Ford did have higher performance police models available in '57. In HS in '57, I worked at a Gulf station where our county sheriff frequently gassed up his police interceptor and had it serviced. He had a tan Custom 300 model police interceptor, with the 270 hp, 312 C.I. Y-block V-8 engine, with two Holley four-barrel carbs and dual exhausts on it. It also had heavy-duty front and rear stabilizer bars, shocks, brakes and special six-ply high-speed tires. Most of the under-hood area was taken up by a large a.c. generator and a large rectifier box to power the vacuum tube radios, siren and red lights of the day. It had no AC, as they were rare back then and there really was not enough room under the hood for those huge York compressors with all of the other police gear under there.
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