The thing that threw me for the longest time was the lettering on the back of Mystery Car 112. What car company has only seven letters? I narrowed it down to just a few:
- P-O-N-T-I-A-C
- M-E-R-C-U-R-Y
- L-I-N-C-O-L-N
- H-Y-U-N-D-A-I
and…
Obviously, the last one wouldn’t fit for this car. But none of these brands seemed to match the shape of the letters on the back of the car. So what’s the deal? After searching through early 1960’s police cars, I came across one that looked just like it. But the brand name only had four letters. Wait a minute! The name on the back was the model not the make! Okay … now I’m feeling like an idiot. Mystery Car 112 is seeming rather obvious at this point. It is none other than a second generation Ford Galaxie (1960-64). The year is probably a 1964 given the symbols and logos on the sides. Compare it to the 1964 Galaxie below:
According to Wikipedia,
The Ford Galaxie was a full-size car built in the United States by the Ford Motor Company for model years 1959 through 1974. The name was used for the top models in Ford’s full-size range from 1959 until 1961, in a marketing attempt to appeal to the excitement surrounding the Space Race. … The Galaxie was the high volume counterpart to the Chevrolet Impala. Some Galaxies were high-performance, racing specification machines, a larger forebear to the muscle car era. Others were plain family sedans.
I don’t know what engine this police car had, but there were several high performance engines produced for model year 1964. Ford offered the 427 cubic inch (7.0L) V8 which produced 425 hp in 1963. But the biggest possibility was the Hemi-fighting SOHC 427 “Cammer” which was meant for the race track. This engine produced over 600 hp and propelled the Galaxie in racing until “NASCAR changed the rules … requiring thousands—rather than hundreds—of production examples in service to qualify for the next season” (Wikipedia).
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- Ford Galaxie (Wikipedia)
- Curbside Classic: 1964 Ford Galaxie 500 Police Interceptor (Truth About Cars)