Oct 2023. Blues Vol 39 No. 10

90 The BLUES car was to

90 The BLUES car was to allow police to cover more ground, faster. THE THING THAT MADE THE DIFFERENCE, was the two-way radio. This apparently plain gadget allowed police cars to really take off. Created in its modern form by Senior Constable Frederick William Downie, from the Victorian Police in Australia, the twoway radio was the first means of communications which used no wires to transmit data. The Victorian Police were the first in the world in 1923, to use such a system in a car forever replacing the lengthy, ineffective calls via telephone boxes. By 1929, this new technology was really taking off in the U.S. The Detroit City Police began broadcasting on their KOP station in the late 1920s, a move which soon inspired a world’s first. In Michigan, following a ,000 investment in equipment and the support of the Federal Communications Commission, the world’s first state-operated police radio came to be in 1929: The station ID was WRDS. WRDS was just about the only transmitter at the time and its importance exceeded state borders. The station could be heard in 44 State Police cars, some 80 State Police HQs and countless other local police departments. The advent of a centralized communications system allowed the police car to climb to the next level. Whereas up until then, cars were used for transport and patrol means. By coordinating them, they could take a more aggressive stance towards crime. In 1933, a blockade system was established in 41 Detroit-area counties and soon after, interstate-coordination began. On the parallel front, the vehicles themselves were turning into forces to be reckoned with. By the 1930s, there were three major players competing for a place in police garages: Chevrolet, Ford, and Plymouth. Ever since 1918, when Chevrolet introduced the Model D, a car powered by a V8 engine and developing twice as much power as the T (55 hp), Ford’s supremacy began to fade. With the introduction of the overhead valve 6-cylinder engine in 1929, Chevrolet was beginning to threaten Ford’s huge slice of the police departments’ budgets. But Ford fought back. The star of the cops and robbers’ chases became Ford’s new flathead V8, introduced by the manufacturer in 1932 on the new V-8 model. Equally cherished by the figures of the “public enemy era” (Bonnie and Clyde & John Dillinger) and the police chasing them, the V-8 would establish high-powered, fast vehicles as the cars of choice for police departments. Also known as Model 18, the V-8 developed over three times as much power as the T used to do, namely 85 hp. SETTING THEM APART As the use of cars for police purposes picked up, so did chases, roads blocks and any other type of hood-to-hood confrontations. For the innocent captivated bystander however, it was not always clear who was chasing who. As Henry Ford said, “any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black.” Although the THE 20’S - 50’S

The BLUES 91 The BLUES 91