1982 Dodge Dip - Louisiana State Police - Custom Parts

[DEL]

Here is a project I have been working on from time to time.  I always wanted to do a model of the Diplomats the Louisiana State Police fielded from 1981-1982.  The '81's were different colors which was great for sneaking up on folks, but the 82's were the standard white.  For this model I created a custom scratchbuild model of the Whelen 8000, or 80H lighbar.  Just the process of building the ase and the buck to vacuform the lens was a ordeal.  But I have never seen this bar represented in the police modeling world before.  It was widely used coast to coast but it was while Fed Signal was still king and Whelen was it's more affordable competition.  This bar has the inboard strobes each side of the speaker grille front and back, along with outboard halogen rotaters.  The Jabsco spotlight on top is also scrachbuilt as are the bump bars and the seat console fed signal PA70 modular console complete with tiny maplight.  It might show in the pics if you look.

Thanks for stopping by!!

 

Edited September 14, 2016 by DEL
added pics

[DEL]

A few more of the scratchbuilt parts.  The wheels were also cast and added as well.

[jefropas]

Very cool!! I haven't seen that lightbar ever done either, and you did a great job. Did you replace those super thin tires on it? I have a dark blue LSP Mustang on my short list of a million squads to do. You nailed it!

 

Jeff

[Agent G]

Beautifully done sir!

I only drove one or two of those in my career. Interesting ours were white with blue interiors as well. 

G

[DEL]

Thank you G!  I too drove the Dips in the early part of my career.  They were a tough looking copcar, but even with 318 4bbls gutless wonders.  They only cars I ever drove that actually went slower when you floored them!  The Fords and Chevy's of the day not much better but at least they went up a bit, if slooowly.

And to answer you're tire question Jefropas, no I did retain those sad thin tires that came on the model as I didn't have any in my parts bin that would work without either making it sit a tad high or low.  Still, for a static display in a case I figured I could get away with ONE thing not being changed.

I may do a color one.  Like the dk blue SSP's you mention that they used from 88-91, the 81 Diplomats were bought in about five basic colors, a yellow/gold,(bought one) something called Heather Gray (I bought two of those), a metallic ruby red, and drk blue and black.  Same markings I equipment but man, could they nail you. When you're programmed to look for white with a Twinsonic and the Jabsco spot on top making a kind of chrome teepee coming down the highway, those color cars with blacked out equipment you just did NOT see them until they hit the lights just off your left front fender. Sneeeaaaky!!   Probably do one of those.when I clear out the other bodies I'm trying to do.  Just felt like I should finish SOMETHING since it's been awhile.

Thanks again for the good words guys.

BTW: Attached is a pic of one of those Dips back in the day.  I took a lot of copcar pics in my life but the only ones I have of the LSP dips are unmarked except this one.  The one in the pic was hit by traffic on a stop on I-10 near Lake Charles, La. in 1983.

[Agent G]

We used "full size" cars as "lock ups" with a prisoner cage.

I recall the Dip's seats being slabs of smooth vinyl, no pattern, no stitching, nothing.  

Gutless is a polite way of expressing the car's performance. Still we laughed because the county cops had Diplomats with six cylinders.

G

[gray07]

love the dips, would love to have a model of one, I have a real 81 dip 2 door that I drive, that dosent look like any other, the tires are 40 inches lol

[DEL]

"Agent G:

I recall the Dip's seats being slabs of smooth vinyl, no pattern, no stitching, nothing.  

Gutless is a polite way of expressing the car's performance. Still we laughed because the county cops had Diplomats with six cylinders"

That was THEM!  The state had nicer seats than ours, they got this kinda hounds-tooth patterned burlap cloth. But we had that exact same stretched vinyl not a single stitch in the surface flat bench seat. Our inmates on the washrack would clean the cars between shifts and sadistically pour on the Son-Of-A Gun, that vinyl 'protector' but was really a just a milky lubricant.    IF you managed to get up to a high speed on a call and came roaring around a curve and didn't have your seatbelts on the driver or the passenger could easily wind up in the other's lap depending on whose side the curve was. Between the rubber floor and that flat vinyl seat lathered up with that stuff it was next to impossible to get a good handhold or dig your boots in and get purchase. Forget it!  I'd forgotten about that.  The old-timers complained they hurt their backs too as I recall. But at 24 you can sleep on rocks.

Six cylinders??  Oh, that is just SAD.  I saw them but not as copcars, I saw civvie versions of them.  I think the NYPD had those kind too.  Poor devils.  Oh, well, we at least had 8 cylinders and the AC worked. 

 

[Agent G]

Yup, Fleet Services insisted on using Armorall on everything inside the car. We wore those funky polyester blend uniform trousers by then. My son's Slip and Slide didn't work as well as those slick vinyl seats. 

A lot of urban agencies used six cylinder cars. Those poor County guys were just miserable, especially in that hot humid Midwestern summer. I shouldn't laugh though, 1984 saw us adopting the Celebrity as the front line district radio car.

G

[Danno]

We had Dips - but only for staff and detective cars.  Our patrol cars were Chrysler Newports.  I held onto a screaming '78 Fury (like the AMT Monaco kit) as long as I could.  It was originally a patrol car that was repainted to a cool dark red metallic.  But its age caught up with it and when it was surplussed out, I inherited my Captain's Dip.  It was a sweet ride, though, and by that time I figured I had to 'grow up' and show my maturity.  LOL.  The Dip did that for me.  Less performance, but more luxury:  cloth upholstery with wood accents, full wheel covers, vinyl roof, and lots of chrome.

Celebritys as patrol cars?!?!  OMG.  Even worse than our earlier experiment with Buick Centurys.  Talk about dogs that couldn't hunt! 

 

  

[Agent G]

We not only had Celebritys, we used them for 5 model years '84-'88. Keep in mind Chevrolet discontinued the 9C1 package on that car after the '87 model year. The last of our Celebritys were retail "EuroSport" versions made into radio cars. These had consoles and shifters between the bucket seats. Actually not bad for what and where we used them. A heavily populated urban are doesn't lend itself to big hot rod cars.  It was when the car began being used for everything, Traffic, Canine, SWAT etc. it became ridiculous.

A district co worker was killed in a deliberate car crash September of '89. His Celebrity was rammed by a '77 Ford Galaxy at speed. The damage to the police car was so severe, our protests so loud, the bean counters began buying Caprices again.

The link must have broken so here it is again.

G

*Edit*

This was taken at Fleet Services. (Not my photo, used here for discussion only) Those are '90 Caprices in the background. That was the year we went back to all white cars for the fleet. 

http://www.odmp.org/officer/9127-police-officer-michael-a-mcnew

Edited September 16, 2016 by Agent G

[Maindrian Pace]

Phoenix had them too, around '84. They were pretty bad, even by '80s standards, almost anything could outrun them with their little 2.8 V6's. It was hard for the cops to look tough driving around in Celebrities with 13 inch wheels. They didn't last for more than two years.

[Agent G]

I thought ours were ugly...........................

G

[av405]

They didn't last for more than two years.

The Phoenix Police Museum says otherwise 

https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-phoenix-police-museum-phoenix

[charlie8575]

Thank you G!  I too drove the Dips in the early part of my career.  They were a tough looking copcar, but even with 318 4bbls gutless wonders.  They only cars I ever drove that actually went slower when you floored them!  The Fords and Chevy's of the day not much better but at least they went up a bit, if slooowly.

And to answer you're tire question Jefropas, no I did retain those sad thin tires that came on the model as I didn't have any in my parts bin that would work without either making it sit a tad high or low.  Still, for a static display in a case I figured I could get away with ONE thing not being changed.

I may do a color one.  Like the dk blue SSP's you mention that they used from 88-91, the 81 Diplomats were bought in about five basic colors, a yellow/gold,(bought one) something called Heather Gray (I bought two of those), a metallic ruby red, and drk blue and black.  Same markings I equipment but man, could they nail you. When you're programmed to look for white with a Twinsonic and the Jabsco spot on top making a kind of chrome teepee coming down the highway, those color cars with blacked out equipment you just did NOT see them until they hit the lights just off your left front fender. Sneeeaaaky!!   Probably do one of those.when I clear out the other bodies I'm trying to do.  Just felt like I should finish SOMETHING since it's been awhile.

Thanks again for the good words guys.

BTW: Attached is a pic of one of those Dips back in the day.  I took a lot of copcar pics in my life but the only ones I have of the LSP dips are unmarked except this one.  The one in the pic was hit by traffic on a stop on I-10 near Lake Charles, La. in 1983.

State Police vanity plate?

Cool- you'd never, EVER see that in Massachusetts.

Charlie Larkin

[DEL]

 It was (is ) an award.  Five recovery AND arrest of stolen vehicles and that made you an ACE.  Be the guy who did it the most across the state police for a year and you got the VERY coveted award of "BLUE MAX" plate.  If you look at the front fender of the car you will see little red lightning bolts by themselves, and then a couple of lightning bolts through the state outline circled by a blue oval.  If I recall right the single bolts were vehicle recoveries, and the other one was recovery with arrest of perp. Back in the late 70's & early 80's you sometimes saw a unit qith the whole front fender covered with them, and I even saw a couple that started to bleed into the leading edges of the DOOR.  The program is still in use but they only issue the plates now.  So some troopers have a small stack of them.  La. was (is) not alone in this kind of program, there are some other state lice/highway patrols that do it too. I think Indiana or Illinois or Idaho also do it.  Oh, they also have special plates for there for SWAT and K-9 and other specialty divisions.

Al the talk about Celebrity's (shudder )  The only comparable thinga round here were the poor MP's at Ft. Polk, which is in my parish.  In the early 80's they bought them Chrysler K-cars, God forbid.  By the time about 4 years went , they had almost 150K, and were just beat all to s**t.  Some you could actually look down through the floors and see the road going by.  Just to show you what the feds were doing not 100 miles down the road in Beaumont, Tx. the GSA at that same time yearly was disposing of fully loaded police package loaded 1988-1996 Caprices and LTD Crown Vics that the FBI had used for about two years.  Street colors, unmarked, no radio holes not a blemish on them.  Every one looked like it was still on the showroom floor inside, out underneath and in the engine bay. The highest mileage I saw was less that 20K, the lowest like 1,800K. Usually there was like about ten at a time. We bought them off sealed bid (privately) for around  $2K each for re-sale.  Made a killing!  Poor MP's.

But they got way nicer stuff NOW.  Still FWD Impalas but better than the horror K's.

[Dirkpitt289]

If I may, where did you find this kit? This is the style cruiser I use to drive

[Agent G]

State Police vanity plate?

Cool- you'd never, EVER see that in Massachusetts.

Charlie Larkin

It happens in Missouri!

Bomb and Arson Unit.

G

[DEL]

If I may, where did you find this kit? This is the style cruiser I use to drive

 

Dirkpitt:

it is actually a  Motormax Diecast 1/24 1986 Dodge Diplomat Salon, in plain white I bought some time back.   Other colors are available on Ebay as well.  It may also be available from some of the diecast sellers still too.

I didn't really want to use the diecast as I feel it has somewhat of a 'toylike' appearance rather than that of a scale model.  I had built myself a scratchbuilt Diplomat some years ago using the old MPC 1978 Roadrunner kit, but I never got around to replicating it so I just did this quick diecast.  Pics of my scratchbuilt 82-84 Diplomat attached just for giggles.  One of these days I'm going to copy it.  Till then I'll just content myself with this one.

Edited September 23, 2016 by DEL
correction

[Agent G]

Wow, nice scratch work. 

You really should move forward on that. 

G