Texas DPS Highway Patrol. “I’m not fixing to take the whole engine out and replace that. That’s beyond my skill set.”He attributes the good condition of the vehicle to the official who drove it last, likely an administrative member of Pasadena’s force or a detective.The Caprice was once considered the gold standard of rear-wheel-drive cop cars because of their heavy-duty brakes, suspension and engines. He tracked down a barely-used Caprice from that year that was last registered to the campus police at the Texas State University in San Marcos. His father, Councilman Mike Knox, served as a Houston police officer for 15 years until retiring in 1995.Tracking down the same bits and pieces that made the same car that roamed Houston streets proved to be a pain.In his spare time, he surveyed junkyards for parts. The new cars were now a solid HPD blue.During Chief Clarence Bradford’s term as chief of police it was significantly cheaper to order solid white cars and put the HPD blue decals on the side of the car with the patch.
These cars were solid white with the Department’s insignia faintly displayed on the side of the vehicle. But when General Motors stopped manufacturing the vehicles at their Arlington plant in 1996, the more expensive Ford Crown Victoria took over the law enforcement market and became the new favorite. The special ordered color was known as HPD blue. It needed to fire up and look like it came “straight off the streets.”“I wanted it to have the dings and bumps,” he said, pointing to the cracked dashboard.The bumps were not hard to miss during a drive from Midtown to the Montrose neighborhood, where bystanders stopped to gawk and snap photos of the ride as Knox sipped a coffee nearby.Of the attention, Knox said “the car paid for itself.” The article stated Mayor Lewis Cutrer had signed a contract to purchase 39 patrol cars painted a starlight blue with gray tops. The Houston Police Officers Union pitched in a grand that covered the single-tone paint job.
Most police officers were right handed, which meant the prisoner was directly behind the driver. Houston ISD Police Ford Crown Victoria (Old Livery) He said the new colored cars will still bear the identifying shields on their sides.I can vividly remember my first day in Patrol when Officer August “Gus” J. Hruzek, my training officer, took me out to the Central gas pumps to get our police shop. “Nostalgia kicks in,” said Knox, a member of Houston Police Department’s Public Affairs Division.
Chastang Ford - Police and Swat Vehicles in Houston. The car he fixed up is a near match — inside and out — to the final 300 or so Caprices bought for Houston patrols after 1995, and similar to the earlier models that ferried Knox to school. Houston Police Officer Jason Knox poses with his restored 1996 Chevrolet Caprice HPD cruiser and will drive it in the Thanksgiving Day parade Thursday.Houston Police Officer Jason Knox poses with his restored 1996 Chevrolet Caprice HPD cruiser and will drive it in the Thanksgiving Day parade Thursday.Houston Police Officer Jason Knox poses with his restored 1996 Chevrolet Caprice HPD cruiser and will drive it in the Thanksgiving Day parade Thursday.Houston Police Officer Jason Knox poses with his restored 1996 Chevrolet Caprice HPD cruiser and will drive it in the Thanksgiving Day parade Thursday.Officer Jason Knox may be the one behind the wheel, but his Oilers-blue cruiser is the real celebrity.Selfies, thumbs up and lookie-loos greet the handy Houston police car aficionado everywhere he goes in the law enforcement version of the 1996 Chevrolet Caprice he patched up to patrol the streets of Space City just like they used to.“Nostalgia kicks in,” said Knox, a member of Houston Police Department’s Public Affairs Division.The 22-year-old car is decked out with the Columbia blue that blanketed the HPD fleet in the mid-1990s. All he had to do was ship it back to Houston and change the oil, air filters and transmission fluid.He said Chief Art Acevedo blessed the project but was the city was unable to earmark any funds to the restoration, which wrapped up in April. As a Houston teenager, I was constantly looking out for the police blue and whites that patrolled our neighborhoods.Obviously, from the number of traffic tickets I received during my teenage years, I wasn’t very good at spotting the police before they caught me speeding.Upon entering the Police Academy each cadet was given a Rules Manual and expected to learn the rules and terms used by the Houston Police Department. Dec 27, 2015 - Post with 0 votes and 1919 views. During my lifetime the color of Houston’s police cars changed many times.