"It's got a cop motor...cop tires, cop suspension, cop shocks, it was a model made before catalytic converters so it'll run good on regular gas."

It's been many years since Elwood Blues launched his 1974 Dodge Monaco police cruiser across Chicago's 95th Street drawbridge and assorted police cruisers to impress his brother. In that time, automakers have continued doing what they did with the Bluesmobile: Ruggedizing existing stock cars into police-ready packages.

When news broke last year of Carbon Motors, a company that would build police-specific vehicles from the ground up rather than retrofitting "cop shocks" et al, we thought for sure that such an ambitious undertaking would die in the recession; so we were surprised to read, just this morning, that a deal for Carbon Motors' proposed plant in Indiana is actually underway. And the Connersville location, a state and 250 miles away from Chicago, should be far enough from any Illinois Nazis to stay out of trouble.