Posted on 05/09/2017 10:58:06 AM PDT by NRx
Not sure I'd wanna do a high speed chase in a 1956 anything, but they made do with what they had.
(Excerpt) Read more at youtu.be ...
Highway Patrol.
You are talking about the kind of vehicle I grew up and learned all my driving skills on. A 1956 Ford, pedal to the metal and wound out and sweating oil, could make maybe 115-120 mph, and anything except straight-line under those circumstances was akin to driving on a thin skim of ice. And once the tires lost adhesion to the road, well, there were no air bags, and only a simple lap belt to keep you in place.
If you were wearing one.
Bookmarked for later.
Oh yeah, sliding on those bench seats.
Bookmarked for later.
Bookmarked for later.
I got my driver’s license in Pennsylvania when I turned 16 in March of 1963. However, I probably had at leasst 10,000 road miles before then, many of them in older friend’s cars including several 1956 Fords, all with 272 or 292 c.i. V-8’s with three speed column-shifted manual gearboxes. If it had decent tires and good brakes, the ‘56 Ford wasn’t a bad handling ride and had enough power to get out of its own way. I remember cruising them at 80 to 100 mph on some of the straighter back roads around home. When I was on active duty stationed in San Diego in the late ‘60’s, my uncle up near Whittier had a ‘56 four door with a 292 and three on the tree as his work car. He let me cruise it around at night and it was a blast to drive with its dual exhaust and torquey little motor that would pull in third gear strong from about 35 mph up to 100 or so. Of course that old auto tech didn’t faze me much since my field car on the farm when I reached 12 years old was the old man’s 1955 Chrysler 300 and those Fords were nimble compared with the old Mopar.
the thing is though police cars usually were souped up and beefed up- sway bars, stabilizers, rugged suspension, and overhauled engines- so they were safer and more road sticking power than the average vehicles at higher speeds-
You’re talking close to 2 tons of solid American steel, 215 HP Y8 interceptor engine, cop tires, cop shocks...gumball machine on top and the famous “Motorola Roadblock” under the dash...
Or you could ride thru today’s urban war zone in a Prius like some cops have to do.
Broderick Crawford
I feel the need ...
And the dash and most everything else inside was steel.
10-4.
You might want to bookmark that, for later.
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