Okay, let’s do a little thought experiment: you’ve just been arrested. By two separate teams of police. Your crime was, let’s say, premeditated mopery, which is when you expose yourself to a humanoid or abstracted humanoid statue or sculpture with the intent to arouse. You protest, insisting that your mopery was impulsive, not premeditated, and as such was really hardly an infraction at all, but the cops won’t have it. Each pair of cops seizes an arm and begins to walk off, but then realizes that they can’t both take you, at least not without some pretty intense surgery. They decide to leave it up to you: which cops do you pick to arrest and detain you?
Now, you being you, the only rational way to decide which cops to go with are, of course, their cars. They’re two wildly different cars, but both represent a sort of more compact take on the police car, though they’re nine years apart. One is a 1987 Volkswagen Passat five-door fastback, the other is a 1978 Ford Fairmont.
I don’t really know why both German and American police cars showed up, but here we are. Maybe you decided to commit your sick crime on the border of an American army base in Germany? That’s only something you can answer, sicko.
Anyway, let’s look at our cop cars:
The Passat is a second-generation one, and one of the post-1985 facelifted ones. Let’s assume it has the interesting inline-5 engine, making about 120 hp. The Fairmont was built on the Fox body platform, and in cop guise had the 4.9-liter Windsor V8, making about 139 hp, or could be had with the straight-six making 85 hp, depending on if the local police department were cheapskates or not.
What other features do we have?
The Passat has a nice big hatchback, and an illuminated sign that reads FOLGEN, which I thought at first was German for “consequences,” which is a hell of a light to have on a cop car, not entirely unwarranted, but it turns out it’s more likely it means “follow.” So, I guess instead of pulling people over, they get in front of them and ask them to follow?
It’s also green and white, and has a lone rotating light and siren unit on the roof.
The Fairmont cop package, on the other hand, has a full-width light/siren bar, and a bunch of other upgrades that I can actually understand, because they’re in English. The Coolant Recovery System I’m not really sure about, though. What is that doing? Capturing leaking antifreeze? For…what?
Also, if I was a cop, I might take a little bit of offense to the “Heavy-Duty Front Seat” entry there.
So which will it be? Crammed into the Teutonic emerald-and-white Passat, or flung into the back of that boxy, blue Fairmont? Which car will it be? Try not to let your opinions on if you want to get worked over by American police or German Polizei affect your decision – we’re just here to talk about the cop cars!
Let’s discuss, debate, debrief, depilate!
I’ll take the Dasher, er, Passat.
What a ripoff that Ford made you buy either the 3.3 six or 5.0 V8 to get the police package!
Come on, go 2.3 four or go home.
My parents had a Dasher hatchback, which was a Passat with a different name for the US market. It was the biggest piece of junk, and they barely got 50K miles out of it. My dad spent hours and hours and hours working on that thing, including doing a complete (manual) transmission swap in our garage. So, I’d pick the Passat, because when the cops break down on the way to the station, maybe I can make a getaway.
Just FYI: the German Police departments have switched to blue-on-white or blue-on-silver in the meantime. Very rarely do you still see a green-on-white one, and if so, it’s probably not a cruiser.
Yes, they get in front of people and ask them to follow. I never been pulled over like that in either Germany or the US, I have only seen it it in films and TV shows, so I can only compare that, and getting in front and flash “FOLGEN” (you are right, it also means “consequences”, but here it is “follow”), or getting beside you and flagging you down with a trowel, is the equivalent of pulling up behind you and flashing the light bar.
I would take the Fairmont. I think the extra heavy duty front seat came in handy during donut runs. Besides fox bodies rule
Times have changed when anything with that big of a trunk and hood was considered a compact car. Also the 195/70R14 “police” tires. wow! I think that is like 25 in tall.
I’m going to trust my parents on this one. The Fairmont was my mom’s first car. My mother (who swears maybe once a year, at most) states that “The Fairmont was the biggest piece of shit to ever be made by human hands. It was awful to be in, and even worse to drive.”
So yeah I’m going to take the Passat.
Were the cops with the 9C1 Nova on break? *sigh* Fine. I’ll go with Officer Fairmont.
I’d insist on waiting until a Polizei 911 showed up.
Looks like the Passat has a nicer back seat. I don’t know if they were doing the hard plastic hose-cleanable seats yet in ’78, but it might be.
Also, I like the pose of those two Fairmonts, driver door to driver door, as if they on some highway median or in some parking lot. Very natural.
As I’m innocent I’ll take being arrested by the rule-following Germans please.
Don’t worry, you can still be elected mayor of Portland after you do this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expose_Yourself_to_Art
The VW of course. Why? The tail lights that are capable of indicating in glorious amber, the color god intended. Cop cars already have so much auxiliary lighting, they really should be setting a better example for the public with clearly defined turn signals as well.
Sadly hardly any American designed cop cars ever have this feature, aside from newer Explorers. Extra shameful is the final Taurus that got amber on all civilian models, but all red for the cop version.
I was behind a cop this morning (last-gen Tahoe) and he changed lanes suddenly in heavy traffic. The red blinker made me ragier than usual. There are so many objectively bad things on cars that should be really easy to change, or mandate. The free market is great, but certain safety measures are encouraged — at great expense — while really easy safety features like amber blinkers are ignored.
This is the right answer.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Amber turn indicators are for Godless communists and I won’t tolerate them on my roads. Of the 6 fine AMERICAN(ish) automobiles I have, only two have that intolerable little yellow bastard polluting the rear lights.
Torch, how could you not mention the police in the friendly little town of LaConner, Washington, who at one time were sporting a Renault 5/LeCar cruiser?
As a kid who spent several years in the back seat of a 1986 Passat growing up, I don’t intend to relive that experience. Well…maybe if I can pin the crime on my brother. Something I also have experience with.
I’ve already ridden in the back of a Fairmont and a Crown Vic so send in Zee Germans.
City of Falls Church (VA) Volvo 240.
https://preview.redd.it/mr87l3evtzj41.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=a2cdffa894fa4c5a7485e8e4692c649d24c5953f
The Ford, because it will hopefully break down, and while they try to fix it I can run away
Having spent my childhood in the back seat of a Fairmont I’m going for the new experience of the VW.
Dang
Well the Fairmont certainly has a bigger back seat, so I guess I’d take that. Plus, European climate control is usually pretty weak sauce, and if I’m going to jail I’d like to at least be comfortable.
If you committed moping in Barrington, Illinois in the 1980’s, you’d get to ride in the back of a Volvo 240. Now that’s classy.
The Ford for me. Why? Why not?
Fairmont for me as I bet this was the genesis of the police package that would soon be added to Fox Body Mustang (and still available aftermarket even) to create the famed CHP pursuit cars of the ’80s.
Is the “coolant recovery system” 1978 for an overflow tank maybe?
I think it is a fancy name for “overflow tank”, which a lot of cheaper cars lacked in those days.
Yep. Just an overflow tank for the radiator.
What the SchrägHeck, Jason! Everybody knows that mopping, premeditated or not, was decriminalized in Germany in 1989 following the fall of the Wall. It ceased to be a form of expressing political contempt. Thus, the guys in the Passat will not take you in for THAT reason. There has to be another reason. There is only one way to know for sure.
The Fairmont cops, on the other way, may be prudes raised in the South. They will punish you whether mopping is still illegal or not, because it’s still immoral, you see?
For those reasons, and because of a sick sense of curiosity, I’d go with the Passat guys, flogen be damned.
Those Passat-drivin’ Polizei are gonna Schrag the Heck out of you if you misbehave.