The Frisco Texas Police Department (FPD) was established in 1965 to service what, at the time, was a very small farming community. Since that time, the city and its Police Department has grown tremendously. Their patrol cars have went through many changes during that time as well.

One of FPD’s most unique patrol cars was a 1990 Special Service Package (SSP) Ford Mustang. Ford produced these vehicles from 1982 to 1993. They were a special police package based on the 5.0L Mustang LX (More information on the SSP package can be found HERE). Most of these cars were sold to State Police/Highway Patrol agencies. Although they were available to all law enforcement agencies, few local police departments actually purchased them. It has been said that FPD received the Mustang through a grant for doing drug interdiction. This has never been confirmed, but there was a strong push in the early 1990’s for agencies to do more drug interdiction, and the federal government was giving grants to law enforcement agencies.

The Ford SSP Mustang is a very interesting part of our nations automotive history. Finding such a rare car as the FPD Mustang is a treasure all its own. The SSP Mustangs owned by the large state agencies are very well documented. It’s not very difficult to find the information necessary to restore a state agency SSP.

The FPD Mustang is very rare because they only purchased one, and 21-years later it’s difficult to find any information on it.

The FPD Mustang did not come from the factory with many options. In fact, all it really had was air conditioning.

The car came equipped with:

  • 5.0L HO V-8 Engine
  • Automatic Transmission
  • Manual windows & locks
  • The car didn’t even come with a rear defroster

The FPD Mustang was used for traffic enforcement and was actually wrecked more than once in it’s first year. It served as a traffic car until around 1994 when it was painted black and used by the Criminal Investigation Division (CID). The car was eventually sold to the public.

The Mustang changed hands three times and ended up spending 5-6 years in a storage lot outside of St. Louis Missouri. In 2011, I purchased the car and hauled it to its new home in Ohio. My goal was to rebuild the Mustang and display it at shows.

Rebuilding the FPD Mustang is a unique challenge. Finding photos of the car in it’s in-service condition has been impossible. The Frisco Police Department has been very helpful in providing information about their patrol cars dating back to the 1990’s.

The Mustang started its career as a white marked cruiser, but ended it as a black unmarked car. Since the Mustang wasn’t an actual ‘marked’ cruiser when it last served the Police Department, and since there isn’t any photos of the Mustang when it was marked, the problem becomes choosing the look for the Mustangs rebuild.

(Here is the Frisco Police buck tag on the radiator support)

(This Frisco Texas property sticker was inside of the glove box door)

A Look At Frisco Police Cars:

Here’s a look at how a Frisco police car looked in the 1990’s.

Slick Top Cars Used Later:

In the photos below, you can see that the car does not have a lightbar mounted to the roof. Instead it has lights in the push bumper, mirrors, and in the rear window. You’ll also notice that the markings on the cars have changed a few times. The blue and gray style markings replaced the blue and gold markings.

School Resource Officer Cars:

Below you can see that their DARE / School Officer cars had a completely different look and used the police departments patch on the door.

In fact, one of these cars was actually produced as a diecast car.

My SSP Police Mustang Plan:

My plan was to make the Mustang a slicktop police car with magnetic markings. This way I could show the car and try to preserve it’s law enforcement history, but still be able to drive it on the road with the markings off. Using inspiration from previous police cars, I came up with this idea.

 

I would borrow inspiration from the Mesquite Texas police Mustangs.

The Mustang would use Whelen Grill Master strobe lights, Whelen Dashmiser dash light attached to the headliner, and a Whelen Traffic Advisor directional arrow in the rear window with red and blue flashers.

I also got a Code 3 Vcon siren and light control, MPH BEE RADAR unit, and a Motorola MCS2000 radio like was used by the department.

Here are photos (Click to open) of the items I collected for the car. I even got a set of Texas Exempt license plates for it.

Other things I had collected were a 5.0L engine, transmission, and a new front bumper.

Interesting Things Found:

The outline in the headliner shows that this car actually had an over head control console installed. Overhead consoles were introduced around 1989-1990, but police departments rarely installed them.

Here are some drawings from the original patent that can be seen HERE.

The windshield and rear window still had mounting tabs on the drivers side for a radar antenna.

And the most interesting thing found – a bullet hole in the door frame above the drivers door. You can see it in the first photo where it went in, and where it came through and scraped the roof in the second photo.

Where Is The Car Now?

Sadly I sold the car around 2014 / 2015 to a Mustang enthusiast in Newton Falls Ohio that was going to restore the car. I have no idea what happened to it after that. Looking back, I regret selling it.