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...What's a factory "mule"?
In the late Sixties here in lil'ol' Adelaide those baby blue police V series Valiants were fitted with a variety of stove hot V8s. "Bull" I hear from the Mopar experts among our ranks.
Well back in them days Chrysler used to supply its test motors to the cops with only one rule, "Break it!".
In 1970 at police auctions it was a well kept secret that every ex-cop Valiant was being sold with a brand spanking new motor. Yep, if the V8 hadn't been thrashed to death before the time of the car's sale arose, then just before the auction the Val headed back to Chrysler, had the V8 taken out for examination and a brand new six was slotted in. Bet those lucky unaware owners raved for years about how good their six was and how it seemed to last forever.
It was the Sigma Turbo however, that was the epitome of this type of cop factory mule testing (although the triple weber 265s were impressive).
Anyway, do you remember the Peter Wherrett Sigma?. Pretty much a forgettable red car, but the cops got these with the then still secret 2.6 turbo that Chrysler planned to release as a performance car.
The power, acceleration, top speed and lack of lag on the 2.6 Turbos (particularly for their time) was breathtaking. Everyone in "the job" raved about the cars and some serious legends were born of times taken from the Toll Gate to the Top of the Eagle and to Murray Bridge. (Not to mention the serious heat waves wafting outta the bonnet scoops!)
When the cars were officially released, my patrol partner at the time was foaming at the mouth to get his hands on one and we rolled into the Chrysler (now Mitsubishi) dealer on Port Road for a test drive. After the usual weak cliches such as "did we want to trade the police car", we took a silver one for a thrash. And it was a DOG!.
It was only then that we found out the many differences between those test mules and the final product. Four pounds boost compared to 30+ in the cop cars for a start. 30+?, ah the turbo/bonnet melt-down stories I could tell!.
