When the day comes that my children ask, “Dad, what did you do in the War on Poverty?” I’ll tell them about the Galaxie. That was the big government motor-pool Ford whose plates read, for official use only, in which I ventured into disadvantaged neighborhoods.I was working for a Great Society housing program, but usually I was

taken for a probation or truant officer.

Ever since, I’ve thought of cars like this as Official Cars—genuine by-God American cars with fake wood on the dash and a real V-8 under the hood; big, long cars with rear-wheel drive and rugged body-on-frame builds. Official Cars are not cute or chic. They’re not sporty. They’re not aimed at wooing “import intenders.” These are the cars

of highway patrolmen and taxi drivers, of U. S. marshals and the Men in Black. They’re the cars that get wrecked in TV chase scenes; they look best in plain black or white.

We who love Official Cars have long been a loyal and tight-knit group, like a partisan movement. The secret aristocracy of the Grand Marquis! The loyal subjects of the Crown Vic! What Dead White Males are to literature, what T-bone steak is to cuisine, the Official Car is to automobiles: durable, hearty, unfashionable—and, I’m convinced,

poised for a revival. 

Read the full story at https://classic.esquire.com/article/1997/12/01/big-black-cars