2009 Aquidneck Park National Police Car Parade

article and photos by John Brennan

The National Police Parade on Aquidneck Island is held each year in Rhode Island to honor police officers killed in the line of duty. The event draws officers and emergency-vehicle owners from all over the country each year.

Rain managed to hold back —just barely — for this year's Police Parade. The route runs along West Main Road in Middletown into Newport via Broadway and ends at the Newport Police Station. The parade lasted just about two hours with an estimated 4,000 participants and 70,000 spectators. This year's Grand Marshalls were family members of Middletown Police Officer Thomas Cabral, who passed away suddenly in late December, 2008.

The parade starts in Middletown and follows West Main Road and Broadway to end in Newport. Both towns are located on Aquidneck Island, giving the parade its name.

They were kind enough at the staging area to rearrange the cars so that most of the Mopars were together in a row. Special thanks to Ted Stockman for all of his help tracking down car owners and moving cars!

These cars are:

• 1969 Plymouth Fury I owned by Jim Mank
• 1976 Plymouth Gran Fury, Illinois State Police, owned by Tony Tsitaridis
• 1988 Plymouth Gran Fury, Jaffrey (NH) Police, owned by Ken Reid
• 1974 Plymouth Fury II, Connecticut State Police, owned by Tom Weglarz
• 1989 Plymouth Gran Fury, North Haven (CT) Police, owned by Ted Stockman

Ken Reid pulled up to Tom Weglarz for a meeting of different generation Gran Furys. The 1974 Plymouth Gran Fury (light blue) is on Chrysler’s big C-body chassis; the familiar M-body Plymouth Gran Fury on the left is descended from the 1970s A-bodies, the smallest cars Chrysler made in the United States at the time.

It looks like the Middletown Police went for the Hemi option, which makes sense. It runs on a thrifty four cylinders when idling, but opens up to eight when pursuing the bad guys. If the guys at the naval base are still running Crown Vics, the Middletown Police can fill in the gap.

Hey, Rhode Island truckers ... your decal is crooked. People seem to like it that way.

Phil Masso brought not one but two excellent cars — the New York Police Diplomat above, and the RI State Police Chrysler Newport below. There weren’t many Chrysler police cars (as opposed to Plymouth and Dodge), but there were years in which they were popular. After all, they ran Imperials in NASCAR for a while... and what could be more appropriate in Newport than a Newport?

Often, these old squad cars are not purchased looking like they just entered service. Allpar member Irie is still working on his Dodge Coronet cruiser:

The old Dodge drives away, a little rough around the edges, but hopefully it will be back, and better than ever when it returns.

Police car shows coming up

We do not have dates for these shows yet:

The Verona, New Jersey Cops and Rodders Classic Car Show, featuring classic police cars and hot rods, is held in June, hosted by the Verona PBA. For more info, see the Verona PBA.

The NYC Police Museum Show is scheduled for June. For more info and host hotel reservation info, contact Glenn Sokolofsky.

The Chicagoland Emergency Vehicle Show will be back and looks to be as great as ever. Dates are usually late July/early August. I post more as it comes available, but you can also go to emergencyvehicleshow.com. We covered the 2008 Chicagoland show.

If know of any EV related meets coming up this year, please get it to me and I’ll pass the info along here and on the forum.

Interactive

The interactive portion of this column requires that you sign up as a member of Allpar’s forums - joining our 40,000 members. Or click here if you’ve already signed up.

Other columns

Introduction | The basics of police car collecting | Who are collectors? Why do we collect?

Emergency lighting | Sirens | Where to find retired police cars | Emergency vehicle shows | Investing in police cars

Restorations: Rules and regs for restorers | Chevy Malibu | 1949 Ford | Do-it-yourself bodywork | Do-it-yourself mechanical work

Shows: Chicagoland Emergency Vehicles Show | Aquidneck Island National Police Car Parade (2008 | 2009)

Also see the EVOOA home page

See the 2008 National Police Parade coverage

More info: National Police Parade on Aquidneck Island

Warning: include(/cars/auto/fleet-bottom.inc) [function.include]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/dave/public_html/squads/collecting/aquidneck.php on line 47

Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening '/cars/auto/fleet-bottom.inc' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/dave/public_html/squads/collecting/aquidneck.php on line 47