Questions for the older LEO car people.

Working on a 74 440/RR that was rumored to be originally a police interceptor.

I see lots of evidence to support this. The car was weirdly optioned, like a police car might be. It still has a shotgun rack in the trunk, several holes where antennas would have been mounted, and even inner fender shields to limit air into the fenders at higher speeds.

There are a couple unusual lights behind the grill, not in front of it, like road lamps would be mounted and I recently noticed an extra switch above the high beam switch.

Is this extra switch indicative of something they would mount on old police cars or is it just a remnant of some wayward repair?

Just curious.

Sounds COOL ! MORE PHOTOS !

I'd pull up the rubber mat & trace wires !

Could be for a siren. Some modern police cars have hidden starter safety buttons in the floor so it could be something like that too.

It wasnt uncommon for smaller police departments to buy their own non-traditional police cars, some even used their own personal vehicles

Cool find

Search tune radios in that era had foot controls that kinda resembled high beam switches. Doesn't seem like a thing you'd have in cop car though.

This sounds super interesting. I'd like to see and hear more about this car, too.

Sure your car is a Roadrunner? I’ve seen two door 73-74 Satalite cop cars

My magnum had 2 buttons on the floor 1 for highbeam and ther other would change stations ony stereo

Yes, that extra dimmer switch could have been for intermittent siren use and/or hands free transmitting when driving high speed. Hit the switch to talk, and as the same time it cuts the siren off so the officer could be heard.

Some of those old school sirens could be extremely loud.

That dimmer switch could very well be the switch for the sirens. At our fire department, we have a 1975 Hahn that is used only for parades and such ; on the driver side floor above the headlight dimmer switch is another dimmer switch like that pictured which
is used to activate the siren on the truck.

My guess is siren also. Later, a lot of them were wired into factory horn button for quickly clearing intersections.

I doubt it was a microphone.

+1 for a siren switch. I flipped a number of police cars years ago and several of them had this set-up.

Your parking brake needs adjustment.

That's if it's even working and the cables are not broken.....

All these responses and yet nobody thought to mention that the Chrysler Corporation never built any "Police Interceptor" models?
Police Pursuit, yes. The "Interceptor" was a Ford term.

Pretty cool!

How common is the rubber floor covering in that year RR? I've only seen carpet.

We need more pics!

i had a 76 new yorker with the same switch to change the radio stations.

as earlier posted. sure it isn't a satellite? i don't remember ever seeing seen a road runner with a rubber mat.

except for a 1968 Road Runner.......................?

My 68 runner had rubber floor covering.

sorry for the vague post.
i meant 74 Road Runners without carpet.

Just a tad

Here are some pics.
It's rough. I knew the guy who owned it before me we went to high school together. I have had the car in storage for a long while and decided to get it squared away and running. The button on the floor made me wonder if the police pursuit vehicle story was true or not.

It was a Radio delete car so the channel switching button may not apply. It isn't connected to anything but neither are the front lights behind the grill. There is an obvious hack into the headlight harness between the cruise and the battery. A place nobody would normally mess with. The car was stripped of the AC and the engine harness hacked to the point the Electronic ignition wouldn't work. It was running on a dual points distributor. No telling how much electrical carnage went on under the hood. Under dash looks great so far. When I first got it I had to bypass the bulkhead connector to the ammeter. I did this with simple wires though the firewall to the ammeter.

The fender tag lists a Red stripe and a Stripe delete code. I found this to mean the side stripe was not installed but he hood had the red stripe. It was silver when new, Red when I first saw it and primed when I bought it so I never saw any indication of stripes anywhere. When I got it, it had a GTX dash emblem where normally a Road Runner emblem would be. I doubt that was OEM but I have never seen an original 74 440RR except this one so I call it a GTX. I know it should have had the GTX emblems on the hood.

I didn't think the door panels were stock because I had never seen them without the wood grain but I found out that is the style for the lowest level base model interior which may also included a rubber mat instead of carpet. B2X9 on the fender tag.

The combination of luxury (AC. Cruise, & Power Windows) and the Big engine, base interior, side stripe delete, (presumably for police logo space), and no radio makes sense for a police car of that time but again I have no proof.

Combined with the shotgun rack, hole for the antenna below the rear window, the lights behind the grill, and the air blocks under the front end for high speed driving it makes sense. At least those were the descriptions I was told for those things. Also most police cars I have seen didn't use carpet for obvious reasons. Easier to clean.

It came outta California a long time ago.

More pics

More pics Gotta love the floor ventilation. LOL

It is a project but luckily I have a parts Satellite for everything that is damaged or missing except the AC compressor brackets and the passenger quarter panel.

I would love to redo it as a police car if it really was.

Does it have the certified speedo?

It may have been an FBI car. The FBI used weird combinations of equipment compared to other government fleets. I had several undercovers from them and they had factory side trim, full wheelcovers, and some even had vinyl roofs to complete the disguise. In the mid-'70's the State of Pennsylvania ran small Fury (B-body) 2-door undercover cars that also were equipped with 'better' exterior trim.

Have you tried getting a Build Card from FCA? That would probably be helpful.

Seeing this made me think of the AMC Javelins used by the Alabama State Police.

My guess is it was a switch someone installed to turn those lights behind the grille on and off and first thought seeing those is someone installed them because they thought it looked cool not that they were hidden police lights.

Police cars back then hardly ever had power widows. Most didn't even have AC and they also usually didn't have cruise. To me it seems more like someone wanted a base car to make it more affordable or because it was lighter but wanted a few of the conveniences.

That hole could have been for a CB radio antenna which were popular back then.

All very true.

Sometimes the story's on these old cars are better than the truth but it is a weirdly optioned car. If I hadn't been told it was a police car by the previous owner I may not have gone there. Shotgun rack is a nice touch though.

I was hoping someone familiar with older LEO cars would say yes definitely or no they didn't do that. Never ask, never know. I had never heard of the floor switch to change stations before this thread.

It could be true or not. I may never know but the story is part of the car now. I just won't pass it as a fact just yet.

When I first started, had a Lt. tell me when he was a rookie, they tried (didn't last long) a flip switch that would open the mic so you could talk hands free, making traffic stops and pursuits especially much easier. He said that idea was a bad one because too many forgot to switch back off, and you can imagine the rest. I remember him saying it was somewhere up, like maybe even the headliner area, so it wouldn't get accidentally flipped.

The mic button would be a good idea if it was mounted on the steering wheel like a horn button or rim blow.

It would be really cool to know the actual history of the car. Maybe it was a redneck who had the gun rack, multiple CDs, off road lights, power windows and AC to keep cool and rubber floor because it's easier to clean out then carpet is

FIXED ... the mostest elderly ONE here ....

Hey Larry's not that old. hung out at his place a couple times and the 408 in his cop car is awesome. and he gave me my first ride in the front seat of a cop car...LOL! I am running the cop car engine out of that car in my stepside with a whiplash roller cam now. thanks for that sweet deal Larry.

Lol, true story And I've still got a box for you all ready to go, just got to get to P.O. and get it shipped!!!

It was our horses actually, and we had bells and whistles!

I remember years ago in a black and white photo there was a 1969 hemi charger 500 that was used for high pursuits in Arizona.I think someone was restoring it.Wonder where it is now?

I had a 73 rm21 roadrunner 318 4 spd.......................... that was a rubber mat