Ancient Lightbars

[E433035]

Any of the grizzled veterans here have any recollections about the first experimental CHP lightbars of the early '70s?

http://images19.fotki.com/v32/photos/4/438439/4490554/chp1-vi.jpg

I thought those spiffy, cobbled together "A" units like the one pictured above were tested and then pretty much tossed aside when the experiment was over and the familiar Twinsonics were adopted around '74. But I was very surprised to see the photo below showing a couple of them mounted onto '77 or '78 Monacos and apparently still being used years later.

http://images21.fotki.com/v759/photos/4/438439/4490554/CHPMonacovi-vi.jpg

Were they utilized very widely or maybe just in the urban areas? I never recall seeing any of them in the central coast area in those days.

[PapaBear]

Most light barred units were located in the Metropolitan areas only. LA, SF, Oakland and the Bridges in the Bay area. Outlying or open areas detested them.

[dw]

I'm impressed with the guard rail -- not only does the vehicle have no "crumple zone," the guard rail doesn't either. Think it was made of cast iron?

[retchp]

I hit the field in Jan. 1975 and have never seen a lightbar configuration as shown above. In my original field assignment (Barstow) we had only driver side pillar mounted red spot lamps and white right pillar mounted white spot lights.

A year or so later we had some roof lights but they never looked like what is shown above. I think the first ones were what is referred to as wig wags. A red and blue flashing solid light light bar mounted on the roof.

One side would flash red the other side would flash blue.

[retchp]

Additional information. The original roof lights would slow the vehicle down by about five MPH at top speed.

[E433035]

Thanks for the replies all!

Here's another early seventies lightbar test, an all red (photo makes it look orange) Twinsonic that saw bridge duty in the Bay Area:

http://images21.fotki.com/v755/photos/4/438439/4490554/178vi-vi.jpg