The Five-O's 5.0: 1991 Ford Mustang SSP Police Car Rewind Review (MotorTrend)
We spend some time with a onetime Florida Highway Patrol cruiser.
In the annals of Fox Body Mustang history, the SSP police models — that's for Special Service Package — certainly stood out as notable when new but now, some three decades later, they're positively legendary. They've taken on mythical status, with whispers of how they'd been modified from the factory with performance engines and gearboxes with specific calibrations, but this was often not the case. And while the rumor mill also said each were hand-built by a skunkworks team in Ford's plant, this is also untrue. In reality, these were built alongside all other Fox Body Mustangs on the exact same assembly line, with the vast majority having the same components as the street-spec, regular cars normal folks plucked from showroom floors.
It's true that most SSPs did receive silicone hoses and an engine oil cooler, but there were no true performance enhancements as we all once believed. (As an aside, contemporary Mustang owners might remember leafing through the printed Ford Motorsport catalog and ordering the aforementioned silicone hose kit, as well as the 140+mph certified-calibrated cop speedometer.) There's a decent handle on the most states that ordered the most SSP Mustangs — California and Florida — thanks to forums and enthusiasts making best-guess extrapolations, but no one is exactly sure how many were made in total, nor how many of those were distributed to where, as Ford never kept exact documentation. So the true production is truly anyone's guess.
But let's talk about the specific car you see here. This is a 1991 SSP Mustang LX assigned to the Florida Highway Patrol in late 1991. It was given roof number 1125 and served actively; without GPS monitoring and the like, it's unclear if it served in multiple locales or just a few, but the car was decommissioned and sold in late 1996 at a state-run auction among hundreds of other government-owned cars. It was purchased by an independent dealership for less than $5,000 with only 78,000 miles on the clock. Usually, the fleet managers normally remove or paint over unit numbers and police graphics, but must have taken the day off — this car is intact right down to the reflective "STATE TROOPER" decals on the front fenders. An amazing and all original purchase, the first owner proceeded to drive it for several years, adding about 30,000 miles before relegating it to occasional car-show while storing it for nearly 20 years. It was put back on the road with a light mechanical restoration and is now in the hands of this author.
(photo credit: Vinnie Kung - MotorTrend)
