an old police car if you snagged one of these panther platform sedans at auction. Torn up seats, dinged up plastics, holes ripped from where communications equipment was ripped out, and God-only-knows-what on the back bench where criminals were kept. I don’t think you’ll have any of those problems here, as the interior looks to be in brand-new condition with no evidence of significant use. There’s an additional dome light mounted up front and other unused mounts for additional communications equipment.
Of course, under hood is spotless, and although the Police Interceptor upgrades weren’t immediately evident just by looking at the engine, they’re certainly there on a mint specimen like this. The 2004-2011 Interceptors were respectable performers, with 250 b.h.p. on tap and enhancements like a revised airbox shared with the Mercury Marauder; engine oil cooler; more aggressive shift points; and some even got a locking rear end. It’s a great option for a daily driver that will get nods of approval from both the muscle car crowd and Cars & Coffee attendees, especially given the museum-like condition on display here. If you want the best, the price seems fair to me.
What a rare police car indeed with those miles, I bought one that was a well cared for sheriff’s personal car. But let me warn you, on 4 lanes people will jump out of your way but on secondary 2 lanes they always go under the speed limit in front of you! Since I live in rural PA I made a front plate that said NOT A COP written backwards and that helped a lot, removable of coarse!
I have a 2009 P71 now and deal with the same problem but not too often since most of the local, sheriff, and state police now have Chargers.
Ha! My father in law had an ’03 Marauder and everyone got out of the way!
JACKinNWPA- funny story about the front license plate.
a guy in my neighborhood has an old white Crown Vic and his personalized NC plate is “NOTACOP”.
You Americas build THE best cars.
Love em. 🇺🇸
From John 🇦🇺
Hey Jack,
What part of NW Pa.?? I live in Hermitage/Sharon area.
Jack: I’ve had a 98 Detective car (also in rural PA) for a decade and it took years for me to get used to peoples reactions to it on the highway… Cars passing me would suddenly slow down and get behind me, or like you say, going under the speed limit in front of me. I got a laugh out of your NOTACOP plate as I thought about doing that many times. It’s getting long in the tooth now so that hasn’t happened for a few years.
Great cars, reliable and easy to work on, the AK47 of American vehicles. Cheap parts, too. Wish I had a few more.
Meh, you want to be seen in a police car, for whatever reason, by all means, here you go. Stout mechanicals aside, I’ve always thought it sends a clear message to the public, “I can’t be a police officer, but by golly, I’m going to look like one”,,,We had some fruitcake in an unmarked car like this, pulling over people in Co. Springs, asking them where they were going during the virus. In my life as a truck driver, I’ve dealt with a lot of LEO’s, unbelievable job, and I’m not intimidated by a car like this, knowing, they haven’t used this type for years, but to many people, this could very well be a police car, and I don’t think that’s right. Cars like this should be painted, or not even offered to the public at all, sorry. I can hear the kids now, “daddy, we can’t get out the back doors”,,
Sorry Howard, but you’re way off on this one. Most who buy these, like myself, have no interest in wanting to look like a police officer, but rather enjoy a large, comfortable, and safe vehicle that also has decent performance. I have owned 20+, currently have 3, and have been driving one daily for over 20 years. When putting over 500 miles a week on one of these instead of your nicer vehicles they can’t be beat.
You speak the truth, RTS, P71’s are hard to beat for value and reliability. And they can indeed stay out of their own way.
They still use the Crown Vics here in NJ, though they are disappearing. I bought a 2005 ex-detective car (not a P71 but still black on black) back in 2017 for multiple reasons:
1) I needed more room (I had been daily driving a Focus hatchback)
2) The durability of the Crown Vic is legendary
3) I was getting a well maintained car with 52k miles on it for $4k. No brainer.
I didn’t really think of the “it’s a cop car” aspect, but I can say one thing I’ve noticed that I really like is that people do tend to give me a wide berth when I’m driving it. That’s a rarity here in New Jersey. Also, it handles quite well in the snow and is extremely comfortable on long drives.
I’ve put about 30k miles on mine with the only work having to be done being regular maintenance and a set of tires when I bought it. It’s no longer my daily driver, but I have no plans to part with it, either.
Hard to kill these Vic’s. I have an 04, and other than the lousy paint, and now just over 200,000 mi. power switches are a minor nuisance. Looking for another with a single color.
I too have an 04 P71. It was a Highway Patrol car here in Arizona. While the black and white ones have more of an authentic look, they tend to get the ‘evil eye’ more often in my area. Especially by police officers. I absolutely love mine. Mine is that dreaded Performance White that is so known for peeling. I’m stripping it off. I’m repainting the same color but this time the paint will stay put. The featured car is in beautiful condition but as most Panther Platform owners will tell you, I believe they’ll really have to find the right buyer at that kind of price.
A back story in how it made it through with such low miles would be very interesting.
I’ve heard stories in the past of large police departments and taxicab companies—who bought these by the dozen—occasionally using some of them as parts cars, taking parts off them when something is needed in a hurry. Maybe this one was reassembled from such an example.
A lot of the police departments bought extra cars when Ford announced they were discontinuing the car.
This one might have fallen through the cracks when the Charger came out.
Police department didn’t think they were going to have a suitable car to replace this car.
I think it’s a bosses. Also if not, we know they idle 50% of the time so still “hi miles” (may B worse as not in moving air).
Buddy wuz a mechanic at the Wellesley Barracks (eastern MA) & he loved these. I like the wagon right B4 it (fox LTD/Marquis) as they’re down sizes. Got 1 for sale – put the aol after my ‘handle’…
I wonder if this was a demo car from Ford that got lost in the mix somewhere. I can’t think there would have been any municipality that would have something like this for so long and not use it.
In any case, whoever gets it will have a slick ride for a long time. Id paint the whole thing black, and toss some Maurader seats and a console in there.
Years ago I borrowed a Crown Victoria from my company for a business trip. It looked liked an unmarked police car. Like Jack said, people get get of your way very quickly when they see you in their rear view mirror on the highway.
I worked with a charity, FUELEDBYTHEFALLEN.org, and we built a really tired ’01 CV as a rolling memorial to fallen Leo’s. Full light/siren package and Carrie’s over 1000 names in gold. Same effect, clears the fast lane of the I-15 for miles ahead. Cool experience though…
Despite being out of service for the past couple years these Fords are still ingrained in every driver’s mind as mr. law dog. I do occassionally see a few still being used, mostly SUV’s now and the Charger.
I don’t know how these actually performed, compared to the pursuit/interceptor cars of years and years ago, just the sight of one gets people nervous….maybe that’s enough.
At one point, I owned a black SHO that was always mistaken for a CHP when on the highway. It never failed to amaze me how cars moved to the right as I came up on them.
My brother once owned a company that converted street cars to taxis. The Crown Vic was pretty much the car of choice. He always said that if he was going to purchase a used car, it would be a Crown Vic. The mileage, as well as the abuse on these cars and they just kept running.
This would make a great cross country cruiser.
I think these cars, including the Lincoln Town Cars, have already earned their reputation as the ultimate “tank” car.
I remember reading a story several years ago about a company which had a large fleet of these. I think it was a large city taxi company, but don’t remember for sure. The company kept extensive records and thus had an excellent program of preventive maintenance and knew when something would likely break. Engines lasted 300k, 400k, even 500k miles. Conventional wisdom was that transmissions were a weak point, but they got 150k-200k out of them regularly. One interesting point was it didn’t matter if they changed transmission fluid or not, transmission life was the same. The biggest area of repairs was suspension parts, which I guess would not be unexpected.
They also had a large shop which was stocked with common repair parts, plus other pieces like seats and door panels, bumper covers and fenders, and such. Can’t you imagine a car getting into a fender bender, pulling it into the shop, a couple guys taking the bumper cover and fender off, installing new ones, pulling the car over into the paint shop and slapping some fast-dry yellow paint on it, and being back on the road two hours later?
Perfect for the guy that wants an ex Police car. Just acquire the missing lights and equipment and you would have the perfect show car.
Good deal if you are Police car collector!
Photo of vehicle emissions control tag indicates NOT for sale in states with California emissions standards. I assumed (incorrectly?) that by 2009 CVPI’s were 50-state compliant.
Driven by a past retirement age officer only to the donut shop! Seriously though, it’s hard to figure the low miles. A large city would keep it in service until it was all used up. A small city may be retiring the car due to age. The department I retired from is still using Crown Vic’s and has at least one unmarked 2005 or older Chevrolet Impala in use. When I started there almost 40 years ago, only cars used by the brass were used for more than five years. Just about every marked car was sold off after three years, unmarked by four years.
Car Craft did a series where they bought an auction cop car, then turned it into a sweet, sweet sleeper.
Also, why is it that the a- pillar spotlights, particularly on non-police vehicles, seem to attract the attention of cops. I’ve seen older pickups with the lights, which were once a pretty common accessory, and they seem to arouse the ire of police officers.
And Dietz blue dots seem to almost send cops into a rage.
The Crown Vic is located in South Dakota, probably in a small town driven by the Police Chief p, no one else. May account for the low mileage. Would be a sweet ride to own and drive, reasonably priced. Imagine it has already been sold!
maybe low mileage but what mileage it had may have been rough miles. He might get the 15 large but there are plenty of these around. Guys have been using the frames front ends and running gear as platforms for hot rods. Good rugged big cars. Good luck to the new owner.
Cheers and stay safe
GPC
Hey John Bury. You are right, these are great cars. To set things straight, they were built in Canada. You are not the first one to make that mistake. It happens all the time with the Charger, Challenger, Camaro and Ford GT. There is a lot of great cars built here.
Would not local police close to this dealer or even Utah state police be very very interested in purchasing this car & putting it into service?!
Best to not use it on bad weather days, so it could theoretically last decades, needing only mechanical repairs.
I wonder if Big City Motors thought of calling the police 1st.
I’m sure all police would prefer the extra room inside, compared to Charger, etc.
Oops i mean South Dakota state police.
I sent a request to the seller at big city motors from their website. They replied “ Hey Steven, this is BJ from Big City Motors in Sioux Falls. Are you interested in our 2009 Police Interceptor?”
“ Yes. What are the hours on the unit?”
“56”
“ Any idea why the hours and miles are so low?”
“ It was a test car for a company that manufactures equipment for emergency vehicles (light bars, sirens, etc.) They plugged their equipment into it to test. Car was never put into service.”
Hmmm might be worth the coin. Good luck to the new owner! Stay safe.
Cheers
GPC
Back in 1993 when I was in college, the local PD was selling a SSP Mustang with only 300 miles on it that the never ended up putting in service. I still kick myself for not buying it.
These oddball stories do happen, and are out there. Similar to stories about regular cars which were bought and, for whatever reason, were rarely used (death of owner, wife didn’t like it, etc.). We automatically doubt the stories, but they can be true.
Bought a 2007 Interceptor with 14000 mild and some “ bruises “at an auction in Detroit back in 2008. Roads here in Michigan, particularly the Detroit freeways remain abysmal ;however this car Handled every pothole without complaint. Around 110,000 niggling stuff began interfering with my enjoyment and it’s was time to say adios.I sold it and bought a used 2012Taurus Interceptor In 2013 which I still own and have 150,000 miles with zero problems. It has no rattles. Tires, brakes, regular oil changes every 3500 miles and about 6 windshields. Best car I ever owned. Mileage on Crown Vic was a surprising 20-22 on the highway. Taurus struggles to get 20 on the highway. I’d recommend these cars to parents who have young drivers. You are given plenty of “berth”; motorists let you in traffic and the police always give a second look. Win win !’GTWTA