It was a 2011 Crown Victoria with 91,000 miles.

And after it was totaled by a Lathrop Police Officer in an accident, it was worth $15,000 – the amount of money that the insurance company was willing to pay for the value of the vehicle itself and not the aftermarket additions, tens of thousands of dollars worth, which make a standard sedan a police car.

Such is the way of the world. Take the custom parts, some of which are literally bulletproof, and slap them into the car that’s purchased to replace the one that was lost.

There’s only one problem.

Ford stopped making the Crown Victoria, so anything custom fitted for the vehicle won’t work on the Chevrolet Caprice Classic that – along with the Dodge Charger – that have emerged as the workhorses of the American law enforcement world.

So now the City of Lathrop is stuck footing the bill for a brand new unit.

With the tepid approval of three members of the Lathrop City Council, the city will move ahead with the low-bid price of $32, 233.75 with Chase Chevrolet for a new cruiser that they believe will cost a total of $55,000 once completely built out.

The other $40,000 will come from general fund reserves to offset costs of purchasing the stock vehicle and having it retrofitted to make it ready for standard police patrol use. It will also have to be equipped with signal bars and radio equipment, all of which figures into roughly $22,000 above the cost of the vehicle before it can out on the street.

But it wasn’t the cost of the vehicle the irked Vice Mayor Steve Dresser – who was stepping in for an absent mayor Sonny Dhaliwal – but the fact that the city had shelled out so much for a car and only had a fraction of it covered by insurance. He said he understood that only the car itself was covered, but the cars themselves are being purchased specifically for law enforcement use.

Some of them are even made specifically for law enforcement use.

Because of Lathrop’s contract with San Joaquin County to provide police services, the city ends up on the hook for the necessary infrastructure like buildings – the police office, as an example – and police cars and equipment when they need to be replaced. Because of Lathrop’s small size, those purchases often come one at a time while neighboring cities have contacts with large dealers to lighten the burden.