Doug Clark: LTD has all the features a SWAT team could want

Spokane’s toughest uniformed protectors must be jangling their handcuffs with joy over the addition of a $200,000 Lenco BearCat armored truck.

This vehicle was acquired to enhance the city and county SWAT teams, and nothing gets cops more jazzed like bigger and better firepower.

The dark and foreboding BearCat was unveiled in a photo spread that appeared in the newspaper the other day.

And I will be the first to concede that the BearCat – with its squared muscular bumpers, swiveling turret and multiple gun ports – is RoboCop cool.

The only thing missing in the photographs was Christian Bale in his “Dark Knight” Batman suit.

But at the risk of being cuffed, booked and cavity searched by a sadistic rubber-gloved jailer, I think we got taken for a ride.

I realize the BearCat came “courtesy of a U.S. Department Homeland Security grant.”

But that’s just another way of saying the taxpayers footed the bill.

Hey, I know that the first priority of any SWAT team is to look Kool & the Gang when they roll out all badass with their grappling hooks and assault rifles and stuff.

I’d become a SWAT dude, too, if I weren’t old, slow and afraid of being taken out by friendly fire.

But what I do excel at is buying big outmoded land yachts. If only the cops would have come to me before ordering their new battering ram on wheels. I could have saved the taxpayers a ton of money.

I don’t want to brag. But I have A-1 connections within the Greater Spokane Clunker Community.

Just a few months ago, for example, my pal Dave Cebert called with big news.

“You’ve gotta come over and see this car,” he gushed in the same tone you’d use if geologists discovered a diamond mine in your backyard.

Cebert’s a top source for “under-the-radar” auto bargains. He’s a guy who knows guys who know guys, if you know what I mean.

An hour later found me in his driveway, staring at a long and gleaming vision of chrome and steel.

A 1988 Ford LTD Crown Victoria with just 51,000 miles on the ticker.

Here’s the best part: Two thousand bucks and it was mine.

For some reason Cebert decided to pass on this opportunity of a lifetime. In an act of saintly compassion he gave me second dibs.

Such a friend.

At that moment I should have heard a soft voice muttering in my ear:

“Hey, ninny. You already own a 1967 Oldsmobile Vista Guzzler and a 1973 Dodge Dart. Aren’t you eccentric enough?”

Nope. Didn’t hear a thing. I was too busy counting out my cash.

But what a creampuff!

My blue LTD was made when gas was cheap and green was the color you turned riding a roller coaster.

And in this environmentally obnoxious age of Prius psychosis, I’ll bet that there are zillions of these fine vintage autos languishing in a sad state of disuse.

What I’m saying is that the department should sell its macho war wagon. Give me the 200 grand. I’ll equip each and every SWAT member with his own classic LTD cruiser.

Why not? Spartan versions of the Crown Vics were the cop cars du jour back in the day.

Once my program goes into effect, we won’t have a SWAT team anymore.

We’ll have a SWAT “carmada.”

Granted, the BearCat has a few modern advantages. Thermal imaging, say. And gun ports.

But do we really need all that stuff?

Ninety percent of the crime around here involves some dirtbag sticking up a drugstore for OxyContin.

Besides, my LTD has some slick features, too, like leather seats, lighted door locks and AM/FM radio.

Gun ports? Not needed. My electric windows roll down really fast so you can stick out your weapons and blaze away.

Who in their right mind would take a turret over a genuine Landau roof?

True, the BearCat will haul quite a few SWAT members.

But my LTD has one of those cavernous “room for six” trunks that Mafia hit men cherish.

While the Crown Vic may not technically be armor plated, it’s definitely heavy enough to stop an attack of bottle-heaving winos.

Then, after subduing the bad guys, members of Spokane’s new SWAT fleet can hang around the crime scene and host a classic car show.

I can’t think of a better way to boost police-citizen relations.