Chicago Police lights Old & New - a photo on Flickriver

Left - very old Federal Sign and Signal Beacon Ray light with round top from the early 1960s.

Right - flat top MARS Skybolt light from the mid 1970s.

The light on the left is huge. It was known as a gumball.

Can someone say for sure when these lights were used by the CPD? I've seen photos of cars from the late 1950s which had the round gumball lights, and the lights were red. I think the color of the lights changed in 1960 with the new boss, O.W. Wilson. Based upon photos, the round gumball lights were used all through the 1960s and into the early 1970s.

Cars used to have a single flat top Mars light, but I'm unsure when that started. Then the CPD started using 2 flat top Mars lights - The info I have so far is that the Mars Skybolt 2-light combination lightbar was used from 1972 to 1987 on patrol cars and until 1991 on trucks and paddy wagons.

The motto of the MARS light company was, The Light from Mars.

Somewhere else on this Flickr site I have a photo of a MARS light turned on.

Click on All Sizes, above, for a better view.

I also want to know when CPD started using these Mars lights with the flat top.

The flat top MARS light measures roughly 7 1/4 inches across at the top. The blue dome is about 4 1/2 inches tall and the chrome base is about 3 1/2 inches tall.

I still need these and other CPD lights in my CPD collection.

I have lots of CPD insignia pictured on my web site,

chgopdfan.tripod.com/

Taken on: November 23, 2009

Tags:

Chicago

Police

CPD

cop

mars

federal

signal

insignia

skybolt

beacon

ray « less

Sets appears in: • Chicago Police insignia

Groups appears in: • Federal Signal Emergency Lights

Stats: 3,065 views / 1 comment

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