1961 CHP Dodge Polara - Jay Leno's Garage

A lot of times when we have cars in their program, we take them on curvy mountain roads, the jeep or something, we go off-road, but something like this meant it was the American Highway. Another episode of Jay Leno's Garage. I'm excited today because we have a

1961

Dodge Polara, not a regular Dodge Polara, a highway patrol Dodge Polara with the police package, which is really cool. You know, a lot of people who come want to show me a real police car. 100% authentic police car and then you have the pillarless model, you know, and it's just a car that they've converted, this one is real and they're really rare because these cars were beaten to death and they drove them into the field and then they sold and we were kids, we loved buying old police vehicles because you got the quote from dan Aykroyd and the Blues Brothers police engine police transmission police brakes you know all the cool police things you could put on your own car but let's find out the story this one, let's meet Morgan Yates Morgan come on and you're from the Auto Club correct the Auto Club of Southern California I say archivist but you say archivist archivist yeah okay our kivett sounds like someone from Game of Thrones bring the archivist bring him here and cut that , the most powerful guy in the room, the most powerful guy in the room, so you know people always think of the Auto Club, you just take your map and do all that, but you.

Guys, you're actually real car enthusiasts, you restored this thing, didn't you? We did J and what's notable about this, they talked about the police and CHP package, their job was to patrol the highways and they knew the type of equipment they needed. that and materialized in

1961

with the Dodge Polara, it had a 122 inch wheelbase, but there was a problem, as Dodge, their police package was the Dodge Dart and it had 118 inches. Oh, the base and 4 inches made a difference for the CHP, tell me about So what they did was they had some influence with Dodge, which was their preferred supplier of police packages, so Dodge said, "Okay, we're going to do This was off the books," so they created the Polara police package for 1961 and CHP bought 1,200 of them.

Oh, and it's a lot of cars, but you know it's a big state and like you said, they're ruining it now. Was it just California the supplier? I did other state uses and as far as we know CHP was the only agency. that has the 61 Dodge Polara police package oh wow so this is truly a rare car it is so rare that this is one of only two that we know of that has been restored and is an original police car it started its life. with the police package it was not a tribute nor a clone, okay now we will meet the man who restored it in a few minutes, but tell us more about the history, some things like the white steering wheel that was not there, just a style.

It was like this? No, it wasn't, and you know, in a state like California, where there's a real climate, a warm climate, anyone who slipped on that hot black vinyl and put their hands on a hot string wheel on a hundred day degrees, you know. which is not very nice these cars were probably never indoors they were always in use so CHP Specht came out with a white steering wheel it's actually a 1957 Plymouth steering wheel and that's what CHP wanted that's what they got and there was no air. conditioner and back then you just roll up the windows, your air conditioning, you can get a little vent window that could blow something into the side of your face, but that was it, yes, that's exactly right, yes, there are not many amenities , but you know what this police packaged cars were durable and strong and they had to be because they were used very roughly and so how are the brakes different?

Do they defend against brake drums? What I can tell you about the brakes is that they were bigger than a standard, right when they were on the assembly line they went and got some Chrysler brakes, they were a little bigger and that's what made this what it was in terms of police package, so they just increased the size of the brakes and it's interesting that there is no partition. between the front and the back in the past no there wasn't and I think you know that comes a few years later yeah and you're right that was one.

I was a military policeman we had Chevy lumina in the early 90's and we had that partition in the middle yeah that was a good reason why Fred and it was very different than 61c now when you go back to the back of the car the police, the police are going to take care of your head, take care of your head, be careful, we will arrive. Go back to get in that bag, get in that car, oh yeah, oh oh, how hot because there's a lot of different things, it's still pretty spartan, yeah, there's not much there and one of these Wade, you know, you know, I don't know exactly. but I know with the big 383 engine and yes the frame was reinforced, it was going to be heavier than a standard Palermo, so they actually reinforced the frame as well.

They knew that all this is part of the police package, everything they could improve. In terms of increasing the durability and robustness of the car, they did it now. I know this one doesn't have the bumpers on the front like you know to push vehicles off the road. I'm sure we see them today and they had it on cranes. Before this was built, but the CHP didn't really bring them in, they experimented with a few different designs and that started in the early '60s, so right after, these cars may have, if they were still in service they probably got the push bumper, but no.

It seems obvious at first now, but not so obvious, so it's an automatic transmission, right, but they had sticks, they had sticks, Jay, in the police packaged cars, but they were being phased out for obvious reasons, it was one less thing than the officer had. to worry about, and you still had that performance with the automatic and it had the certified speedometer, you see it right in the front and that's really what's an important aspect of this because there were people who were starting to say, well, how did you do it? ? I knew I was going 95 on the right and the judges were starting to hear that, so in response the CHP said, well, okay, we need to mark our speedometers and let them know, accuracy that way, speeding tickets, a court robbery and Did you notice because I know the old motorcycles would have a red line and the red line would stay at the highest speed, so when they pulled the guy over, he wouldn't go 80, he would bring it back, show?

How fast did it have to go? There must be some way to designate it. I'm not sure exactly how it worked, but yeah, it would have been something like that. Well, then you're the historian, but you didn't do the actual restoration. Lacan right, no, I just have to look and provide some historical photographs and resources so we can do the proper restoration, cool, thank you very much, let's meet Dave skate, he did the restoration on this. How are you? How are you, Jay? work thank you it was this when you discovered this it was this much more than you thought it was going to be it always is, isn't it? it was in pretty rough condition um yeah, now you were looking for a 61 or it just happened to hear about a 61, we happened to hear about the 61, found several and finally decided this was the right one, what condition was it in when you bought it?

It was in incredibly bad condition, it was intact, yes. but um, there were no floors in it, they were rotted, the trunk was rotted, the quarter panels were rotted, it was stored outside for many, many, many years, okay, when you drag it back to your little club, when you go whoever. your boss is, what are you doing? look at this thing, it's a better find, I mean, it was there because you know it's expensive in a store, one of these right ones, well, yeah, but you know we rely on the good will and resources of a lot of people. to donate your time and materials to this project, something like the Huck Finn painting on the fence, that kind of deal is exactly right, it has to be a part of something, yes, that's absolutely right, I have to try to actually , know many of the parts that are. on this car they were provided to us because of that exact fact, that's right, absolutely things like the Jones Motorola speedometer, the round one that sticks out is certified when we talk, well there are two certified speed honors, although there is the factory certified speedometer, which is the original. one, the horizontal one on the dash and then there's the round one mounted there in the front.

The Jones Motorola round speedometer was donated to us by a gentleman who had had it in his personal possession for over 25 years and was not willing to let it go for any amount of money to anyone and made it available to us because it was the Auto Club and because it was this vehicle for Palo that it is not now. Got a lot of old Highway Patrol guys? I have one of those radios. Sitting in my

garage

, I mean, I was into a lot of that and some of that, in fact, we found the radio in the trunk, the same way, another retired gentleman from the Highway Patrol who had had the radio in his possession for years and years and years. and he gave it to us because of the project, well, let's open the hood, let's show what we have here, okay, now the question arises.

I have a Chrysler 300 G sixty one in there and that was done by the 413 engineer. build them before '13 or why the 383 over the 413 this was the engine that the CHP wanted in this vehicle in '61. I think in previous years they had used the 413, but this was the engine of choice in '61, so I guess they needed gas. mileage and also because the cousin 413 so it only drinks gas with two carburetors it had 375 horsepower and this is what happens with 330 325, he said yes I think the factory posted 325 when we did the work of the engine on the test bench that he actually built. 332 horsepower and 460 pounds of torque and it's a different carburetor than the normal one.

This is a CHP SPECT Carter carburetor. This particular one has 525 CFM and was ordered by the CHP for use in this engine. Well, they didn't have the bigger carburetor then. available, they needed something that had pretty good mileage; That's right, there is a unique feature on the engine that is relevant to the 413: the camshaft. The camshaft that is on this particular engine is the high performance Google four cylinder camshaft from the 413. and again, that was a specific request from CHP that for this engine it now runs on premium fuel or a fuel regular grade, runs on premium fuel, sure has ten point three to one compression.

Wow, because nowadays I think all cops have to run on regular fuel. regular gas, but I guess the Highway Patrol uses it at high speed and yes, you need a premium fuel house. Here you also have the original type battery. Oil filter. Single master cylinder. That filter you just touched is actually the transmission filter or a transmission that. was specified by the CHP is an ADD, they wanted it to have an additional filter so it would do a better job of filtering out particles and provide additional fluid to keep the transmission cool for sustained high speed racing and it has a cooler transmission than It does not have a cooler On the front, only that filter there serves as a cooler around the filter that serves as a coolant, although I'm surprised they call it a cooler because you can't find it.

I agree, I think it was actually more. approximately the extra capacity got an extra quarter done yes exactly very good some of the other things that are unique to this build is the alternator yes it is a big alternator it is actually a less novel alternator it is from 60 amps. double groove pulley and this was necessary because when you activated the radio when you put the microphone away for the radio it would draw 30 amps from the alternator just activating the microphone so it was a necessary feature in addition to most cars. Don't know. Not sure about Chrysler cars, they used generators.

I know the Mustang still had a generator even in '64. The first Mustangs were generator cars. The alternate II didn't come later, which Chrysler always alternated. This car actually came delivered by Chrysler with an early generator and this alternator in the trunk with an accompanying support tree and was upgraded at the Sacramento evacuation facility where they do all the tuning for the cars. Now the radiator looks like an original ravier to me. I know they used to. I have what they called a tropical package for many cars. It had a bigger, thicker radio. I'm surprised that because of all the work in the desert, the bigger radiator is a bigger room, okay and maybe it's just my eyes.

You will be surprised to know that some might look at the radiator cap and think that the radiator cap is incorrect and in fact it is not what the CHP ordered to have a lever vent radiator cap and that the hose clamps stainless steel worm gear were also equipped by the CHP, well now the CHP still does that, I mean it seems like they have a couple of real car types, it's the CHP, the new camshafts and everything else today Nowadays it seems that the manufacturer simply delivers thevehicle, but is it still the same? They go over all this.

I think so. I think CHP still has quite a bit of clout and they do a lot of very nice work in Sacramento at their EVOC facility where they build the cars that are now on the brakes. Do you use sintered metal? Yeah, and they have 12 inches instead of 11. Okay, they have about 200 and I think 55 or 250 inches of 8-inch swept brake surface, unlike the stock-car, it has about 230. Wow, okay , now something. let's close the hood sure, I just realized something and I've been looking at this car for 15 minutes. Now there is no correct light bar. Did they patrol without the correct light bar?

This is on service light package right now, clear on the right, red. to the left and then back into the rear parcel tray is red in an amber light now, this is because the light bars at that point were sticking out so much and were heavy and it actually took 10-15 miles per hour from the top, could potentially hold more, I imagine, yes. Yeah, that's why because it's tall, I think that's true, but I don't know if that's a fact and how often these cars went over a hundred miles an hour, it was pretty common in the past, I think so.

In fact, in speaking with one of the resources we used for this bill, the retired CHP officer who was aware of the original construction information, CHP's expectation was that this car could handle one hundred miles per hour for a hour in a hundred degree heat and that was the baseline by which they expected the cars to perform, you know, these would be a great advertisement for the mercury, out the comet a hundred thousand miles at a hundred miles an hour hmm and they chose, I think that made Daytona a hundred thousand. miles at a hundred miles an hour yeah, they used to play that song constantly when I was a kid.

I used to hear all that marketing genius because we're talking about that now in 2016, yes, yes, and of course, the cheaper basic, threadbare type. vinyl no lumbar support there is nothing on these seats no electricity no nothing and it has roll up windows absolutely no air conditioning no air well power steering no power brakes interesting no shotgun I mean now police cars all types of weaponry I mean they even have the doors that can take bullets and everything that comes out, this is nothing special here, it's there, so a gun rack and partition were not mandatory constructions back then, so some cars had those features, many cars didn't, this one didn't have a gun rack or an ax or a partition and anything towards the back of the vehicle that's different, no, that's all PC to be pretty stocked, yeah, well, it has a stack of six-leaf springs as a chase vehicle instead of one stinky five-leaf. spring stack, okay, so, some heavy duty suspension, you know, which is funny.

I know the 62 Dodge Dart police car was considered the ugliest police car of all time and when I look at this I see other Chrysler products like the 61 300 G, you name it. the most beautiful car, what do you think? Well, I agree with you. I think this car was probably one of the ugliest cars I've ever seen when we started this project. Since then, I've liked it considerably and I like it now, but it's not very good, you know, when you see one of these like that photo you saw early, all rusty, they look like mastodons lying in some kind of tar pit, you know, because The chrome is all gutted, dented and broken, yes, but when you shine.

Pick them up and take them out, oh, don't you. I mean, I like this treatment. It's actually kind of a George Jetson II that has a real style to it, it just looks like there's so much going on in the body. pontoons in the front and then you have a hood with louvers, but they're not louvers, they're just fake louvers, so they don't let the air out, that's right, so why put a fake louver? It didn't make any sense, but that was it. a let's open the trunk and see style now it looks like a family of four could live here comfortably.

I think we measured it at five, it might actually fit, look at that, okay, why is it awesome. Oh, it's a beautiful trunk, isn't it? and how. many criminals, could you get into this? You just go in there, you know, man, and you've got the original rubber mat and everything, and the original cardboard interior. Some of this stuff was incredibly difficult to find at this time, but we were lucky enough to find those things and that radio was another one of the items that we had at our disposal because of this project. And the beauty of that radio is that we actually hired a general electrical technician who worked on those radios in the '60s and who was an original service technician, came to work for us, is now retired and he rebuilt that radio himself , so it was actually rebuilt with an original radio tune that probably weighs 35 pounds and could weigh more than 70 pounds or more every 80 pounds, but what I'm saying is that my iPhone has probably a hundred times the power of that thing What I imagine in terms of characteristics, yes, yes, it would not transmit the amount of energy that that produces, that thing will produce 50 amps totally. 30 amps, like I said, when you press the microphone, okay, great, can we take this for a spin?

Absolutely, let's take this out on the road and see how we can catch some speeders. Does it? It seems contemporary, yes, many times. when we have cars on their show, we take them on curvy mountain roads, the jeep or something, we go off road, but something like this means it's the American highway, that's all. Wow, you have a good truck between 50 and 70. that's where you want to be, we go like certified at 71 miles per hour, why this increases very well and has good acceleration. Look, it's interesting, now this speedometer on the car says 72 miles per hour, but the certificate says 65.

I would go with the Jones. Motorola, yes, you know where Motorola comes from, tell me right, when they started putting radios in cars, the most popular form of entertainment was the Victrola, yes, because people could play records at home and the idea came up that you could play discs in your engine or in your car. became Motorola. Well, the Motorola is a variation of the Victrola. Yes, it makes sense. So they had the jukebox. well when you realize this car is 50 years old and 50 years when it was built would have been what 1911 was, yeah I mean it's amazing when you think about it, a lot of people who drove these cars were born in the 19th century, like here would be a question for you, who is the first American president born in the 20th century, who I know you will never guess, tell me, John F.

Kennedy, do you know that was going to be my God, surely you had words, I can't say that was going to be here. weddings, you're good, it should have been your weapon. I was going to guess that oh yeah, oh I want to pick that lottery number, yeah, oh yeah, I would have, yeah, but I like it when you step on it, which I like. The way you restored it is you don't step on it, you shake it and rattle it, it blows a bunch of blue smoke out the back. I mean, it's not really a show car, it really works like a proper vehicle should, very nice because it is like that now that it is.

Easy to make cosmetics, but a lot of people just make cosmetics and don't you know they are worried about cracking the paint on the frame, so they don't tighten the engine mounts? I don't do any of that and you come in. cars and they start doing this down the road with this thing, this thing was good, this is the first time it's been on the highway, yeah, it seems happy in its natural habitat, it wants to run, it kicks, skinny, this thing is cool, you know, at 3:23 in the year, it starts at 65 miles an hour, the guys would spend eight hours, ten hours a day on these things, wouldn't they absolutely be crews on the highway in the middle of summer, over the fire, There was no summer? cell phones that were broken, that was just waiting with someone, some good Samaritan, for him to come.

Sound that no one in a powerful car wanted to hear at the end of the 17th century. The Highway Patrol has almost always been Chrysler, right? I think there was a long stretch. when they used Chrysler products, yeah, I think in the '40s they used GM products, well, I look for a while, yeah, well, I'm talking mostly late model, you know, when I first came to California, it was the big 440 absolute. That was an absolutely huge car, oh my gosh, that thing was big and big on power, yeah, it feels like you haven't raced all day like that, yeah, I think you could probably tell that if I blindfolded someone, We'll put it in this car.

You would think they were in a modern car. I think that's a fair assessment. I agree. I mean, it doesn't run, you know, strangely and it certainly got more than enough power and it's comfortable. Yes, now, this one has a beautiful paint job. The paint job was so good back in the day, no, I don't think so, yeah, yeah, I mean, because it was kind of a quick in and out, you know, are these the marks from your tires? No, no, which I would like to complain about. Oh, tell us about this. this is the certified police phenomenon, right, yes, made by Jones Motorola Corporation, yes, very strange, it took us a long time to discover it, yes, now look at the difference between the faculty spawn, the reading was close to 50, this is only 43, although we didn't check that speedometer. when you bought it, yes, so it might be a little off.

I'm not sure which one is off. You absolutely got the original radio and it works now you mentioned tell us about...could you say it has a more satin finish than the original? fix fastening: it should look like this here instead of a gloss like this, but we made the aesthetic decision to make a gloss like the right outside and that caused the steering wheel to be white because it didn't absorb heat like black. did the right thing and this panel is obviously different that's where the radio would have gone correct the factory radio is correct yes and this was installed by CHP engine services in Sacramento and you couldn't even fight the other guy loved because this car is so wide that I couldn't even punch him in the face.

Look, four wide ones fit in here, yes, four more in the trunk, but it must have been crazy having the guys in the back seat kicking and screaming without a divider. there and you can feel the heat on your knees coming from the windshield. I'm serious, you know, I mean, it blows you a little bit here, but there's no UV protection from that hell of a windshield, unlike a modern car, well, this works pretty well, I actually have a head. up lol all kinds of cool this is what you call 250 air right here yeah look at its lenses this blows all kinds of air look at that cool because you have those are your lights mm-hmm and your siren now does that Jack for me.

I think Jack was for an outside PA. Oh okay, you can see the sunlight illuminating your speedometer there, yeah, yeah, the first car I saw that had a clear back of the speedometer. I live with the sati there, yes. Morgan looks worried. I want to thank. Morgan and Dave from the Auto Club but you know this is the first time this has been on the road they just finished the restoration so thanks for letting us help do the test cruise and nothing shook it ran fine. I was surprised how much power it had, in fact it's pretty fast, yeah this is a lot of fun, so see the Auto Club isn't just about maps and stuff, now they're fixing cars, they're restoring cars, it's cool , guys.

Thank you Morgan, thank you very much. Check out the Auto Club guys, great, see you next week.