Minnesota State Patrol SSP History & Restoration Guidebook

MOstang · #1 07-18-2010, 05:19 PM

Since my 1989 Minnesota State Patrol SSP seems to be the only one to have surfaced in the SSP enthusiast community, I know we don't have a demand for a History & Restoration Guidebook. In spite of that I decided when first obtained this SSP that it would be very easy to capture my learnings in this manner since I had the format in place from the North Carolina State Highway Patrol SSP History & Restoration Guidebook I authored.

At a minimum it would provide a clean and well presented manner in which to document what I have learned about the SSP's the Minnesota State Patrol purchased, 20 from the 1989 model year. It also provided a good foundation for an Equipment Installation Reference Guide, which I've also created.

More of them are out there and likely will surface. Hopefully others will arrive in the SSP enthusiast community and this will provide a great resource to assist someone trying to return one to as close of in-service specifications is as possible today.

I tried to attach the cover page here but it's too big so you can see it on my Fotki album...
http://public.fotki.com/MOstang/must...scan-mnsp.html

That is the only page I have attached on my Fotki album. Here's some info on the guidebook...full color 25 pages containing 45 photos (vehicles; interior; equipment; etc.). Given the lack of photos and information available on the MSP SSP's, the #'s above are less than the North Carolina Guidebook (slightly more than 1/2 the size of the NCSHP one). The passenger side door shield (they only had 1 on that side) just shipped from M-Squad yesterday so will have that in a few days. Expect to have it returned to as close of period correct in-service specs as possible in the next couple of weeks and will post pictures at that time.

In case anyone happens upon an MSP SSP Mustang I wanted to document this information here in the forum so it will be available if the website search mechanism is used.

ssp91ssp · #2 07-19-2010, 08:22 AM

Good stuff , Mike.

28HopUp · #3 07-19-2010, 04:14 PM

Very nice Mike! You have put a lot of time and thought into preserving the restoration details on the MN (and NC) SSP's.

Well done!

stadair · #4 07-19-2010, 09:00 PM

Nicely done Mike.

MOstang · #5 07-20-2010, 07:28 AM

Gentleman - Thanks for the feedback. Lots of fun to put it together.

ssp91ssp · #6 07-20-2010, 08:38 AM

Mike , Do you still have a NC guidebook left ??? If so i will get it from you for my buddy here at work with the 91 NC SSP.

MOstang · #7 07-28-2010, 07:53 PM

Gentleman - Thanks for the positive feedback. Just rec'd the passenger door emblem from M-Squad today. It turned out great and special thanks to Dave for his help with getting the right size one. From a size perspective, it was smaller than one used on the full size cars. The Minnesota State Patrol only had a passenger side emblem on their SSP's and in some cases it actually was a magnetic emblem interestingly enough.
In that spirit my emblem is on magetic backing so it can be added for display in car shows and removed for driving to/from events. In all but one of the photos I've seen, Minnesota cut down the bottom of the emblem to fit between the side molding and the passenger window trim. In doing so they removed pointed tip the bottom side of their emblem would normally have.

Always stressful cutting down emblems to fit and fortunately built upon my positive outcome on the Missouri SSP door shield...the Minnesota one was successful too!

I expect the equipment install phase to be completed Saturday. I'll of course to be sure to update and share photos. To see photos of the emblem on the door see link below...

http://public.fotki.com/MOstang/must...-to-mnsp-in-s/