I was in SF when a police undercover van raided a building. I wanted to see if I examined the van closely, there would be something salient about it that would make it easy to spot a police van in the future.
Even though the van was rather beat up. It had almost brand new tires with excellent treads on it.
my takeaway was, the cars have to be maintained really well and have reliable engines and tires, even thought they are dressed to not stand out.
BTW, the police didn't like me so intently looking at their car and they IDed me and played their intimidations game a bit.
> my takeaway was, the cars have to be maintained really well and have reliable engines and tires,
Not true. A department I interned with would use civil asset forfeit vehicles as-is for undercover jobs.
New tires and engines aren't important; they aren't using these for pursuits, and authenticity is the #1 most important form of camoflauge in these situations-- your agent's life is often at risk. Having such obvious tells (like whitewall tires, no hubcaps on govt vehicles, etc) is a good way to get them killed and your investigation compromised.
It isn't limited to whitewalls specifically-- tire styles are passing fads like any other. When specific tires start falling out of favor with consumers, any vehicle still rocking (new) ones of the deprecated type was presumed to be part of a fleet or motor pool. Fleet procurement tends not to concern itself with staying trendy.
Police spycraft has advanced since the 60s though so to avoid these issues they borrow from the pre-auction pool.
haha, ebay's bugs are showing. Every link in that listing makes it look like the product is "Dodge Vans, 1989-98 von Chilton Automotive Books, The Nichols/Chilton und Chilton (1998, Taschenbuch)"
I keep thinking parking a fully equipped van on a parking meter in San Francisco every day would be a very cost effective 'rental' option instead of paying for square footage in a building.
This would be even better with built in (except non private) khazi, and you'd be able to put the kettle on when you saw your meeting attendees coming down the street on your surveillance equipment....
Unless you moved around a lot, the cops would probably catch on to you and ding you for some sort of city code that prevents living in a van.
Back when I was in college, I actually seriously looked at buying a boat and docking it Emeryville, as the boat payments and docking fee would have been cheaper than rent. Unfortunately the marina had a 10 year wait list for live-aboard slips.
I was thinking drive home and park at the house at night, drive from district to district (including ocean beach) during day...you're allowed to park on meters for the maximum time marked on them...
Ah yeah if you moved around a lot it could work. As long as you can actually find a place to park. :) You might waste a lot of time circling during the day.
I assumed you'd stake out your parking late at night when there is lots of space and then sit all day.
My neighbor does this. Has a van with a residential permit which he uses to store recyclables. Occasionally someone will fuck with his car, but no hobo wants a bunch of soggy cardboard.
He's clearly running a business and that can is just for storage but he's breaking no city rules which is shocking.
Same chassis my class B motorhome is built on :-). I like the built in track slide for the chair. I've always thought it would be fun to convert a travel trailer into a mobile engineering lab and if I do, that will be how I rig the chairs.
That is pretty cool, I have not seen it. I knew he was getting something new but this is pretty cool!
Steve Roberts and I have been friends since the 80's. Back in the Winnebikeo days he showed me how to create fiberglass enclosures using glass over corrugated cardboard structures.
To have this sitting in front of my house would be perfect, seeing that my WIFI SSID is SURVEILLANCE_VAN_53! Seeing old police cruiser around are all too common. That would be great to see auctions that provided old FBI surveillance vehicles.
Even though the van was rather beat up. It had almost brand new tires with excellent treads on it.
my takeaway was, the cars have to be maintained really well and have reliable engines and tires, even thought they are dressed to not stand out.
BTW, the police didn't like me so intently looking at their car and they IDed me and played their intimidations game a bit.