No, Michigan’s Plymouth Fury Police Cars Aren’t Extinct
It was the late ‘70s, and I was driving from Detroit to Chicago in my time-worn but entertaining ’58 Mercedes 220S. I had just finished a photoshoot for Chrysler’s celebration of the Hemi engine. Hoping to get home in time to drop my film off at the lab, I was pushing the car a bit. Well, maybe more than a bit. I think that on a downhill section of I-94 I had urged the old Benz to a speed in excess of 80 mph—about 25 over the cursed national speed limit of the era. I was feeling good, high on the success of the day, knowing I had some good shots for my pal, the late editor of Hi-Performance CARS, Steve Collison.
Suddenly, there it was, filling my rearview mirror with a roar: A big, blue Michigan State Police cruiser with red roof light rotating and headlights flashing. Breaking into a sweat, I pulled to the side, rolled down the window, and prepared for the worst. Fortunately, the seemingly dire situation didn’t turn out as bad as it might have. I got off with a ticket for 65 in a 55 and a stern warning that next time it would be much, much worse.
I don’t really have a soft spot for police cars, but Ross Urtel and his partner Eric Laesch do. They’re the owners of a company called Chase Classic Motors, and they specialize in the restoration of public-service emergency vehicles and other unusual collectible cars. I met Urtel at a car show, when he arrived behind the wheel of the car of my nightmares: a 1977 Plymouth Fury police car, a dead ringer for the one that had given me heart palpitations almost half a century ago, commonly known as a “Michigan Fury.”
Urtel’s Plymouth pursuit vehicle is powered by the E86 440-cubic-inch V-8, a special option for police vehicles. Unlike the 440 found in most ’77 Mopars, that powerplant is equipped with a high-performance cam and dual exhausts, so it churns out 245 horsepower and 355 lb-ft of torque. Those may not seem like big numbers today, but in the days when engines were strangled by emissions control, they were. According to Urtel, the Michigan Fury was faster and quicker than any domestic car sold in the U.S. at the time. His was driven by a Michigan State Trooper named Victor Windstorm, who used it to patrol state roads looking for miscreants like me. Urtel thinks that the car pictured here is the sole survivor of a small fleet of pursuit vehicles that Michigan owned at the time. And while the venerable cop car is pushing 50 years old, it’s still moderately quick. It’s even pretty, in a twisted kind of way.
Like many other collectors of emergency vehicles, Urtel and Laesch once thought that the Michigan pursuit vehicles of the ‘70s were an extinct species. They assumed that all of the cars had been either seriously molested or junked. Then, just a few years ago Urtel learned that a reasonably complete Michigan Fury might still exist. Holden Cooper, a firefighter in Mackinaw City, Michigan, posted on a social media site that he had seen just such a car in a barn in that town way Up North. He said the owner lived out of state. The car had probably been in storage for about 20 years, he guessed.
At some point, the car went up for sale on Facebook Marketplace. Urtel tried to get up to Mackinaw City to see it. He planned to lay some money down and drive the car home to his business in Clinton Township, Michigan. He was too late. The car went to Dan Passucci, a Massachusetts fleet supervisor who shares Urtel’s interest in police cars. Passucci did some refurbishment work, adding to what had been done by another owner in the ‘90s. Eventually, he decided to sell the car and reached out to Classic Motors, Urtel’s business. This time, Urtel didn’t hesitate. Soon, the Michigan Fury was back in its home state.
Attached to the car was a speedometer calibration form that dated back to the car’s days in service. The form was signed by a retired state trooper named Victor Windstorm. A post on a web page for retired troopers located the officer, who recalled the car but has thus far not returned queries from Urtel and Laesch. They remain hopeful.
Meanwhile, the restoration of the big, blue Michigan Fury continues. Urtel and Laesch are looking for a front bench seat from a police car to replace the cushy one that was installed in the ‘90s by the owner of a cab company. (The seat he put in is a lot more luxurious than the standard-issue bench typical of police cars and other fleet vehicles.) That owner used the Fury as his personal car and as an ersatz tow truck that could retrieve broken cabs and drag them back to his barn. Urtel and Laesch also want to upgrade the cooling system, rear suspension, and a few other things on the car. But for now, the Michigan Fury looks good and runs well, so it’s making the rounds at shows for public service vehicles, proving that old cop cars can still strike fear into the hearts of ne’er-do-wells.
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I quit driving long-haul in early ’77, so guess I lucked out in not seeing one of these behind me. It’s a cool restoration project!
Michigan State troopers are trouble when one is speeding etc. Troopers start out in prisons and when they finally get to patrol they never want to go back to the penal system. And that goes for right now as well slow down.
Many of these got destroyed in “Smokey and the Bandit”.
The article mentions that the car had the original seats replaced. the standard police car of the era was a pretty stripped-down basic car. However, the North Carolina State Highway Patrol was one of the first agencies to consider life-cycle costs of their vehicles instead of just a low initial purchase price. In the early seventies they began ordering cars that had the basic police content but upgraded to such ‘luxuries” as split power bench seats with upgraded upholstery, climate controlled HVAC, AM/Fm stereo, cruise control. They took them out of service at around 70-75,000 miles of essential one driver service that had had meticulous maintenance. These cars were, and their current successors are, much sought after when they are retired from service, and brought premium prices compared to most other surplus police cars of the era.
Interesting. Seems as though the NC Highway Patrol was very forward-thinking for the times!
They always have been.
I can remember, in the early 80’s, my auto shop teacher, Lloyd Purcell, a great man, telling all of us young kids that buying an old police or sheriff’s vehicle was a pretty good deal a lot of the time. He said that by law the cars have to go 100,000 miles before they get retired but a lot of the motors don’t make it so a new short block is typically installed around 75,000. You buy a cop car and get a motor with only 25,000 on it!!!!!
My father-in-law was a retired police officer. He was the most brutal person to anything with an internal combustion engine powering it. Engine and transmissions were replaced in his vehicles almost like regular maintenance. Since then I’ve always been weary of purchasing any type of municipal vehicles or equipment. He kept me busy when he was alive!
I joined the Michigan State Police, March of 1964 and after Recruit School was assigned to the Brighton Post.
In my experience the 1963 and 64 Plymouths were the fastest.
When we started getting the Fury the speed and quickness took a drastic cut.
As I recall the engine was a 383 but that may not be correct. I do well remember that performance went down in the Fury.
My experience with these goes back to the early sixties. Bunches of retired blue patrol cars roamed the streets of Lansing and environs after they were sold to ordinary citizens. My recollection was the brackets on the hood were still on some of the cars. Easier than patching the holes. A batch of Chevy Impalas, white over Marina blue, could be seen over the border in Indiana. I hitched a ride on the Indiana toll road with some Detroit cops in a Ford Interceptor. Hardly any room for me in the back next to the beer cooler. We were Intercepted at 140 MPH by one of the Indiana cops and advised to slow down. Fastest ride to Chicago in my life. Those days, I-94 was not complered to the toll road. A pit stop in the creepiest gas station in the US was on the itinerary near Michigan City, as I recall. College days not entirely for book learnin’.