Detroit Steel

I'm not sure if I've ever heard of a Corvette used in this manner to help fight crime, but hell, these days I guess officials are willing to try anything they can to keep the streets safe.

In this case, a sheriff’s department in North Carolina is planning to use a 2007 Corvette seized from a drug dealer a few years ago to help keep kids from selling drugs, according to a CBS News report.

Apparently, the car was initially going to be used as a departmental vehicle, but the Sheriff’s office had a change of heart opting instead to use the C6 as a tool in the area's public school system to fight drugs.

"We get calls wanting cars to come to schools, and it'd be a good thing to say, 'If you sell drugs and get caught, this is what will happen,'" Wake County Sheriff Donnie Harrison reportedly told a local newspaper.

Yup, I'm thinking the same thing you're probably thinking right now as well as some of the critics of the plan – exactly how will police deter kids from selling drugs by showing them one of the coolest cars on the planet that someone purchased from illegal activity?

Read the rest on the Corvette Forum homepage.

ALLEN007

I'm thinking the opposite. That if you get caught with drugs or selling drugs, things that you love and cherish and hopefully worked hard to get, will be taken away.

DinkyDonut

I'm not sure that article is completely correct. They've had that Z06 for years, and you'll see it around Raleigh quite often. It's in use by a uniformed officer almost every day of the week, and has by now racked up around 159k miles on the odometer.

A little background: a plain old Crown Vic cruiser pulled over a guy, the officer asked if he could search the car, and the driver willingly agreed. They found quite a bit of heroin. There was no lien on the car, so the PD seized it. The officer told me the week after that he suspected the guy wanted out from the drug courier business.

ShockwaveGT

I don't think that article is accurate at all. I live in Raleigh and have seen this car around a lot. Basically it drives around and is a stealth cruiser. I've seen it pulling cars over a few times along the highway. They use it as a car that nobody would suspect is a police cruiser, and when people blow by it, they are toast.

Also I think they use it to show people in the area that crime doesn't pay because you can lose the things you might accumulate when you get busted and then you are left without those things.

MisterMe

Exactly.

This is the wrong business model. For you or me, a car like this C6 Z06 is the realization of the dream of a lifetime. It is the reward for hard work, sacrifice, and never letting the teenager within lose sight of his dream. For the drug dealer or the teenager who understands the economics of the illicit drug trade, this car was purchased using the proceeds or a few weeks of commerce. Seven or eight cashier's checks or money orders--each for $9000--get clear title to the car.

The bottom line is that Detroit Steel is absolutely correct. That Corvette is a billboard for all the nice things that a few weeks of illicit drug sales will buy.