No squad car Corvette ZR1

The Michigan State Police, perhaps mournfully, report that they have no Corvette ZR1 squad car, that - as the spokesperson put it to Trend News - "I think Lutz was just having fun."

It all goes back to a GM FastLane blog that Lutz authored, one that depicted a blue ZR1 with a light bar and a Michigan State Police shield prominently displayed on the door. It appeared under the heading "Your Worst Nightmare!" and was followed by this comment from Lutz: "Go ahead... make their day. Just try and outrun them!"

But it sure does establish that Lutz has something of a memory.

That line - "Your Worst Nightmare!" - comes from a Camaro magazine advertisement from the early ’80’s. It depicted an IROCZ Camaro painted in black and white as a marked squad car with lights on top, cleverly parked halfway behind a bill board adjacent to a highway.

And, "make my day?" Why, that’s from the second Dirty Harry movie.

That original Camaro advertisement, however, turned out to be somewhat prophetic. In the next generation of the car, Chevrolet actually did produce a police-package Camaro, based on the Z28. (Ford also produced a police package Mustang.) A number of state police departments bought them to patrol Interstate highways, though their use was somewhat difficult because the absence of any real room in the back seat meant that a back-up squad car was necessary for taking offenders into custody.

With the anticipated demise of the Ford "Police Interceptor," aka, the Crown Vic, maybe Lutz is testing the waters.