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knoxnews.com MARYVILLE, TENNESSEE  Robert Wilson Blount County motorists are generally amused at seeing the Blount County Sheriff's Office's "new" 1973 Volkswagen Beetle cruiser. 
Robert Wilson It's hard to say how much intercepting the Blount County Sheriff's Office's 1973 Volkswagen Beetle cruiser is capable of doing. But it's got the emblem, anyway. |
The vehicle has an emblem on the back that says "Police Interceptor," but in truth the intimidation quotient of veteran law enforcer Archie Garner's cruiser isn't very high. It has all the right markings, decals and required equipment, but it just doesn't look like the rest of the Blount County Sheriff's Office fleet. Assistant Chief Deputy Garner's car looks like a police car, only smaller. Garner has spent as much as $2,000 of his own money giving a 1973 Volkswagen Beetle, seized in a DUI case, a new life as a department cruiser, if that term can be used loosely. The 59-year-old Garner is a veteran of more than four decades of law enforcement experience and has been with the Sheriff's Office since 1991, he said. His responsibilities include overseeing the corrections division, garage and the vehicle fleet. When the VW "Bug" was seized it was red, Garner said, and originally was turned over to a Blount County beautification organization to be reborn as a "Lady Bug." But when the group changed its mind and handed it back to the BCSO, Garner's idea was born: Turn the car into a cruiser bug. Garner nowadays can be seen tooling around the county in the "Bug-erceptor," which has accurate markings and is outfitted with a siren, radio, barred rear side windows, a side-mounted spotlight, a 1960s-vintage red bubble-type light on top, a blue light on the dash and more. The car's accessories are almost all surplus items removed from other cruisers. Garner found the red bubble on the Internet. It has all the required equipment of other cruisers, including a fingerprint kit, a fire extinguisher, a blanket, a measuring device and traffic cones, although these cones are only about four inches tall. The Bug even has front and rear radar units, though those are the only pieces of equipment on the vehicle that do not work. It's probably just as well. It's hard to know how useful the Bug would be as a pursuit vehicle, with its 1,600-cc, air-cooled engine, four-speed transmission and top-end speed of about 70 mph. Indeed, one person told Garner that "if you pulled me over I'd be too embarrassed to stop." But what it lacks in horsepower and wheelbase, the Bug makes up for in personality and wow-factor. The car will be used mostly as a public relations tool for the department, Garner said, making appearances in parades and at school events. But he says he has driven the car to three emergency locations since work on it was completed earlier this year. It's been fun, Garner says, to "see the expressions on people's faces when they see it. Some grin, and others laugh out loud." The county still owns the Bug, and Garner says that the total expenditure on it by the county is about $400. The front license bears Garner's badge number, 302, and the vehicle fleet number is 53, the same as Herbie, the Volkswagen in the movie "The Love Bug." The decals were made by Adverco Inc., an Alcoa company that makes the markings for all the BCSO vehicles. Garner said he contacted the company about making some for the Bug, so Adverco scaled down all the authentic decals to be proportional for the Bug. Inmates who work in the county garage helped with the Bug's conversion, he said. The Bug-erceptor was created with the knowledge and approval of Chief Deputy Ron Dunn but without the knowledge of Sheriff Jim Berrong. Berrong only found out about it when he was "pulled over" by Garner as a surprise. "He was impressed," Garner said.
WIRES MARYVILLE, TENNESSEE Blount County's newest police cruiser has been turning heads, but whether it could keep up in a high-speed chase seems unlikely. Assistant Chief Deputy Archie Garner retrofitted a 1973 Volkswagen Beetle to add to the sheriff's fleet of police interceptors, but with a top-end speed of about 70 mph, he's not writing a lot of speeding tickets. The "bug-erceptor" was seized in a DUI case and boasts a new paint job, sheriff's decals and tags, a siren, radio, barred rear side windows, a side-mounted spotlight and police lights. The car even has the same number, 53, as Herbie the Volkswagen race car in the movie "The Love Bug." Garner said the car will be used mostly as a public relations tool for the department, making appearances in parades and at school events.
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