Well, Mrs Sarcastic and I have been looking for a knock-around (but still kinda decent) 4×4 we can keep in the driveway for when we need to do “truck things” lately. After weighing every option, reading every “what would the hive buy?” post on GRM, and scouring all the marketplaces we finally settled on a first gen Ford Expedition. Crazy you say? Maybe, but anything with a Chevy or Toyota badge was too expensive or used up (usually both) and nothing from Honda and Nissan was lighting the lamp for us.
Conveniently, first gen Expeditions are close to the bottom of their value curve, but reliable and tough as nails, especially if you can get one with low-ish miles and a good service history of course. Plus this is replacing an aging '98 Expedition Eddie Bauer in our driveway currently, so we're familiar with the platform, it's strengths and weaknesses, etc. After some searching we had a bit of luck finding a clean looking 2001 Expedition XLT in our area with 110k miles, 5.4 Triton, 4WD, tow package, and an LSD out back. Pretty much everything we were looking for. What we didn’t expect though is that it’d be a retired police vehicle!
Here’s some pics from the dealership.
Purchasing any used police vehicle is a gamble of course, but since this example hasn’t lived a hard life, it exudes nothing but regular fleet maintenance vibes anywhere I’ve looked underneath. I don’t have pics of the chassis but the shop we paid to do a pre-purchase inspection said it was the cleanest Expedition they had ever seen. The engine compartment is a good example, everything is just so minty!
I don’t know much about the history of this truck, but as expected it has all the classic cop car tells like a working spotlight, bracket where the radio used to be, antenna on the roof (for said radio) plus random holes here and there where other equipment used to be. Other than that I’d have to guess it was a supervisor’s car or something like that because it’s way too nice to have been used heavily. It’s definitely not some FUBAR used-up squad car, I mean look how clean this interior is. I guarantee this has never had a perp in the back!
Plans for now are to deal with a few maintenance issues, add a backup camera, stereo, and a few other amenities to make it livable in this modern world. Also Mrs Sarcastic is digging the cop vibe as much as I am (I’ve never admitted it to myself but I’ve always wanted to own one) so we plan to lean into that. Cop push bar, strobe lights, maybe a Police Interceptor badge are all on the menu, but overall we plan to keep it plain looking for that unmarked State Trooper vibe.
And then from there we’ll be driving the heck out of it! It turns out to be way too nice of a vehicle to be stuck with driveway duty, waiting for inclement weather or something to haul. The Police Expedition won’t win any races, but it eats up the miles without breaking a sweat… as long as you don’t mind the fuel costs!
Plus I’ve already caught people around me driving the speed limit until they realize “hey that ain’t no cop!” Good times.
Stay tuned…
