Cruising abroad
Retired Woonsocket police car isn’t ‘Finnished’ just yet; ready for a second life overseas thanks to Craigslist deal
WOONSOCKET
Ever wonder what an old police cruiser is worth... one with too many miles and too many hours of use?
Kari Lehtonen will tell you that in Finland, at least, or even Europe, that old police cruiser is still worth a lot.
And as proof of that answer, Lehtonen, a photography business owner in Pori, Finland, was willing to shell out $4,000 to buy a junked former city Dodge Charger he connected with through Craigslist.
To Lehtonen, the old Charger was just what he was looking for when he began considering the purchase of another American car to export to Finland.
“I’ve always loved American cars and it doesn’t get more American than a police car, that is the ‘Holy Grail,’” he said during a visit to Woonsocket’s police station last week.
The story isn’t quite as simple as that, of course, and it was the 2007 Dodge’s connection to a major New England personality that sealed the deal for Lehtonen.
As Police Chief Thomas Oates related on Thursday, he learned of Lehtonen’s interest in the old cruiser when he got an email from the Finn, stating he would like to visit the station while on a trip to the Boston area so he could see where the cruiser had been used.
Oates responded that he would be more that willing to host the visitor and made the arrangement for him to stop by with his hosts in Berkeley, Massachusetts, Thursday morning.
The other part of the story only came out when the chief checked Cruiser 316’s service record and found out that it had held New England Patriots’ quarterback Tom Brady in its backseat.
“I wasn’t even aware when we set up the meeting that it was because Tom Brady sat in the car,” the chief said.
Oates did his research and brought
along Patrol Officer Daniel Lajoie to meet Lehtonen.
Lajoie, it turns out, had been working with his then partner, former Patrol Officer Linda Karsner, when the two took part in the filming of a web commercial for Unreal Candy in which they sort of placed Tom Brady under arrest.
The script called for Brady to be handcuffed and patted down like any other suspect, but Lajoie said on Thursday he just couldn’t bring himself to really cuff the Patriots’ star quarterback out of fear he might get hurt and not play well because of him.
“He just wanted me to treat it like a normal arrest,” Lajoie said. The shoot took several hours to get through, but Lajoie said Brady was friendly and helpful through it all. “He was really nice and signed everything the people watching gave to him.”
And yes, Lajoie confirmed that it was patrol unit 316, the patrol supervisor’s Charger, used in the shoot.
Although stylish and fast in its police package set-up, the rear-wheel drive Charger was not necessarily the best car for New England police work, with all the downtime idling or working endless cycles through city traffic.
George Lahousse, the police department’s fleet manager, said that two years ago the car was deemed to be worn out and not worthy of an engine replacement to keep it on the road.
The cruiser was retired to a junkyard, where it was eventually sold to someone else who repowered it with a replacement engine and put it up for sale on Craigslist.
That’s where Lehtonen’s Berkeley friends, Robyn and Fred Strolsky, and Bob Joseph of East Bridgewater, stepped into the story. Lehtonen asked them to check out the police cruiser Charger he had spotted on Craigslist, and they did.
After communicating back and forth overseas, the Strolskys and Joseph eventually arranged the buy for Lehtonen, who has since made arrangements to have it transported to Finland by ship, on a journey from New Jersey that should take about a month.
When not working out a car acquisition, the four friends actually spend vacation time together camping, or as it is know in Europe, caravanning to campgrounds.
Lehtonen explained that the story of Brady’s use of the car had only made it more desirable and, although he was wearing a Red Sox jersey while traveling with his Boston-area friends on Thursday, he added it is the Patriots he will watch when he can back home. The games, of course, start very late if broadcast live 1 a.m. in the morning Pori time on the Finnish west coast.
Although he spent $4,000 on a car that still needs a lot of work, Lehtonen said that is still a bargain, even with the $2,000 to $3,000 shipping fees and the taxes he will have to pay back home.
Lehtonen already went through that process when bringing his 1998 Crown Victoria, a police-style vehicle that had been used by a fire chief, back to Finland.
In addition to the import taxes, the owner of a foreign car must also bring it into compliance with European motor vehicle regulations that can require changes in the vehicle’s braking systems and lighting.
“It takes about a month-and-a-half to go through customs and it is a big job,” he said.
Even with the added work, the import of an older car is still a bargain compared to bringing in a new one that could cost around 40,000 Euros just in taxes, Lehtonen explained. “This is a deal and you can’t find these cars in Finland for less than 25,000 Euros for an old one,” he said.
As part of his fixer-upper project, Lehtonen will be restoring the old Woonsocket cruiser to its patrol look right down to the city police department decals. Lahousse will be able to help with that project by directing him to the sources the city uses for its vehicle lettering decals.
Then the onetime city police car will start a new life of appearing in car shows overseas and even in parades of foreign police and fire vehicles held there from time to time.
Lehtonen will probably have to sell his Crown Victoria to help pay for all the work, but that will be worth having a police cruiser that once hosted NFL MVP Tom Brady.
“I’m going to fix up the car and it is going to be perfect,” he said. “It is going to really be nice.”
Chief Oates said he was more than willing to pass along the information he came up with on the history of patrol unit 316.
“Anytime the public wants to reach out and connect with the police department, whether they are from New England or Finland, we want to be as friendly and helpful as we can be,” Oates said.